This time, we’ll go through the simple steps for configuring a Copy Job for a virtual machine from our environment to another datastore, either on a VBR server or on an ESXi server registered with VBR.
Don’t confuse this with a Backup Copy Job; that is something entirely different.
This job copies the VM files, not backups or backup files.
I don’t see this feature discussed or used very often. I’ve used it to copy VMs directly to the destination where I wanted them, with a control mechanism to “ensure” the copy completed successfully. It can also be useful when you want a last-resort copy, since the destination is an ESXi host where you can quickly register and power on the VM.
One final note: this is a Copy job, so it does not keep a history of runs. You’ll only have the files from the last successful copy.
Let’s look at the screenshots and example:
Now let’s look at the other option: using a Veeam repository as the destination. Here, I’m using the local repository on our VBR server.
As you’ve seen, this is an effective way to copy a VM for different purposes: register it on an ESXi host, keep its files on a repository or server, move a VM from one host to another if you don’t have HA or replication, or simply store a copy of your machines in a different repository as an ESXi VM rather than in VBR backup format.
Regards.