We are migrating our servers to Azure and rolling out v12 simultaneously.
We're backing up directly to object storage for both short and long term storage, with GFS policies.
One storage account with two different containers; one hot and one archive.
Storage account is LRS.
Both containers have immutability enabled.
Roughly 8TB of data.
Questions:
Is it recommended best practice to enable immutability for ALL backups? Short term and archival?
Our main concern is recoverability while archival is less important. No compliance requirements, etc.
Cost is somewhat of a concern. If I set 3 years of immutability, do I have 3 years worth of daily's sitting in object storage?
When backing up Azure VMs, are backups immutable for entire GFS period? Or just the duration enabled in the daily section? This message is confusing "The created backups will be immutable for a period based on the backup policy schedule with the daily retention flag. Do you want to proceed?"
Originally planned to have archival backups in a different region but transaction costs were getting high. Would RA-GRS be an alternative for redundant copies?
We receive a notice that blob has versioning enabled and will result in higher transactional costs. Can anyone explain why?
One usually configures a few days immutability on the repository (less than daily retention at least). GFS restore points are immutable for the entire period in V12 (not V11). Daily backups will be removed according to retention (except one sets longer immutability than daily retention which leads to warnings then).
Yes, RA-GRS can be used.
If you could copy & paste the exact message, one could probably answer what it means.
Here is the versioning message ""Blob versioning" setting is enabled. There will be additional costs when using this type of repository."
So, if I wanted a little more control of managing archival storage size, I could in theory do the following:
-Configure Daily backups for 30 days to a target repository with immutability turned on. Production backups will be immutable for 30-40 days.
-Configure Monthly and Yearly backups to a target repository WITHOUT immutability turned on. This would give me the ability to delete backups should storage size get out of control.
Or for maximum protection, I could:
-Configure daily backups AND monthly/yearly backups to immutable storage. But backups are impossible to delete until retention period expires.
For clarification:
-When performing a monthly or annual backup, Veeam takes a current snapshot and performs a backup on the snapshot. It's not just a copy of a current daily or weekly backup, correct?
Hello,
hmm, I do not get that message. Did you configure the storage account according to https://www.veeam.com/kb4416?
That's the two options you have, yes. Plus you could use separate Azure accounts to spread the risk of misconfigurations (e.g. accidentally 99 years retention). Immutable cloud data can be deleted by cancelling the whole subscription / contract with the cloud provider (that's a general thing. Not specific to Azure)
I'm not sure what the last question means. The defined restore point (let's say "last") will be retained for the defined time. Example: 31.12. will be retained for 6 months till 30.06. GFS restore points are "logical fulls". That means the software keeps all objects that are needed for the 31.12.. It does not create a full copy every week / month etc. because that would be waste of space.
One usually configures a few days immutability on the repository (less than daily retention at least). GFS restore points are immutable for the entire period in V12 (not V11). Daily backups will be removed according to retention (except one sets longer immutability than daily retention which leads to warnings then).
Is that means no matter how many days I configured the immutable days in the object storage in the V12. the GFS will always immutable for the entire period in V12. For example, I configured the backup copy jobs with object storage immutable days to 4 days. so it will be immutable for 10+4=14 days. retention policy set to 7days. GFS weekly keeps to 4 weeks. monthly keeps to 6 months, yearly to 2 years. in this case. daily immutable will be 14 days and restore point would be 8. GFS immutable would be 4 weeks and 6 months and year would be 2 years.
If yes, is this valid both for directly to object storage and capacity tier. also, is there difference if the job type is backup job or back copy jobs.
Sorry to jump on the thread, but does that mean that if we have an Azure capacity tier set for x days (say 20 days), but a GFS weekly for 6 weeks, the GFS is ignored entirely?