I love talking about Veeam with folks, whether it is at a VMUG, the Veeam User Group I run, or even over a couple of drinks. Many of these talks lead to folks finding out about features that may not be all that well known (and for the record, it is not uncommon for me to find out something new). For example, did you know that Veeam Backup & Recovery has a vCenter plugin? Do you know what version it was released in? (the answer is V7).

COOL, BUT WHAT DOES IT DO?

So why would you want to use the Veeam vCenter plugin? For starters, it is an easy way to get an overview of jobs & statistics with regards to your VBR jobs. Further to that, you can actually run VeeamZip or Quick Backup jobs from right within the web sphere client. Lastly, it does provide some integrations with Veeam ONE, such as being able to bring up the ‘Protected VMs’ and ‘Latest Backup Job Status’ repots. Side Note: I have found that clicking on the links for these reports doesn’t redirect me to the HTTPS site; the link usually fails, but if I manually add HTTPS:// to the address it will work.

Although the Veeam Backup & Recovery console is now available as a standalone component which can be installed on workstations, the plug-in will hopefully help alleviate having to jump around between programs / windows a bit more. In some cases, it might also provide access to details or operations in a controlled fashion (e.g. grant VM owners the ability to perform ad-hoc backups on just their VMs).

WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS?

The core requirement for the web plug-in is that you need Veeam Enterprise Manager, which comes with the Enterprise and Enterprise Plus editions of Veeam Backup & Recovery.(NOTE: Erwann Simon was kind enough to point out that Enterprise Manager does ship with Standard Edition, however it is limited in functionality). On the VMware side of things, you’ll need to be running at least vSphere Web Client v5.1.0 build 880146 or later, and you’ll need to have SSO configured for your vSphere.

HOW TO INSTALL IT

So, how do you get this up and running? If you haven’t already setup your Veeam Backup & Recovery server in Enterprise Manager, you’ll need to take care of that. You will want to launch Enterprise Manager, click on Configuration on the right-hand side, followed by clicking on Backup Servers on the left side menu, then click the Add button and fill out the details.

Once you have your Veeam Backup & Replication server setup, you’ll want to click on the vCenter Servers button. If your vCenter isn’t showing up in the list, click on the ‘Refresh’ button – you may be prompted to log into your vCenter using your SSO credentials. Select your vCenter server in the main window and click on the ‘Check Version’ button. After a quick scan, you should see the Plug-in Status listed as ‘Not Installed’. At this point, go ahead and click the Install button, located right beside the ‘Check Version’ button noted above. This will kick off the somewhat seamless install and add the plugin to your vCenter.

If you hop back to the vCenter Web Client and head to the Home screen, you’ll be able to access the Veeam Backup & Recovery plugin from the Home page – either in the main window or on the left-hand menu.

As noted above, you can also tie Veeam ONE into the plugin as well by clicking on settings and configuring the Veeam ONE server.

And that is all there is to the install process. Enjoy!

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