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In a previous post I walked you through how to modify the default theme of Enterprise Manager 9.5. Now it’s time to do the same with Enterprise Manager 10. I have been playing with Enterprise Manager for a while now and I especially like the ability to integrate the product with vCloud Director. After using the Enterprise Manager plugin for vCloud Director I wanted to make a few changes to the theme so that I could better integrate it with our customized vCloud theme. The below guide covers some of the basic changes you can make to the main Enterprise Manager Portal theme and also the Self-Service Backup Portal.

This is default Enterprise Manager 10 main menu.

We are going to edit the following files to change the default Veeam green to blue for this example. Take a backup of each file before continuing,

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\scripts\build\production\MainApp\resources\MainApp-all_1.css

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\scripts\build\production\MainApp\resources\MainApp-all_2.css

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\scripts\build\production\MainApp\resources\MainApp-all_3.css

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\scripts\build\production\MonthlyReportApp\resources\MonthlyReportApp-all.css

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\static\assets\errors.css

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\scripts\build\production\VCloud\resources\VCloud-all.css

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\scripts\build\production\VSphere\resources\VSphere-all.css

Once again I have used Visual Studio Code to make the changes to each of the files. Click on File then Open File to open each one in a different tab then select Edit from the drop down menu then Replace. Enter the default green #2a6e52 colour code at the top and then your new colour code #2E86C1 below, then click the Replace All icon to the right. Click on each of the CSS file tabs and click the Replace All button. This colour will be present in each file.

Then select File and Save All.

Next we have a few more codes to change, enter the other default green #245f47 colour code at the top and then your new colour code #2874A6 below, then click the Replace All icon to the right. Click on each of the CSS file tabs and click the Replace All button. Note the second two green colour codes don’t appear in the MainApp-all_3.css and errors.css file.

Then select File and Save All.

Then again in the Find box change the colour code to #1b4735 and then change the Replace code to #21618C, then click the Replace All icon to the right. Click on each of the CSS file tabs and click the Replace All button. Note the second two green colour codes don’t appear in the MainApp-all_3.css and errors.css file.

Feel free to get more creative with your colours, I am just using a few different variations of blue for this example.

Then select File and Save All.

In the Find box change the colour code to #215741 and then change the Replace code to #21618C, then click the Replace All icon to the right. Click on each of the CSS file tabs and click the Replace All button. Note that MainApp-all_3.css and errors.css does not have this colour code present.

In the Find box change the colour code to #4e846e and then change the Replace code to #2E86C1, then click the Replace All icon to the right. Click on each of the CSS file tabs and click the Replace All button. Note that MainApp-all_2.css, MainApp-all_3.css and errors.css does not have this colour code present.

In the Find box change the colour code to #54b948 and then change the Replace code to #2E86C1 (try a lighter version of your previous colour), then click the Replace All icon to the right. Click on each of the CSS file tabs and click the Replace All button. Note that MainApp-all_2.css, MainApp-all_3.css and errors.css does not have this colour code present.

Then open the following css file,

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\web\css\prettify.css

In the Find box change the colour code to #060, #066, #080 and #044 and then change the Replace code to #2E86C1, then click the Replace All icon to the right. Click on each of the CSS file tabs and click the Replace All button.

Then select File and Save All.

Now you are ready to launch Enterprise Manager and view the new updated menu colour scheme. Initially you may need to open your browser in incognito mode to show the changes straight away.

Below is an example from the Self-Service Backup Portal.

The updated view once logged in from the Self-Service Backup Portal.

Next we need to modify the default green colour which appears when you hover over the main menu items and the user menu in the top right. Below is an example from the vCloud Self-Service Portal.

Here is an example from the main Enterprise Manager Portal.

Once again its time to change another colour code so we can repeat the same process.

Now this colour code was fun to locate! In the Find box change the colour code to #245c45 and then change the Replace code to #2874A6 (use a light colour here again), then click the Replace All icon to the right. This code only needs to be changed on the MainApp-all_2.css, MonthlyReportApp-all.css, Vcloud-all.css and vSphere-all.css.

