Overview - External Data Connector (Veeam)

Introduction

External Data Connector (EDC) collects and merges vital information from Veeam servers to a CommCell Console. Veeam’s vital configurations, such as servers, virtual machines, backup jobs, and backup repositories are automatically collected and merged to the CommCell.

After the merge has completed, CommCell Agents are installed on the previous Veeam clients using the CommCell Console. Backup content, schedules, and other settings will remain on the clients, which greatly reduces configuration time. Data Protection historical records are also captured and merged to the CommCell. Thus, various CommCell reports can be run for the historical Veeam data.

Key Features

Discover Veeam Client Information

When External Data Connector is installed on a Veeam server, all Veeam client information is incorporated into a CommCell Console by performing a simple discovery process. Your first discovery populates all information about each Veeam client into the CommServe database, including configuration, previous job history, schedules, and media information. All these details can be viewed using the CommCell Console graphical interface as soon as the first full discovery is performed.

Incremental discovery operations continue to update the CommServe with details on new or changed Veeam client configurations. You can choose from a number of discovery options to further refine the information that is populated into the CommServe, such as narrowing down discovery to specific Veeam clients as well as including updated job and media details.

Migrate Veeam Clients to a CommCell

You can migrate existing Veeam client computers to a CommCell Console for future data protection and recovery operations using the available CommCell products and features. CommCell software can be simultaneously installed to any number of Veeam client computers through the CommCell Console interface. You can choose to keep the original configuration of the migrated client computers or modify them to suit new needs and requirements.

Reports on Veeam Job History

Once your Veeam clients have been populated into the CommCell, you can create a variety of CommCell reports, which provide detailed information on job history, media details, and more. You can create reports in HTML, XML, or PDF formats, and save or export in several ways. Optionally, you can further customize reports to display information in a Native format, which uses the terminology of native CommCell components, or a Veeam format, which retains the terminology of the original Veeam components.

If your Veeam clients are integrated into more than one CommCell, reports on Reporting Server can provide complete coverage of all clients in each CommCell.

Import Veeam Databases to a CommServe

You can import a Veeam database to a CommServe in several ways, which is useful if you want to incorporate an entire Veeam database into the CommCell Console at once. You can do this with or without installing External Data Connector on the Veeam Server.

Supported Veeam Versions

After the discovery process is complete, Veeam components, such as servers, virtual machines, and backup repositories are mapped to the appropriate CommCell entity. The following versions of Veeam are supported for these Veeam component groupings:

*Only Windows platforms are supported.

Terminology

The External Data Connector documentation utilizes the following terminology:

• Server - The computer hosting the main data protection and recovery software engine. This computer is the equivalent of the CommServe computer.

• Discovery - The process in which External Data Connector collects information about the vendor's client computers and populates that information into the CommServe database.