Backup server

Compute requirements

The minimum recommendation system configuration is four CPU cores and 8GB RAM for the backup server.

It’s recommended to scale the Veeam backup server configuration depending on the amount of jobs. The rule-of-tumb is one CPU core (physical or virtual) and 4GB RAM per 10 concurrently running jobs. Concurrent jobs include any running backup or replication jobs as well as any job with a continuous schedule such as backup copy jobs, database log backups, and tape jobs.

Disk space

Installation folder

Plan for a minimum of 40GB. If installing in a virtual machine, thin disks may be used. By default, the installer will choose the drive with the most available free space for the pre-configured default backup repository.

Log files

Log file growth will depend on the number and frequency of jobs and the number of instances being protected. Consider that the logging level may also affect the log size.

Plan for 3GB log files generated per 100 protected instances, with a 24 hour RPO. For environments with more than 500 protected instances, it is recommended to change the default location to a different fast access disk (see Veeam KB1825). Many concurrently running jobs may produce a lot of write streams to log files, that can slow down operations for the Veeam Backup Service and Backup Manager processes.

Veeam backup catalog folder

This folder is used if guest indexing in backup jobs is enabled.

Plan for 10GB per 100 VM for guest file system catalog folder (persistent data).

Configuration backup

It is recommended to configure a configuration backup job. Store configuration backups in a location that is available in a case of the backup server loss. Enable encryption because otherwise credentials will be missing in the configuration backup.

Other software

It is strongly recommended that no highly-transactional and business-critical software is deployed on the same machine as the Veeam backup server. This could be (but not limited to) software such as Active Directory, Exchange Server or other intensive production databases on the SQL server instance. It is recommended that only Veeam Backup & Replication runs on the backup server.

It is recommended to follow antivirus exclusion guidelines as explained in Veeam KB 1999.

If it is not possible to connect to a remote SQL staging server for Veeam Explorers you can install standard or enterprise versions of SQL (depending on your licensing) locally for staging databases for item-level restores on the backup server. This installation can also be used to store the Veeam backup database if required as long as sufficient resources are assigned to the host machine, however do not run any instances in production from this installation that may affect the operation of the backups or restore processes. For details on Veeam Backup & Replication database placement and sizing refer to the [Design - VBR Database] section of this guide.

Other software such as Microsoft Outlook (64-bit) for mail export to PST files via Veeam Explorer for Exchange, or a PDF viewer for reading Veeam documentation are considered non-disruptive.

Installing Veeam Backup & Replication updates

New Veeam releases and updates are installed on the Veeam Enterprise Manager and Veeam backup servers by the setup wizard or by using the unattended installation method (also referred to as “silent installation”). For detailed instructions, check the latest release notes.

Note: Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager must be updated before updating Veeam backup servers.

After installing updates open the Veeam Backup & Replication management console. The Update screen will be displayed and will guide you through updating distributed components on other Veeam managed servers (like proxy and repository servers, WAN accelerators and tape servers).

Logging level

If you need to change the logging level or log file location refer to this Veeam Knowledge Base article.

It is recommended to not configure the logging level below 4, as it may complicate troubleshooting. Logging level 6 is very verbose, and should only be configured for short periods of time when requested by Veeam Support.