Set up backup monitoring.
Backup monitoring is one scheduled task that reads your Veeam Backup & Replication server and records what it finds on the computers that server protects. This page walks through the setup using the labels you see on screen. What it looks like afterwards is on Backup monitoring.
Before you start
Step by step
1Tell Octotor which machine is the backup server
Open Assets, open the Veeam server, and go to its Attributes tab. In the BACKUP group, set Veeam Backup Server to Yes using the edit pencil on that attribute card.
Everything else depends on this one setting. The task you build in step 2 finds your server by it, so you never have to type a server name into a task. If you add a second backup server later, set the same attribute on it and the task picks it up on its next run, with no further changes. If the machine runs Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 instead, set Veeam M365 Backup Server to Yes in the same group; that is a separate feature and is not covered on this page.
2Schedule the collector
Open Scheduler and click + New task. Fill it in like this:
| Field | What to put | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Something you will recognise, for example BACKUP-VEEAM-COLLECT | It is how you find the task and its run history later. |
| Task type | Script | The default. |
| Script | windows/veeam-vbr-collect.ps1 | The Veeam collector that comes with Octotor. You do not need to copy it to the server or change it. |
| Schedule | A time after your backup window closes, for example 30 6 * * * (06:30 daily) | So the task reads completed backup runs rather than running ones. Many sites add a second run in the afternoon. |
| Target ▸ Asset type | computer, with no specific asset | The target is the backup server, not the machines being backed up. |
| Attribute filters | Veeam Backup Server | Include | equals | true | This is what narrows the task down to the server you set in step 1, and to nothing else. |
| Execution ▸ Protocol | Auto | Each server is then reached the way its own record says, so one task can cover a WinRM server and an SSH server together. |
| Execution ▸ Timeout (sec) | 240 for an ordinary server, 900 for one holding years of history | The script reads the whole job history. If the time limit stops a run before it finishes, no results are recorded at all, so set this one with care. |
| Run options ▸ Enabled | ticked | The task starts running on its schedule as soon as you save. Leave Run once off, because this task is meant to repeat. |
Click Save. The task runs next at the scheduled time. You can also run it once by hand from the task list if you want results straight away.
3Check that the first run worked
Wait for the task to run once, or run it by hand from the task list. Then check two places.
On the backup server itself. Open it in Assets. Its Backup jobs tab should now list your Veeam jobs, when each one last ran and how it ended. Its Attributes tab should show a BACKUP group holding the totals: how many jobs there are, how many failed, and how many machines are protected.
On one of the protected computers. Open any machine that the server backs up. It should now have a Backup jobs tab of its own, and its BACKUP attribute group should show when its last successful backup finished, how its most recent run ended, and which job protects it.
If either place is still empty, open the task in Scheduler, open its run history, and read the output of the run. It says what the script could not do.
4Decide who gets told
Six backup alert rules come with Octotor, and they are switched on already. Three of them watch the backup server as a whole, and three watch each protected computer on its own.
| Rule | Severity | It is raised when |
|---|---|---|
| Backup job failed recently on server | Critical | A job on the backup server failed at some point in the last day, even if a later run succeeded. This is the rule that catches a failure you would otherwise miss, because the job went green again. |
| Backup job failed on server | Critical | A job on the backup server is in a failed state now. |
| Backup job warning on server | Warning | A job finished, but Veeam reported a warning about it. |
| Last backup of this computer failed | Critical | The most recent backup of one machine failed. |
| Last backup of this computer ended with a warning | Warning | One machine was backed up, but Veeam reported a warning for that run. |
| Backup overdue for this computer | Warning | A machine has gone longer without a successful backup than its own job schedule allows. This is how you find out that a backup stopped happening at all, rather than failing loudly. |
To be told about them, add a notification channel to each rule. Out of the box these rules raise the alert inside Octotor, on the Alert Center page, but they send nothing out. Open Alerts Admin ▸ Rules, click Edit on a rule, and type the name of a channel into its Notify channels box. Channels are email destinations, Telegram or webhooks, and you create them on the Channels tab of the same page. Do this on each rule you want to hear about: setting a channel on one rule does not change the others.
Rules only apply to machines whose Threshold alert switch is on. Octotor switches it on for every computer the task finds and for the backup server itself, so you do not have to visit each machine. If you would rather decide per computer, set Settings ▸ Backup Collector ▸ Switch on threshold alerts for the computers the collector finds to No before the first run.