Storage Usage for Immutable Backups

[ext008]

Hi,

Trying to estimate Azure Blob storage requirements for immutable backups. I've dug through documentation and ran through the Veeam sizing calculator but wanted to confirm my understanding.

1. With SOBR and immutable capacity tier, do active full backups moved/copied to object storage consume full disk space?
- Based on documentation about block generation and using the Veeam calculator, my understanding is that with new backups chains, data blocks from old chain are reused, so backups to the capacity tier are essentially forever incremental.

2. With direct backup to immutable object storage, is it similar to SOBR where it's basically forever incremental even with periodic active/synthetic fulls?

Thanks!

[ericschott_OF]

Capacity tier is forward incremental, with active fulls in performance tier make it to capacity tier as synthetic full.

• if you do not have GFS or other synthetic fulls in capacity tier, then it is forever forward. If using immutability, you likely do not want this and I suggest you use some GFS to have it be forward incremental.

• direct backups to object storage in repo bucket, or performance tier with immutability, you want GFS synthetic fulls so the chain is forward incremental. These will make the capacity tier forward incremental, and in copy mode, the GFS points will make it to capacity tier.

[sfirmes]

Capacity tier is forward incremental, with active fulls in performance tier make it to capacity tier as synthetic full.

Just remember there are no backup files when using object storage. If you have a non-object storage Performance Tier, it will have .vib and .vbk files. When those restore points are offloaded to the capacity tier, Veeam converts the chunks in those backup files into objects that are then offloaded to the object storage based Capacity Tier.

Also note, whenever Veeam backups directly to object storage or offload backups to the Capacity Tier, we use a Forever Forward Incremental methodology. For direct to object storage backups, there is no option to create a synthentic full. You can however create an active full backup. In the event of an active full backup directly to object storage, Veeam will write the entire full backup to the object storage. The behavior is different for a capacity tier. The backup server will offload only new and changed objects to the capacity tier.