Veeam Backup & Replication 12
User Guide for VMware vSphere
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Upgrade Checklist

Use the following checklist to ensure that your infrastructure is ready for Veeam Backup & Replication upgrade. Some of the checks are performed by the built-in configuration check mechanism of the Veeam Backup & Replication Upgrade wizard, but you can control them manually before starting the upgrade procedure.

Licensing

  1. Veeam Backup & Replication 12 uses the same license file format introduced with version 10, so you can use your existing version 10 or 11 license file to install version 12. Your support contract must be active as of the date when the product version you are installing was built.
  2. Your support contract must be active as of the date when the product build you are installing was built. This is determined by the support expiration date in the installed license. If required, you can install a new license during the upgrade procedure.
  3. Are you using Veeam Backup Starter? This edition has been discontinued, so Veeam Backup & Replication 12 will not accept such a license file. Download a replacement license file from the Customer Portal before upgrading.

System Requirements

  1. Check if the backup server to be upgraded is installed on the supported operating system version according to System Requirements. If it is not, create a configuration backup, install Veeam Backup & Replication 12 on the supported OS first, then restore the configuration backup created earlier. For information on how to perform the migration, see Migrating Veeam Backup & Replication to Another Backup Server.
  2. Make sure that other servers that you plan to use as backup infrastructure components meet the system requirements listed in section System Requirements of this document. In particular, ensure all backup infrastructure servers are based on 64-bit operating systems.
  3. Make sure that the environment you are going to protect with Veeam Backup & Replication meets the requirements listed in section Platform Support of this document. In particular:
  • Make sure that VMware ESXi and VMware vCenter server are upgraded to the minimum supported version 6.0 or remove these servers from the backup server configuration to continue.
  • Make sure that VMware Cloud Director is upgraded to the minimum supported version 10.1 or remove the hosts from the backup server configuration to continue.
  1. Backup infrastructure components communicate with each other over specific ports. These ports must be open. For more information, see Ports.
  2. Make sure that all necessary permissions are granted. For information on permissions, see Permissions for VMware vSphere.
  3. Are you using a hardened repository? If yes, make sure that any Linux server associated with the hardened repository is configured to use a non-root account. For more information, see this Veeam KB article.
  4. Do you have any jobs using the Transform previous backup chains into rollbacks option? This option has been removed from the product and such jobs are no longer supported. For more information, see this Veeam KB article.
  5. Are you using File to Tape jobs? They have been reengineered for scalability and are no longer free with Veeam Backup & Replication 12. You will have a grace period of 3 months following the upgrade to Veeam Backup & Replication 12 during which your existing jobs will not consume a license. For more information, see Instance Consumption for NAS Backup and File to Tape Jobs.
  6. Are you using installations of Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 on the same machine? First upgrade Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, second upgrade Veeam Backup & Replication.
  7. Are you using integration with Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure? If yes, after upgrade to Veeam Backup & Replication 12, select the existing Microsoft Azure Compute account in the Manage Cloud Credentials, click Edit, and go through the Microsoft Azure Compute Account to update account permissions. Otherwise, you can face problems when adding an external repository with backups created by Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure 3.0.
  8. Are you using Server 2019 based ReFS backup repositories? If yes, avoid upgrading them to Server 2022 and mounting ReFS volumes from Server 2019 to new Server 2022 installs until you read this thread on Veeam R&D forums. Microsoft has addressed the known regression in the ReFS format upgrade code, the fix is now publicly available.

