SQL Server Veeam backups

Had a situation where we want to use differential backups due to the size and high availability of the database servers. I found out the Veeam backups are not truly copy only and interrupt the lsn chain of backups. This effect of this is you cannot take a differential backup after a Veeam SQL backup as it will say there is no reference backup.

Information I have found:

It appears there is an issue using both VEEAM and differential SQL backups.

This is our strategy to minimize slow performance times and data file sizes in Sharepoint and SAP QA and production.

Below is the recommendations based on the VEEAM forums:

http://forums.veeam.com/veeam-backup-replication-f2/sql-do-not-truncate-logs-ignored-t20054.html

http://forums.veeam.com/veeam-backup-replication-f2/sql-backup-jobs-t15803.html

The recommendation that makes the most sense to me is:

Hi uweiss

1. Disable application aware processing, either at the job level or at the individual VM level.
2. Ensure you're not using VMware Tools Quiescence (job level)
3. Respectfully, running databases in simple recovery mode, but then performing a diff every 3 hours - you're contradicting yourself. You either need the ability to restore to point in time or you don't. You will also be wasting a lot of space with diff backups ever 3 hours.

The general rule of thumb we use is
a) Full backups on a Sunday (say 9PM)
As part of the Full backup plan, add a Cleanup files / cleanup history - files/jobs/tasks older than 2 weeks
b) Diff backups Mon-Sat (again, 9PM)
c) Transaction Log backups every 15 minutes

This gives you the ability to restore to any point in time in the last 2 weeks. Making the cleanup task part of the full backup task means you never accidentally delete a full backup required as the start of a chain. Using diffs keeps the daily backup sizes down.

cheers
Lee.

More Info:

http://www.virtuallyimpossible.co.uk/sql-server-full-and-transaction-log-backups-completing-but-differential-backups-failing-because-of-veeam-br-configuration/