Welcome to the “Lessi Learned” Newsletter!
Right now during the holiday season, many of us are once again adding countless new photos full of special memories to our collections.
At work, we treat data protection with the utmost care — but at home, regular backups of our private photos often don’t get the same attention.
It’s no surprise, considering that smartphones make it so quick and convenient to take countless photos, which then end up scattered across SD cards and various cloud services, making it easy to lose track of where everything is stored.
That’s why the holiday season is a good moment to review your personal backup strategy. Gathering your photos from the past year and saving an additional copy to an external drive, stored securely at home or perhaps even in a safe deposit box, can prevent unpleasant surprises.
Because if all your photos disappear at once, even the holiday spirit might struggle to bring peace.
With that in mind, I wish you happy holidays and hope you enjoy reading this newsletter! By the way, if you are looking for a festive backup job monitoring, read the Lessi-Learned section carefully 😉.
Newsflash
vExpert 2026 Applications are open
Last issue I highlighted that applications for the Veeam Vanguard program are now open — still a great opportunity you shouldn’t miss!
Building on that momentum, another standout community program has just opened its application cycle: the VMware by Broadcom vExpert program.
This global advocacy initiative has been around since 2009 and today includes roughly 1,350 active members across more than 75 countries, making it a truly international peer network.
I’ve been part of this amazing and highly knowledgeable community for 14 years, and the relationships and support I’ve gained, whether solving tricky issues or advancing my career, have been invaluable.
If you’re actively contributing in the virtualization space with VMware, this is your moment to apply and grow your impact. Applications close January 15th at 4:00 PM PST!
And don’t forget — applications for the Veeam Vanguard program are still open too!
Find all relevant links here:
Patch your systems!
Keeping your environment up to date is crucial. Here are the key updates from the past few days:
Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 8.3
Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 version 8.3 has been released and is primarily a maintenance and bug-fix update. While the release includes a small number of minor enhancements, for example in the REST API, the main focus is clearly on stability and issue resolution rather than introducing new functionality.
Version 8.3 supports direct upgrades from existing v7, v8, v8.1, and v8.2 deployments.
That said, version 7 should no longer be in use, as it reached end of support in June 2025 and is therefore no longer covered by standard support agreements.
A full overview of all changes and fixes is available in the official Veeam knowledge base article:
https://www.veeam.com/kb4809
Of particular interest in this release is the fix for an issue related to Microsoft Purview Sensitivity Labels. Version 8.3 introduces a mechanism to identify and repair items affected by the problem described in KB4754, addressing restore inconsistencies for sensitivity-labeled data.
Lessons learned
Unexpected Azure Egress: A Backup Copy Pitfall
Last week, a customer observed unexpected Azure egress costs originating from what was assumed to be a straightforward Backup Copy Job targeting Azure Blob Storage.
Our initial analysis focused on the usual suspects: possible restore operations, configured health checks, or other features that might trigger read access on the object storage. However, none of these were in place, and the source of the Azure-side egress charges remained unclear.
After a deeper investigation, we identified the root cause in the configuration of the Backup Copy Job itself. The job was configured to include database transaction log backups from the source backup jobs.
When this option is enabled, Veeam Backup & Replication continuously processes and synchronizes transaction log files. This behavior results in frequent access requests against the Azure Blob repository. Each synchronization triggers GetBlob operations, which in turn generate egress traffic.
The effect is particularly noticeable with large or frequently changing transaction logs, such as Oracle archive logs. In such cases, a Backup Copy Job can unintentionally become a significant driver of Azure egress costs.
However, since avoiding important database backups in the Azure repository is not an option purely for cost reasons, the question arises: how can this be handled more effectively?
One possible answer is Veeam Data Cloud Vault—an Azure Blob Storage offering with egress costs already included. This removes uncertainty around outbound traffic charges and provides predictable, transparent costs, so you know exactly what to expect on your monthly bill.
Backup Job Monitoring — Holiday Edition
One last Lessi-Learned topic for this year — not an official Veeam tool, but perfectly on brand for the holiday season!
As part of a fun side project, my colleague Stephan Herzig built a Veeam VBR monitoring script… in full Christmas outfit.
It visualizes your backup job monitoring as a Christmas tree, where each ornament represents a backup job and its current status. Color meanings are intentionally left unexplained — discovering them is part of the fun 🎁
Pro tip: keep a close eye on the star on top of the tree — it hides an extra feature.
Festive, nerdy, and surprisingly useful.
Script link: Veeam VBR Happy Holidays Monitor
Feature of the day
BitLooker (not BitLocker — it’s not a typo)
Today’s “Feature of the Day” highlights a capability that has been part of Veeam Backup & Replication for many years — introduced in version 9 (If my research is correct) — yet is still often overlooked:
BitLooker, officially known as Exclude Deleted File Blocks. It represents a class of features that many administrators rely on without fully understanding what happens under the hood.
BitLooker analyzes the NTFS Master File Table inside a virtual machine to identify disk blocks that belonged to deleted files. These blocks are excluded from the backup process, significantly reducing backup size, network traffic, and storage usage.
In environments with high data churn — for example, build servers producing large temporary artifacts — this can reduce a 100 GB backup to just 20–30 GB.
Why highlight it today? Because it’s a reminder that even long-standing features deserve a closer look.
Many assume such functionality is universal, but one important detail is easily missed: BitLooker works only on NTFS volumes. It does not apply to ReFS or other file systems. This limitation is clearly documented but often unnoticed
Thanks for reading
I hope you enjoyed this edition of my Lessi-Learned Newsletter. Thank you for reading!
Got feedback or something you want to see in the next edition? Leave a comment, write me on X (@lessi001) or connect at LinkedIn.
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