Then select File and Save All.

Then in the Find box change the colour code to #1f4d3a and then change the Replace code to #2874A6, then click the Replace All icon to the right. This code only needs to be changed on the MainApp-all_2.css, MainApp-all_3.css, MonthlyReportApp-all.css, Vcloud-all.css and vSphere-all.css.

Then select File and Save All.

Then refresh each of the portals, now when we hover over the buttons the green background is gone and it has changed to a different shade of blue.

Example from the vCloud Self-Service Portal.

Example from the main Enterprise Manager Portal.

Now it’s time to remove the icon that displays on the left-hand side of the menu. The icon itself is very small and you can replace the image with anything you like but for this example I am just going to remove it.

Icon from the Tenant Self Service Portal.

Icon from the main Enterprise Manager Portal.

Browse to the following directory and take a backup copy of the png file.

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\scripts\build\production\VCloud\resources\images\siteLogo16.png

Rename siteLogo16.png to old_siteLogo16.png

Close and open the page and the icon will no longer appear.

Now for the main Enterprise Manager portal

Browse to the following directory and take a backup copy of the png file.

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\scripts\build\production\MainApp\resources\images\veeam\icons\logo32.png

Rename logo32.png to old_logo32.png

Close and open the page and the icon will no longer appear. If it doesn’t change straight away try it using incognito or inprivate browsing mode to see if it’s just cached.

Now let’s edit the logon screen welcome message for the vCloud Self-Service Portal,

Open the following file,

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\scripts\build\production\VCloud\login\app.js

Then click Edit, Replace and in the Find box enter Welcome! Please sign in. and in the Replace box enter the text you would like to display then click the Replace All button.

Then click File and Save All

Once again if it doesn’t update straight away just close the browser and open another incognito window as its most likely cached. The logon screen welcome message should now be updated.

You can also update the logon message for the main Enterprise Manager Portal.  To do this open the following file,  

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\scripts\build\production\MainApp\login\app.js

Then click Edit, Replace and in the Find box enter Sign in and in the Replace box enter the text you would like to display then click the Replace All button.

Then select File and Save All

Once again if it doesn’t update straight away just close the browser and open another incognito window as its most likely cached. The logon screen welcome message should now be updated.

You can also modify the header section at the top of the vCloud Self-Service Portal login screen.

To do this we need to open the following file,

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\scripts\build\production\VCloud\resources\localization.js

In the Find box enter Self-Service and in the Replace box enter the text you would like to display then click the Replace All button.

Next open the web.config file from the following location,

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\Web.config

In the Find box enter Self-Service and in the Replace box enter the text you would like to display then click the Replace All button.

Then select File and Save.

Then close and open your browser and the portal should be updated! You may need to initially clear your browser cache or open incognito mode for it change.

The same modification can also be made to the main Enterprise Manager Portal login screen.

To change the heading Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager which is displayed in the top left corner open the following app.js file.

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\scripts\build\production\MainApp\login\app.js

In the Find box enter Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager and in the Replace box enter the text you would like to display then click the Replace All button.

Next open the web.config file from the following location,

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Enterprise Manager\WebApp\Web.config

In the Find box enter Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager and in the Replace box enter the text you would like to display then click the Replace All button.

Then select File and Save.

Then close and open your browser and the portal should be updated! You may need to initially clear your browser cache or open incognito mode for it change.

I hope this post has helped you guys put your own personal touch on the Enterprise Manager Portal. If you are not using it then it’s time to get on board because it’s a great product! Especially when it comes to vCloud Director Integration!

 

As always use the subscribe box above for new post notifications and follow me on twitter @steveonofaro

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recently I have been troubleshooting an interesting issue with some of my weekly synthetic full jobs. The incremental backup would run as per normal and then it would start the synthetic full which would take over 2 days. This job is quite large and I did expect it to take some time to complete but not this long. The synthetic operation itself doesn’t impact the production VM while it is being created so that is ok. My main issue is that I don’t want to miss the incremental run the next night.

