DR Testing in EC2 with AWS VTL

[jeff_work]

We are using Veeam B&R to backup our vSphere 6.7 environment. We backup to disk and also a secondary target which is an AWS Virtual Tape Library. We have been able to restore entire VMs from tape successfully, but now we want to test a disaster scenario where our entire data center is wiped out.

Here is our recovery test:
Setup and AWS EC2 instance and install Veeam B&R 10.
Restore Veeam Configuration files from backups (we store these in Carbonite).
Next, we want to use the EC2 server we just installed Veeam on to restore a VM from our Amazon Tape library. In order to access our tape library we need an AWS Storage Gateway, however, it seems we cannot have 2 storage gateways connecting to the same tape library. The documentation states in a DR situation, the original storage gateway must be disabled, and once disabled it cannot be enabled again. This all makes sense in a true DR situation where everything is wiped out, however in order to do a test DR situation, I want to simulate a disaster and not disable my the storage gateway in my LIVE environment just to do the test.

Does anyone know of a way to perform DR test using a AWS Tape Library without having to disable the Live storage gateway, establish a new DR site gateway, perform the restore test, disable the DR test gateway, and re-establish a new one back in live environment?

There are a lot of whitepapers on using AWS VTL with Veeam, but none on how to test that this solution actually working in a DR test.

[Dima P.]

Hello jeff_work,

I'd recommend to stick with the recommended 'disable' procedure to avoid all possible VTL conflicts. Cheers!