backing up a hyper-v based server

[MassiveJim]

Recently upgraded my ageing poweredge 2900 for a used R720.

am now using a hyper visor for the first time in my life which has been a learning experience in itself.

Hyper-V installed on a RAID-1 array (2 x 278GB 15k SCSI)
All VMs stored on this array also.
running 2012 Hyper-v
currently running 4 VMs in total
3 x 2012 R2 for various functions
1 x DHCP, AD, DNS Server
1 x File server
1 x backup file server
1 x W10 Pro for convenient off site network access

the file server VM has a VHD on a RAID 10 array for local network storage (4 x 278GB SCSI 15k, with a hot swap drive)
1 of the VMs is a kind of backup server, it has pretty much everything backed up to a pass through 8TB WD Gold drive, pass through so that in the case of emergency I can pull the drive from the server is needed and throw it in any windows machine and get the data off it.


So now that is all out of the way (anything dumb that I should be changing above ?)

I haven't run hyper-v before, what is the best way to go about backing this lot up reliably ?
and any best practices that I should be employing that a noob wouldn't necessarily thing about ?

 

[MassiveJim]

Thanks guys I'll look in to VEEAM.

As for redundancy
I have a machine I built at home for my NAS, it is running a supermicro motherboard in a rackmount chassis with 16GB ECC RAM, currently only running XigmaNAS on it but I could have a tinker and get a hyper-v running on it so that I can use it as offsite redundancy.

That would be a challenge for me in terms of getting it all working, probably not at the stage i want to mess around with that currently however, I have only just got my head around hyper-v and it is running in a live environment as well.

 

[MassiveJim]

Veeam up and running, managed to get it to push out the agent to 2 workstations as well. W7 workstation not playing ball for some reason. Think it might have s problem anyway, always takes ages to login.

It seems fairly straight forward though, had a small issue where it wouldn't install but when I came back to it next day it was fine