Seeding data to an offsite repository (primary)

[Kitkat]

Hi Guys, I am hoping someone can help me pls.
Some of our sites don’t have local repositories and will be backed up over the WAN to a DR site. How can I create a seed job to usb?

There are numerous documentations around seeding and mapping but they are all under the assumption you have local backup that will be used to seed from. In my situation we won’t have a local backup, this seed will be raw data/VM.

Thank you.

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hi Kitkat,

- there is no way to seed from a raw data, it must be a backup of the VM with same MoRefID in meta.
- Ideally, you want to have a local backup and move it over to DR for seeding. Say, one-time portable USB drive or a NAS box.

1. Plug external disk to some site-local machine, add it to VBR server as Backup Repository and perform site-local backup(depending on virtualization platform and backup type it might make sense to have a site-local Backup Proxy too).
2. Move backup files by means of external disk to DR site Backup Repository. Copy files and Rescan Repository there.
3. Remap backup job to use DR Repository as target, Veeam will detect existing chain on DR Backup Repository and job will continue with incremental backup over WAN to DR Backup Repository.

/Thanks!

[Kitkat]

Thanks Egor, that helps a lot and makes sense.

[Kitkat]

Hey Egor, Once the usb arrives at DR, I simply copy the folder from USB to new repo and re-map the job to the newly seeded directory?

On a previous case we were told by Veeam this will only work to map a standalone agent backup, it will not work to map a standalone job.. confused...

[Mildur]

Have a look at this KB:
https://www.veeam.com/kb2849

It will work, but only if you add the usb disk and your agent as a backup repo as Egor told you.

If you are using agent backup directly to local target, it will not work. You have to create the backup job with targeting a backup Repository managed by your vbr server. In your case your usb disk

[foggy]

Right, in the case above, you can map the job to the repo containing the backups created by the same job and moved offsite - just don't forget to rescan the repository prior to mapping the job.

[Kitkat]

Would I be able to test this? It is going to take a month for USB to get to DR (redtape) so I wanted to test this..

1. I created a repo (usb) within VBR and backed up a couple of files.
2. I copied the data from USB to DR repo
3. From the backup job, I selected the DR repo and hit map backup. Here is where is fails... I can see the DR repo but I cannot select it and press OK. I suspect I need to rescan but since the USB is not at the DR site I may not be able to test?

Thanks.

[foggy]

You should be able to rescan the DR repo regardless of where the USB drive is physically located.

[Kitkat]

It worked.... I rescanned the DR repo and I was able to then select it.
Thanks for your help guys!