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bitterloa
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v9 Cloud Backup Best Practices

Post by bitterloa »

Hi, I've searched everywhere and can't seem to find any strategies for the newest version of Veeam (v9) with the new service provider interface for offsite storage -- What are best practices for doing an offsite backup using a service provider? Can anyone confirm or expand upon the following?

1) Don't use Reverse Incremental backups for the cloud backup as this would take a ton of unnecessary bandwitdh?

2) Should I create a cloud backup job that writes directly to the service provider cloud-repository? Or, alternatively should I setup a **local** backup meant for the cloud, then use a Veeam "Copy Backup" or similar to copy these backup files to the cloud? I'd prefer doing the former as this would simplify things and not require me to have multiple backups stored locally--I'd have my normal backup on local disks, and then my cloud backup purely on the remote repository. But, it's unclear whether this is best practices.

** I should note that in the previous version of Veeam v8, the cloud-connect *required* you to create a local backup and then all cloud-connect did was then copy these backup files to the cloud. However with the newer v9 with cloud service providers, it sounds like this isn't necessary. That it's possible to simply create a *regular* backup job that writes directly to the cloud instead of first writing to local and then copying over. Is this true for v9?

3) What type of backup job works best for cloud copies? I'm planning to do a monthly full backup with daily incrementals in-between. Should I use "synthetic full backups"? Or turn this feature off? When it comes to cloud what is the simplest scenario?


p.s. I posted this on a separate thread, but the title of the thread and original person's question wasn't very well worded. I cannot figure out how to delete my old posting, apologies for this, but I believe this deserves it's own thread. Thanks!
dellock6
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Re: v9 Cloud Backup Best Practices

Post by dellock6 » 1 person likes this post

Hi,
actually best practice is always to have a local backup to allow for fast backup and restore times. From here, using backup copy jobs you can store additional copies to a service provider offering Cloud Connect. This gives you faster backup (storing data locally is faster than doing it over wan, so backup completes faster and VM snapshots stay open for less time), and restores are also faster as source is local and are not impacted for example by lack of internet connection.

This said:
1) doesn't matter, as backup copy jobs are always forever forward incremental
2) no, as said before
**) No idea where this comes from, Cloud Connect doesn't simply copy backup files, it uses backup copy to create synthetic backups at a secondary location. Yes it's possible to send primary backup jobs to Cloud Connect, but we highly suggest not to do it, again for the reasons explained before.
3) backup copy jobs, or forever forward incrementals if you want to do direct backups

Luca
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bitterloa
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Re: v9 Cloud Backup Best Practices

Post by bitterloa »

Thank you for your reply! However I'm still a bit unsure. It sounds like I may need to completely redo my local backups? Let me be more specific:
dellock6 wrote:Hi,
actually best practice is always to have a local backup to allow for fast backup and restore times. From here, using backup copy jobs you can store additional copies to a service provider offering Cloud Connect. This gives you faster backup (storing data locally is faster than doing it over wan, so backup completes faster and VM snapshots stay open for less time), and restores are also faster as source is local and are not impacted for example by lack of internet connection.
I already have a local backup job successfully running. It is using Reverse Incremental mode which is working great--however as I understand it, it would be terrible to try and push (or use a backup copy job) to copy a Reverse Incremental backup to cloud storage. This is because, although Reverse Incrementals are great for *local* storage, the copy job would have to push the complete/full backup over the WAN every day since it's this big file that is updated every time for Reverse Incremental. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is my understanding :?

I should note that I've been using Veeam since v6! And I started using Reverse Incrementals for local storage in v7--reverse incrementals were all the rage then, all the kids knew how to do the reverse incremental dance! But now it seems like there's a new kid on the block, the Forever Forward Incremental...and because of it's awesomeness perhaps I should change to doing a Forever Forward Incr, abandon the Reverse Incremental approach, and subsequently use a Backup Copy job of my *local* Forward Incr. to push a copy to the cloud? Is this a good plan?

