One of the Veeam Availability Console’s key features is it’s ability to deploy and manage Veeam Agent for Windows. This is done through the VAC Web Console and is achieved through the connectivity of the providers Cloud Connect Gateway to the tenant’s Veeam Backup & Replication instance. Weather this is managed by a service provider or by the tenant, VAC also has the ability to remotely upgrade Windows Agents.

The way that this works is by the Veeam Availability Console periodically connecting to the Veeam Update Server and checks whether a new version of the agent software is available. If a new version is available, VAC displays a warning next to the agents saying that it is outdated as shown below.

Updating the backup agents from the Veeam Update Server is performed via the master agent that sits on-premises. This agent is deployed during the initial Service Provider configuration form the Veeam Backup & Replication server. The master agent downloads the backup agent setup file from the Veeam Update Server and then uploads this setup file to systems selected via the update scope and initiates the update.

To initiate the upgrade, select the agents from the Backup Agents Tab under Clients -> Discovery. Once selected click on the Backup Agent dropdown and click upgrade.

Note: Once you click Upgrade the process will be kicked off…there is no further confirmation. There is also a Patch option which allows you to apply patches to the agents in between major build releases.

Once initiated, all agents will be shown as updating as shown below.

Taking a look at the Resource Monitor of one of the endpoints being updated, you can see that the machine is receiving the update from the local server that has the master agent and that the agent is talking back to the VAC server via Cloud Connect Port 6180.

And you can see the Windows Installer running the agent update msi.

Back to the VAC console, and after a while you will see the update deployment status complete

And the endpoint now has the updated agent version running.

Which is reflected in the VAC Console.

Conclusion:

That’s the very straight forward process of having the Veeam Availability Console upgrade Veeam Windows Agents under it’s management. Again, this can be done by the service provider or it’s a task that can be executed by the tenant through their own console login given the correct permissions. There are a few other options for those that deployed the agents with the help of a 3rd party tool and also for those doing it offline…for a run down of that process, head to the help pages linked below.

References:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vac/provider_admin/update_backup_agents.html?ver=20

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