Integration with Veeam Management and Monitoring Products

  1. Are you using Veeam ONE to monitor your backup infrastructure? If yes, upgrade it first. Veeam ONE supports monitoring of backup servers version 10a or later.
  2. Are you using Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager? If yes, consider the following:
  • Important! Starting with Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager 12, a new port (port 9405) is used for certificate communication between Enterprise Manager and Veeam Backup & Replication. Ensure that your firewalls are configured to take into account this new port to avoid communication issues between Enterprise Manager and Veeam Backup & Replication.
  • Start the upgrade procedure with this component. Veeam Backup & Replication should be upgraded after that. If you have a backup server installed on the same machine, upgrade it immediately after completing upgrade of the Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager server. Otherwise, the Veeam Configuration Database Connection Utility (DBConfig) utility will not work properly for Veeam Backup & Replication.
  • From Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager, you cannot edit jobs that are managed by backup servers of earlier versions as well as Veeam Agent backup jobs, file share backup jobs, and backup copy jobs. To edit settings of such jobs, use the Veeam Backup & Replication console.
  1. Are you using Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager server added to Veeam ONE? If yes, first upgrade Veeam ONE, second upgrade Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager, third upgrade Veeam Backup & Replication.
  2. Are you using Cloud Connect? If yes, check with your Cloud Connect service provider if they have already upgraded their system to at least the version you are upgrading to.
  3. [For upgrade from Veeam Backup & Replication earlier than version 11a build 11.01.1261] Are you using Veeam Backup & Replication within the infrastructure of Nutanix Mine version 2.0.1 or earlier? If yes, upgrade Nutanix Mine to version 3.0, then upgrade Veeam Backup & Replication to version 12.
  4. Are you using Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator? If yes, note that Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator 5.0 is compatible with Veeam Backup & Replication 11 and 11a, Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator 6.0 — with Veeam Backup & Replication 11a and 12. If necessary, upgrade Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator before upgrading to Veeam Backup & Replication 12.

Integration with Veeam Backup for Hypervisors

Are you using Veeam Backup & Replication integrated with Veeam Backup for Hypervisors?

Integration with Veeam Backup Agents and Enterprise Plug-Ins

  1. Are you using Veeam Agents managed through Veeam Backup & Replication?
  1. Are you using Veeam Plug-In for Oracle RMAN, Veeam Plug-In for SAP HANA or Veeam Plug-In for SAP on Oracle? If yes, you must upgrade Veeam Backup & Replication first, then you can upgrade Veeam Plug-ins.

Storage System Snapshot Integration

  1. Make sure your storage systems work on a supported operating system:
  1. Select the secondary destination for IBM HyperSwap configurations explicitly in the backup job.

Other Changes

  1. Veeam Backup & Replication 12 supports protecting NAS backups with Backup to Tape jobs. If you have entire repositories added as sources for backup to tape jobs, make sure these repositories contain only backups that you want to protect with backup to tape jobs.
  2. If you use persistent agents for guest OS processing in a Kerberos-only environment, perform the steps listed in this Veeam KB article.
  3. If you use Kerberos authentication for Guest OS processing with persistent guest agent components, create several Service Principal Names in Active Directory before upgrading to Veeam Backup & Replication 12. For more information, see this Veeam KB article.
  4. Note that background retention is now applied to daily backups belonging to disabled backup jobs, as well as to orphaned backups. Background retention is still applied to GFS backups belonging to disabled backup jobs, as well as to orphaned backups.

Upgrade Process

  1. Make sure the latest run for all existing jobs has completed successfully. Rerun the failed jobs.
  2. Ensure there are no running jobs, restore sessions, Instant Recovery sessions, and SureBackup jobs. We recommend that you do not stop running jobs and let them complete successfully.
  3. Disable any periodic and backup copy jobs temporarily to prevent them from starting during the upgrade.
  4. Disable CDP policies, otherwise the CDP filter will not be upgraded.
  5. Ensure there are no active tasks from standalone (unmounted) agents.
  6. Ensure there are no active Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator tasks.
  7. Perform the configuration backup, as described in section Running Configuration Backups Manually.

Ensure you have configuration backup encryption enabled, otherwise stored credentials will not be included in it. For more information, see Creating Encrypted Configuration Backups.

Additional Considerations for Upgrade from Veeam Backup & Replication 10

Do you have backup copy jobs with synthetic GFS full backups? Before the upgrade, make sure that all GFS candidates (incremental restore points created on days when GFS was scheduled and that are expected to be transformed into full GFS restore points) are already transformed into GFS restore points. To force the backup copy job to transform all GFS candidates, you can temporarily decrease the short-term retention to a value less than the number of restore points between the latest restore point and the most recent GFS candidate and then wait till all the candidates are transformed.

Before Veeam Backup & Replication version 11, Veeam Backup & Replication created GFS candidates on days when GFS was scheduled and only then transformed them into full GFS restore points according to the short-term retention. For more information on how restore points were transformed, see Synthetic Weekly Full Backups. Starting from Veeam Backup & Replication version 11, Veeam Backup & Replication creates GFS restore points according to a new schedule and creates them right on the scheduled days. For more information, see Changes in GFS Retention. After the upgrade, Veeam Backup & Replication no longer transforms previous GFS candidates into full GFS restore points. This means, that all GFS candidates lose their GFS status, they become regular incremental restore points and are deleted according to the short-term retention policy.

 

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