Because man I'm pretty sure back in the day, like v7 "Cloud Connect" was only copying the .vbk files to the cloud, like a file copy only. Looks like this has changed drastically in recent versions (a good thing) but may explain the discrepancy of our understanding.
dellock6 wrote: This said:
1) doesn't matter, as backup copy jobs are always forever forward incremental
...
**) No idea where this comes from, Cloud Connect doesn't simply copy backup files, it uses backup copy to create synthetic backups at a secondary location. Yes it's possible to send primary backup jobs to Cloud Connect, but we highly suggest not to do it, again for the reasons explained before.
Ok, just to be sure here -- what you are saying is that Backup Copy jobs don't just simply copy the whole full backup to the cloud every time a new full is created locally--rather it will create a Synthetic Full backup with the full and subsequent incrementals already stored in the cloud? Because in a Forever Forward Incr. the "big" full backup is constantly updated locally once the retention policy is reached. Meaning the local *full* backup is changed/updated every day. So if this local/full is updated every day, then what your saying is that performing a Backup Copy of this job will *not* push this big ass file over the WAN 8) every day, rather it will use some magic sauce and reconstruct the offsite full backup via Synthetic Full?

...I've been poring over the docs to be as versed as possible to the new backup options. Seems like lots has changed for the better, but I just want to be sure before scrapping my whole current backup job which is Reverse Incremental. Aaand, I promise you, not too long ago that "cloud connect" used to only work by copying over local .vbk files...it wasn't "smart", but hopefully this has changed?
dellock6
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Re: v9 Cloud Backup Best Practices

Post by dellock6 »

bitterloa wrote:I already have a local backup job successfully running. It is using Reverse Incremental mode which is working great--however as I understand it, it would be terrible to try and push (or use a backup copy job) to copy a Reverse Incremental backup to cloud storage. This is because, although Reverse Incrementals are great for *local* storage, the copy job would have to push the complete/full backup over the WAN every day since it's this big file that is updated every time for Reverse Incremental. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is my understanding :?
No. Backup copy job recreates a different backup file at destination, but it's NOT a raw copy of the source backup file. It's like running another backup using this time a primary backup as the source instead of the production environment. For this reason it doesn't matter which job type you run at the primary site. You are not going to copy the vbk file created by reversed incremental in any day. And backup copy job always uses the same format of the forever forward incremental.
Because man I'm pretty sure back in the day, like v7 "Cloud Connect" was only copying the .vbk files to the cloud, like a file copy only. Looks like this has changed drastically in recent versions (a good thing) but may explain the discrepancy of our understanding.
v7 had an external component, named cloud edition, that indeed was copying the backup file. Nothing compares to the new Veeam Cloud Connect, cloud edition is not available anymore.
Ok, just to be sure here -- what you are saying is that Backup Copy jobs don't just simply copy the whole full backup to the cloud every time a new full is created locally--rather it will create a Synthetic Full backup with the full and subsequent incrementals already stored in the cloud? Because in a Forever Forward Incr. the "big" full backup is constantly updated locally once the retention policy is reached. Meaning the local *full* backup is changed/updated every day. So if this local/full is updated every day, then what your saying is that performing a Backup Copy of this job will *not* push this big ass file over the WAN 8) every day, rather it will use some magic sauce and reconstruct the offsite full backup via Synthetic Full?
Correct, but the synthetic merge is done by the service provider for you at the end of the job, the only traffic crossing the wire is the incremental data. You push the full file only on day1 (if you don't use seeding).
Luca Dell'Oca
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bitterloa
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Re: v9 Cloud Backup Best Practices

Post by bitterloa »

Wow! Just, wow. Luca thanks for bringing me up to speed. This is sweet news to me. It's amazing how much things have advanced just over the past couple of years. The new Veeam Cloud Connect seems to be 1000x better than v7's 'cloud edition'.

I guess my only issue now is deciding whether to keep using Reverse Incremental for my main backup, or changing to Forever Forward. I mean, so far Reverse Incremental has been working out great and I'm aware that it's more IO intensive but the backup window is OK for my use case...I'm leaning towards staying with Reverse. Currently I'm doing a compact/repair of my reverse vbk and when this is done then will setup a Backup Copy job to cloud storage of this reverse incremental. If you think it wise for me to switch to Forever Forward though, particularly because I will be pushing to cloud, please do let me know, I'm all ears. But it would be awesome if really it doesn't matter--that if Reverse Inc. is working for me locally then it's cool to use this as source for backup copy to cloud.

Thanks Luca!
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Re: v9 Cloud Backup Best Practices

Post by veremin »

The new Veeam Cloud Connect seems to be 1000x better than v7's 'cloud edition'.
That's actually a music to our ears. :)
But it would be awesome if really it doesn't matter--that if Reverse Inc.
For a backup copy job it really does not matter what backup mode is used by source backup job. So, feel free to keep using reversed incremental mode, if this is what you're after.

Thanks.
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