Meanwhile I have other jobs configured to backup all of my management VMs in what I thought was the same way and they would run and complete without issue in a very short time frame.

In this environment I have created a forward incremental job with a synthetic full on the weekend for my management VMs which are just located in vCenter. This job itself was just created in the VBR console like you would any other job.

The second set of jobs and the one I am have having issues with was created via the Self-Service Portal in Enterprise Manager and is backing up vCloud Director VMs. Once created the job is displayed in the VBR console and can also be managed from here.

So the troubleshooting commenced with the first point of call being the storage array where the backup files are being written. With the help of support from the storage vendor we went through everything and made a few changes to the way the storage was being presented to help optimize the performance. This did help a bit, but overall didn’t resolve the time it took for the job to complete.

At this point I got in touch with Veeam support to try and make more sense of the issue. We checked through the configuration and then dived into the logs to see if anything stood out.

Below is an extract from one of the agent transform log files. The file name will have the following format – Agent.BackupJobName.Transform.Target.VMName and is located in the C:\ProgramData\Veeam\Backup\BackupJobName directory.

From the above example we can also use the following to determine how the job itself is progressing.

From here we can see it has processed 60% for that particular agent. The next entry 0;0;0;74;9;35 can be broken down in the following,

0 – Source Read busy % AKA “Source”

0 – Source Processing Busy % AKA “Proxy”

0 – Source Write Busy % AKA “Network”

74 – Target Read Busy %

9 – Target Processing Busy %

35 – Target Write Busy % AKA “Target”

 

What we found only applied to jobs created through the Enterprise Manager vCloud self-service portal and the vSphere self-service portal. By default every 10 seconds the target repository agent receives a quota of 512 MB. Once this quota is exceeded the target agent displays the message “Storage size quota exceeded. Waiting for quota increase.” So if the target writes faster than 51.2 MB/s the process will pause for 10 seconds while the job waits for the next 512 MB to be allocated.

So basically my problem is I am writing data down too fast then spending majority of the time waiting for another 512 MB to be allocated so the data can continue to be written. A good problem to have I guess.

Luckily there is a fix for this issue and it applies to Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 4, 4a and 4b. With the following registry key you can increase the default 512 MB to 2047 MB. Do not set this key any higher than 2047 otherwise you will see a drop in backup processing performance.

Open the registry editor on the Veeam Backup & Replication Server and browse to,

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Veeam\Veeam Backup and Replication

Then right click the folder and select New, then DWORD (32-bit) Value

Value Name – VcdBackupQuantSizeMb

Type – REG_DWORD

Value Data – 2047 (Decimal)

After adding this registry entry in the next run of the synthetic job completed in just under half the time that it did on a previous run. This allowed for the incremental to complete the following night.

This issue should hopefully be resolved with the release of v10 by adding in dynamic storage quota assignment.

I hope this helps some of you out there that may be experiencing a similar issue with jobs created via the Self-Service Portal in Enterprise Manager!

As always use the subscribe box above for new post notifications and follow me on twitter @steveonofaro

This year I was extremely fortunate to attend the Veeam Vanguard Summit in Prague. This event is held each year in this beautiful location and each member of the Vanguard Program is invited to attend. First off I have to start by thanking Rick Vanover, Nikola Pejkova and the entire Product Strategy and R&D Teams at Veeam for putting together this amazing event. I don’t know any other vendor that would give us this sort of access to not only the product itself but the key people that are responsible for its development.

It was really great to get a chance to meet everyone from Veeam and all of the other Vanguards from around the world. The group is filled with incredibly talented people and having the opportunity to get them all in one place made for some great content and discussion.

