This week, we’ve seen the availability of Veeam Availability Suite Update 3a. This update addresses several minor issues. However, it also add support for the latest and greatest that Veeam Vanguards and Veeam admins work with.

Veeam Backup and Replication 9.5 Update 3a

Veeam B&R is the cornerstone of Veeam’s Availability Suite.

This Monday, the Release Notes for Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 3a were published

Its ‘Update 3a’ (build 9.5.0.1922) seems like only a little update to the 'Update 3’ release, but remember that I feel Update 3 was, in fact, a big release offering a lot of new and improved functionality, including the ability to centrally manage Veeam agents.

Update 3a brings support for:

• VMware vSphere 6.5 Update 2 Preliminary
• VMware vSphere 6.7
• Vmware vCloud Director 9.1
• VMware Cloud on AWS version 1.3
• Microsoft Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel (SAC) releases:
  • Windows Server, version 1803 Standard Edition
  • Windows Server, version 1803 Datacenter Edition
• Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 1801

Note:
Windows Server version 1709 was supported with Veeam B&R Update 3, already.

To get the most out of their life cycles, more and more organizations upgrade earlier to the latest vSphere, vCloud Director, Windows 10 and Windows Server releases. Ensuring that these platforms are supported for backup is an important check on their checklists.

Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows

When Veeam introduced its Agent for Microsoft Windows, it meant it broke free of the virtualization space and entered the mainstream world of backup and restore solutions that support virtualized, multi-cloud and non-virtualized resources, while still offering industry-best support to virtualized workloads.

With its integration in Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 3 for centralized management, the Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows became a key part of Veeam’s Availability Suite.

Veeam Agent for Windows 2.2 now offers support for:

• Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel (SAC) releases: Windows Server version 1803
• Windows 10 1803 (RS4, April 2018 update)

Note:
Windows Server version 1709 and Windows 10 1709 (RS3, Fall Creators Update) were supported with Veeam B&R Update 3, already.

Veeam Agent for Linux

Version 2 of Veeam’s Agent for Linux was the first version of the product to be manageable through Veeam Availability Suite. This allows you to streamline the discovery, deployment and centralized management of these agents.

Veeam Agent for Linux version 2.0.1 works with Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 3a.

This recently released version supports any Linux kernel from version 2.6.32 and above as long as you use the default kernel of your distribution. Notable newly supported Linux distribution versions by Veeam Agent for Linux 2.0.1 include:

• Oracle Linux (UEK) R4 U6, R4 U7
• Oracle Linux (RHCK) 7.5
• CentOS 7.5
• RedHat Enterprise Linux 7.5
• Ubuntu 18.04
• Fedora 27, 28
• openSUSE Leap 15
• SUSE Linux Enterprise for SAP Applications 11 SP4
• SUSE Linux Enterprise for SAP Applications 12 SP1
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 12 SP2
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 12 SP3

Veeam ONE

Veeam ONE provides complete visibility and delivers proactive monitoring and alerting. Veeam ONE dit not need an update to support the above products. The version that was part of the generally available version 9.5 Update 3 was confirmed to be fully compatible with these technologies already.

Concluding

Although Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 3a is mostly a platform support release, although the Release Notes also mention 20 minor updates, including support for ExpressRoute for Direct Restore to Azure,

Further reading

Veeam 9.5 Update 3a – What’s in it for Service Providers
Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 3a is now available!
NEW Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows 2.2
NEW Veeam Agent for Linux 2.0.1