Issue with Veeam 12 and Azure Blob Storage Archive Tier

[alimurtaza92]

We have a setup where Veeam 12 is configured with Azure Blob Storage for offsite backups. Initially, the backup tier of Azure Blob was set to Cool, and backups were functioning smoothly - we could both take and restore backups without any issues.

Recently, we implemented a policy on the Azure Blob storage account to move all the older files from the Cool Tier to the Archive Tier. However, following this change, Veeam started throwing errors about missing backups.

Here are my specific questions:

Possible issues with moving files to Archive Tier: What could possibly go wrong when the older files were moved to the Archive Tier? Is there any specific consideration we overlooked during this transition?

Veeam support for Azure Archive Tier: Does Veeam officially support the Azure Archive Tier? Are there any known limitations or best practices for integrating Veeam with Azure Blob Archive Tier?

Implementing Veeam Scale-out Backup Repository: If we want to implement a Veeam Scale-out Backup Repository, can we use Azure Blob Archive Tier as an Archive Tier for Veeam? Are there any specific configurations or settings we need to be aware of to ensure compatibility and optimal performance?

Best Azure Blob Tier for Capacity Tier of Veeam Scale-out Backup Repository: What is the recommended Azure Blob Tier (Hot, Cool, Cold, Archive) for the Capacity Tier of a Veeam Scale-out Backup Repository? Are there any trade-offs between different tiers in terms of performance, cost, and data accessibility that we should consider?

Any insights, recommendations, or help would be greatly appreciated.

[Mildur]

Hello Hafiz

Using lifecycle policies to move blobs to Azure Archive is not supported and will led to the errors you have faced. Everything must be configured within Veeam. You cannot use lifecycle policies to move objects away. The backup server won't be able to find them anymore. You may open a support case, but I don't know if our customer support will be able to fix it. It's possible that you have to start with a new Azure Blob container.

Object Storage - Considerations and Limitations
Data in object storage bucket/container must be managed solely by Veeam Backup & Replication, including retention and data management. Enabling lifecycle rules is not supported, and may result in backup and restore failures.

Veeam support for Azure Archive Tier: Does Veeam officially support the Azure Archive Tier? Are there any known limitations or best practices for integrating Veeam with Azure Blob Archive Tier?

Yes, Veeam does support Azure Archive Storage. It has to be configured as part of a Scale Out Repository. Not all backups can be written to Archive Tier. The main use case of our archive tier is to offload GFS restore points with a long retention period. Restore points you want to keep for a long time but not expect to do frequent restores from. You will find a list of supported backups in our user guide.

Implementing Veeam Scale-out Backup Repository: If we want to implement a Veeam Scale-out Backup Repository, can we use Azure Blob Archive Tier as an Archive Tier for Veeam? Are there any specific configurations or settings we need to be aware of to ensure compatibility and optimal performance?

Correct. It will just work if you follow our user guide. Azure Archive Storage is supported as an Archive Tier. Make sure your jobs have enabled GFS backups, or no backups will be offloaded to Azure Archive Storage. To be able to offload backups to Azure Archive Storage, you need to make sure that you use Azure Blob repository as a performance tier or capacity tier.

Best Azure Blob Tier for Capacity Tier of Veeam Scale-out Backup Repository: What is the recommended Azure Blob Tier (Hot, Cool, Cold, Archive) for the Capacity Tier of a Veeam Scale-out Backup Repository? Are there any trade-offs between different tiers in terms of performance, cost, and data accessibility that we should consider?

Capacity Tier doesn't support Azure Archive Storage or Azure Blob Cold. Both are only supported as part of our archive tier functionality.

The difference between Hot and Cool is how Microsoft bills you. As explained here, for short retention it makes sense to leverage Azure Blob Hot. Cool comes with an early deletion fee. If your retention is lower than 30 days will have to pay additional fees. And if you expect daily/weekly restores of a large amount of data, access tier Hot should also be preferred. Reading data is cheaper from HOT than from Cool.

Microsoft provides a comparison between those access tiers:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure ... er-options

Best,
Fabian