One of the great new additions in the upcoming release of Veeam Backup and Replication Version 10 is the announcement that Linux Proxies have arrived! This is great news for users as they now have an alternate option to just running a windows based proxy.

There are a few advantages here, using Linux means a smaller disk requirement and no Windows licensing cost for each of your proxy servers. The Windows licensing charge can really start to add up especially in larger environments that are not running data center licensing.

One of the questions I have heard asked a few times is will the Linux Proxies be released as a pre-built virtual appliance? The answer for this at the moment is no. Linux Proxies will be deployed and maintained much the same way as you would a Windows Proxy. Planned support is initially for Red Hat, Ubuntu and Debian and they will support Hot-Add mode only day one.

To test this out I have installed a few different flavours of Linux and all I have done on each is the base configuration and installed open-vm-tools. If you are deploying this in production as with any proxy deployment I would recommend you lock down the firewall to only the required ports. As this is in my lab I wanted to keep it simple to show how easy it is to get up and running.

For this example I deployed 4 VMs to act as Linux Proxy Servers. We have a Debian 9.4, RedHat 8, Ubuntu 19 and CentOS 7 server and they have each been added as proxies in VBR V10. Each VM was given 2 vCPU and 4GB of ram to keep things on an even playing field.

Let’s run through adding in the Debian server to VBR 10.

First select Backup Infrastructure, then right click Backup Proxies and select Add VMware backup proxy.

Then click Add New

You will now notice the new option to add a Linux Server. Select Linux to continue.

Then enter the DNS name or the IP of the new Linux VM and add a description. Then click Next.

On the SSH Connection screen click on Add to enter the credentials you need to connect to the Linux Server. You also have the option here to select Elevate account privileges automatically, Add account to the sudoers file, Use “su” if “sudo” fails and enter a root password. Once you have entered the required information click OK.

Then click Apply

Select Yes on the SSH key fingerprint prompt.

Then select Finish.

Update the description and depending on the current sizing of your proxy make sure the Max concurrent tasks will meet your requirements. Click Next.

You will then be prompted to select the VM that this backup proxy will be running on. Click Browse and locate the VM.

Click Yes on the prompt that notifies you that the Virtual machine will be restarted.

Then click Apply

Once complete click Next

Then click Finish

You will then see the newly created Linux Proxy added below.

I then repeated this same process and added in the Redhat, CentOS and Ubuntu Linux Servers. Each of the different Linux Proxies can been seen below,

I then setup 4 backup jobs, each backing up the same VM in my lab and I manually selected a different proxy for each job.

The Proxy will initially be set to Automatic Selection under the storage section of the job. From here you can click Choose and select the preferred server.

The Backup Proxy selected will then be displayed. You may even notice something else that has changed here but we will leave that for a later post.

Below is a list of the newly created jobs. Now it’s time to run each one individually and see how they perform.

Here are the results in no particular order, each job was run as a Full on a newly created VM.

Ubuntu 19 Proxy Results below,

Redhat 8 Proxy Results below,

CentOS 7 Proxy Results below,

Debian 9.4 Proxy Results below,

The results only varied a little and I did stagger the time of day at which I ran some of the backup tests. The processing rate and throughput however was fairly consistent and in my lab environment CentOS 7 seemed to perform slightly better.

While we are on the topic of proxies I wanted to highlight this project by Anthony Spiteri – Project Otosukeru 

Anthony has put together a way to have Veeam Proxies automatically deployed and configured for ephemeral use by Veeam Backup & Replication jobs. It has the ability to deploy Veeam Backup Proxy VMs to vSphere and configure them in Veeam Backup & Replication and also the ability to remove the configuration and destroy the VMs.

A pre and post script can be configured within the Veeam Job and can be run every time the job is executed. It is a great concept as Proxy VMs tend to just sit there idle during the day, why not free up resources during that time and only deploy them when they are required.

Well that’s enough from me! Keep your eyes open for more V10 highlights in the coming weeks as the Vanguards test out all of the latest features!

 

@steveonofaro