How to Upgrade Legacy Veeam Backup Server

Over time Veeam Backup & Replication drops support for being installed on older operating systems. When this occurs, the options are to either:

• Start fresh with a new deployment of the most recent Veeam Backup & Replication version on a supported operating system.
  
  or
• Migrate the existing Veeam Backup & Replication configuration to a new install of Veeam Backup & Replication running on a supported OS.

Below is information pertaining to the latter option, migrating the existing configuration to a new machine running an OS supported by the latest Veeam Backup & Replication version.

Configuration Backup Migration Compatibility

The Configuration Backup feature, introduced in Veeam Backup & Replication 6.5, allows users to restore or migrate their existing configuration. However, the configuration backup files can only be used with future versions of Veeam Backup & Replication that would support an in-place upgrade from the version that created the configuration backup file.

For example, the minimum version of Veeam Backup & Replication that Veeam Backup & Replication 11a supported was 9.5 U4b, because 11a only supported an upgrade from 9.5 Update 4b (build 9.5.4.2866) or higher. In this example, if the existing Veeam Backup & Replication deployment was running version 8.0 U3 (build 8.0.0.2084), it would first have to be upgraded to 9.5 U4b (build 9.5.4.2866). Then the configuration backup file from that version (now 9.5 U4b) could be used to migrate the configuration to a new server running Veeam Backup & Replication 11a.

User guides for current and past versions of Veeam Backup & Replication are available at: https://vee.am/helpcenter

Review the upgrade page within the user guide of the version you intend to install and identify if the version of Veeam Backup & Replication currently installed is compatible.

• If it is compatible, you can deploy the version of Veeam Backup & Replication you intend to use and then use the configuration backup restore tool to migrate the configuration from the previous Veeam Backup & Replication server.
• If it is not compatible, identify the minimum version that is supported and review that version's user guide to determine if that version is compatible with the installed version. You may need to perform an in-place upgrade to an intermediary version and generate a new configuration backup file which can then be imported into the new Veeam Backup & Replication server.