Cost Effective Nas Backup

[gingerdazza]

Hi everyone. We have a NetApp NAS with millions of unstructured file data and 50TB. The primary backup is sorted, but of course I want to get another cheaper archive backup for the "2 media" part of 3-2-1. We don't want to use tapes.

Option 1 was Veeam NAS backup to Azure. But that can't use Azure Blob Archive tier, so it looked expensive when I worked out a 350TB of storage, and maybe 50000 API calls.
So, I'm wondering if something like On-prem Veeam > Azure hosted Starwind VTL (Markletplace) > Archive Tier, might work effectively?
Anyone tried this?
Any other ideas welcome.

[david.domask]

Hi Dazza,

The goal is understood, and I'm aware of existing requests for Archive Tier on NAS Backup, but nothing new to share at this time regarding that.

The VTL method to get the data on Archive Tier would work, but I'd test it a bit with a smaller workload before committing to it fully (test backups and restores). I'm not sure how Starwind's VTL handles the actual data transfer process, but at least AWS' VTL requires a caching server of sorts which is where the data lands first and is offloaded to the VTL over time, so just be prepared that there may be an additional disk foot print if you go this route.

From the Veeam perspective, there's nothing wrong with the idea as it will just see the VTL as normal tapes and our Backup to Tape for Unstructured Data Backups will let you put the files from the primary backup directly on tape in native format. But I'd still do some workload testing with the VTL and just get an idea on the backup/restore speeds you can expect.

[gingerdazza]

Can I ask, if we have a NetApp NAS (SMB/CIFS) running ONTAP, is it better to back it up for straight NAS-backup, or is it better to backup from NetApp snapshots?
...and in both scenarios can the backups go direct to object storage?
...and do both options require a NAS license?

[david.domask]

Hi Dazza,

1. The backup process does not change regardless of the source, so you can target the repositories as you normally would.
2. Yes, see our licensing page in the User Guide

As for which is "better", typically the storage snapshots help to keep stress aware from the production shares, but it's best to test what's suitable for your environment and your needs.

[gingerdazza]

Thanks.

Does the "normal" NAS backup suffer from being unable to backup open files on Enterprise NAS' like NetApp? And does the snapshot method avoid that open-file issue?

[david.domask]

Hi Dazza,

Snapshots would avoid concurrent file locks, yes. Additionally, since you have NetApp, remote VSS can be configured and used (applicable for SMB): https://www.veeam.com/blog/nas-backup-r ... ation.html

So one or the other (storage snapshots or remote VSS) is recommended.