Discussions related to exporting backups to tape and backing up directly to tape.
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B.F.
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VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by B.F. »

Let's say that I have a backup job that saves 10 VM's to tape via Virtual Full. If I need to bring back 1 of the 10 VM's off of tape, I need to find enough disk space for the full VBK to land in before I can manipulate that 1 VM? If so, would it be better to setup 10 separate jobs to store to the same tape and reduce the landing space (and restore time). Would dedupe / compression on the tape be adversely affected going this route?

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Shestakov
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by Shestakov »

Hello B.F.
It`s recommended to combine VMs running same OS and applications for better deduplication rate. However, you are correct, in a case of restore from tape more disk space will be used temporary. So it depends on your capabilities. For instance, you can split them to 2 jobs with 5 VMs.
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B.F.
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by B.F. »

Also, there is no method to browse the .vbk on tape to see if the file that is needed is actually on that particular day / backup?

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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by Shestakov »

You can restore regular files and folders archived to tape using Files from Tape Restore wizard, but you cannot restore VM guest OS files . To restore VM guest OS files, you need to restore a backup from tape to the backup repository and perform VM guest OS files restore for this backup after that.
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B.F.
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by B.F. »

So coming from BE, this is how we restore files from our file server. I'm assuming if we did a guest OS file to tape backup with Veeam, the procedure would be similar.

Current BE guest OS file restore process
1. Search backup software inventory to locate needed guest OS file
2. Load corresponding tape
3. Create restore job which pulls needed guest OS file
4. File restored (Happy end user)


If we were to backup the file server (vbk) to tape and wish to restore a particular file from that guest OS, this be the process?

Veeam guest OS file restore from vbk
1. Unable to search backup software for needed guest OS files.
2. Guess which tape might have correct guest OS file.
3. Load corresponding tape
4. Create restore job which will copy the whole vbk (time consuming and temporary space intensive for a large file server)
5. Create a file restore job from the recently imported vbk to pull needed guest OS file
6. If needed guest OS file is not located GOTO 2
7. File restored (Semi-happy end user since it took longer than normal)

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Shestakov
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by Shestakov »

Good question.
You don`t need 7 steps here and no need to guess what tape to use.

The steps are:
1) Search for the file in EM(Enterprise Manager).
2) Locate the name of the backup file(s) required for that particular restore point
3) From the GUI restore the required VM / Restore point with the regular GUI ( obtaining the required tapes as prompted by the GUI, should the by in a vault / offline )
4) Perform File restore from GUI or EM as if it were on disk (Happy end user :) )

By the way, how often do you need to restore files from backups so old they are no longer present on disk?
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B.F.
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by B.F. »

Interesting! I was not aware of EM! Looks like I need to do some more reading about that. Does it need to be installed on it's own server or can it share resources where Veeam B&R is installed?

I'm not seeing Guest Processing > Enable guest file system indexing for tape VM backups like I do for backup to disk. How can EM do a guest OS file search on tape backups if that type of indexing is not even an option?

Questions, question, so many questions :)

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Shestakov
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by Shestakov »

B.F. wrote: I was not aware of EM! Looks like I need to do some more reading about that. Does it need to be installed on it's own server or can it share resources where Veeam B&R is installed?
Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager can be installed on a physical or virtual machine. You can deploy it on the Veeam backup server or use a dedicated machine.
B.F. wrote:I'm not seeing Guest Processing > Enable guest file system indexing for tape VM backups like I do for backup to disk. How can EM do a guest OS file search on tape backups if that type of indexing is not even an option?
Backup to tape copies restore points created by backup job. If you have the indexing enabled there, you will be able to perform file search from the EM.
By the way, your questions are sane, so don`t hesitate asking :)
B.F.
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by B.F. »

Backup to tape copies restore points created by backup job. If you have the indexing enabled there, you will be able to perform file search from the EM.
In our File Server case, we are not backing it up to disk. At present we are replicating to a remote site (3 times a day keeping 2 restore points). The guest OS data files to tape is covered by BE. I'm not seeing an option available to index the guest OS files in the replication job. How can we backup the File Server to tape and be able to index the guest OS data?

BTW, EM looks pretty cool.

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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by Shestakov »

Archiving data to tape in Veeam B&R is a job-driven process:
Backup to tape jobs allow you to archive full backups or forward incremental backup chains stored on disk.
Files to tape jobs allow you to archive files from any Microsoft Windows or Linux server connected to the Veeam backup server or from a shared folder accessible by the Veeam backup server.

As I said, Backup to tape jobs does not create backups, but locates already existing backups (produced by backup and backup copy jobs) and archives them to tape. So you need to create backup job to disk(with the indexing enabled) and use it as a source for backup to tape. And if you use File-to-tape job, you don`t need the indexing, files will be searchable by default. Thanks!
B.F.
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by B.F. »

Well that's unfortunate. Our File Server is very large. If I'm understanding correctly, in order for us to utilize Backup to Tape, we would first need to scape together several extra terabytes of disk space just so we can then backup the VM to tape? I suppose we could just plug in a USB External HDD. Still seems like an extra step is being added to our process.... :cry:

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veremin
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by veremin »

If I'm understanding correctly, in order for us to utilize Backup to Tape, we would first need to scape together several extra terabytes of disk space just so we can then backup the VM to tape?
VB&R is an image-based backup solution, so, image-based backup should be created first before being archived to tapes. Thanks.
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by Shestakov »

Your understanding is correct, but keeping only one copy of backup on tape is not considered as the best practice.
Do you store all backups only on tapes? Thanks!
B.F.
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by B.F. »

Do you store all backups only on tapes? Thanks!
Nope. As stated before, we replicated several times a day to an offsite location so that it is near real time up to date. We also backup the data files via BE to tape where the full and the latest differential is stored offsite.
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by veremin »

You can still stick to this approach, if it answers your requirements best. Also, I'd recommend leaving your vote in the adjacent thread where the exact same functionality is being discussed. Thanks.
B.F.
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by B.F. »

Thanks for pointing me to that thread. Looks like I'm not the only one in this boat. :)

Actually, if we go with pure Veeam, we could no longer go with the approach we are doing now. The biggest thing is there is no differential File to Tape backup in Veeam. Our offsite tape safe is not all that big. At present we only need 2 tapes offsite to get the latest data. The Full and the last Differential. If we were to go with Incrementals, we would need the full chain of tapes to go offsite.
veremin
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by veremin »

Got it. As mentioned in the referenced thread, there chances that this feature might be implemented in future. Though, the time frame when it will be provided (if at all) is not clear at the moment. Thanks.
B.F.
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by B.F. »

Another question has come up.

Say we have 10 VM's backed up to disk (1 vbk). Only 5 of those 10 needs to be archived to tape. Would this be possible based off of the 10 VM VBK or would we need to create 2 backup jobs (5 only needed for short term disk and the other 5 for longer term tape)?

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Shestakov
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by Shestakov »

You can either create one job including 10 VMs or 2 different jobs with 5 VMs or any other combination. We recommend to combine VMs running same OS and applications for better deduplication results. Thanks!
B.F.
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by B.F. »

I don't think this really answered the question. The question is would I be able to backup to tape only 5 of the VM's that is based on a 10 VM VBK?

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Shestakov
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Re: VBK on Tape Clarification

Post by Shestakov »

No, it`s not feasible for tape jobs. Backup-to-tape job copies whole backup file to tape.
You need either to backup VMs separately if you want to use the backup job as source for backup-to-tape ones.
However, we will think how to make it possible in future. Thanks!
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