Backup Copy to Object Storage vs. Scale-Out Backup Repository Copy Mode

[DVelez]

Can Object Storage replace Scale-Out Backup Repositories w/ Capacity Tiers for backup copies? Are there any advantages of one over the other?

Thanks!

[Gostev]

It can, but generally only for small deployments.

Disadvantages:
1. Scalability limits of a single S3 bucket will require multiple Backup Copy jobs and manual workload balancing between them => higher TCO.
2. Multiple additional jobs to manage and monitor instead of fully automated SOBR tiering => higher TCO.
3. Archiving of GFS backups to cheap object storage tiers is not possible (applicable to AWS/Azure only) => higher TCO.
4. No restore performance & restore costs optimizations (no reuse of matching blocks from on-prem repos of Performance Tier, everything has to be pulled from object storage) => RTO impact, higher TCO.

Advantages:
1. You can potentially have a different retention policy for backup copies (longer or shorter than for primary backups) => enables small shops that are not a subject to off-site backup policies and regulations to save on cloud object storage costs. This means taking the risk of in-cloud retention being insufficient (for example, data loss or cyberattack spotted too late and all those few in-cloud copies are already useless).

[NightBird]

So it’s recommended to continue with SOBR with capacity tier ? And not use directly backup copy job to object storage ?

What do you mean for scalability of a single S3 bucket ? Number of object ? Capacity ?

Thanks

[Gostev]

You should decide based on your specific needs. If there was a universal "right" answer, we would not provide both options for example, we had a number of requests in this forum from small customers who only wanted to keep a few latest restore points in the cloud object storage to save costs, as sort of a "last resort" copy. For this particular scenario, and a small protected environment, most of the disadvantages mentioned above don't really matter all that much.

Most commonly it's the number of objects per bucket. Low bucket scalability limits is the usual problem for many on-prem object storage devices.

[NightBird]

In others terms what is a small deployement for Veeam ?

Let take an example
300VM (100TB) is a small deployement or not ?
BCJ to object storage or SOBR with capacity tier to offload to object storage ? (cloud object storage or Netapp StorageGrid/DELLEMC ECS for on-prem).

[Gostev]

Small is under 50 workloads. This is the actual license limit of Veeam Essentials, which is our offering for small businesses.

[cgsm]

With v12 supporting backing up directly to object storage, is it better to use SOBR to offload to an object storage repo or a Backup Copy job? Note: excluding any storage space constraints. Is either method better?

In v11, I set up a local repo (performance) and Wasabi (capacity) via SOBR. Now, with v12, I am investigating breaking apart the SOBR and treating the local repo and Wasabi object storage as more separate repos and job. Why would I break apart the SOBR and use a Backup Copy job instead...allowing for excluding come VMs from being copied to object storage, separate retention policies, and some other configuration settings.

[Mildur]

Hello cgsm

I moved your question to this topic. Please see the comment from Anton.
If you want to have more flexibility, using Direct Copy to object storage would make sense for your project.

Just as a note, Capacity tier and Object Storage repositories are not using the same format. Your backup copy jobs would require to start with a new bucket and active full uploads.

Best,
Fabian