Object Storage Extract Tool!

[patrikcze]

Hi, sorry if this is already solved somewhere. However does anyone know if Veeam has or is planning to release some useful tool, which will be capable of download data from any object storage when needed? When I look into object storage structure it just complete mess and even Mr. RUBIK with his scientists team wouldn't be able to get this data back to normal VBK, VIB file which I can download and easily restore. The reason I'm asking is pretty simple, in case of disaster our Remote sites are managed from central VBR servers. Which might become unavailable or just simply you do not have access to corporate network. Long time ago, when tapes were in use no-one cared too much they just Brough them from safe put them in the library and tried to restore. In case of big disasters or ransomware attacks you do not have infrastructure ready which is capable to do any restores. From time to time is also very useful to use "Veeam EXTRACT tool" ... and if you have local copy in VBK, VIB format you are lucky. You just simply recover to your ESXi host and done. However cloud backups (object storage backups) are different beast. Those are total mess at least to me... And even your pretty intensive documentation on the structure does not really help to understand the structure of data https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120.

I've tried to find something, I also asked Artificial intelligence but I have found nothing.

Let's imagine the situation when VBR server is not available and you just need to get your backups, which you have also encrypted in the Azure BLOB. How can I get those backups back in readable format? It would be really nice if there would be available simple tool using some logic and basic Object Storage APIs let's call it "Veeam ObjectStorage Extract Tool" make additional "textbox" for password to decrypt backups. Woala nice!. If anyone knows about anything please let me know.

[wsmalesIII]

Hey!

I also asked Artificial intelligence but I have found nothing.

Well there's the first issue!

Veeam's interaction with object storage is quite unique compared to the rest of the product. The best way to describe it would be to imagine it like a file system. There are blocks ( .blk files ) and there is the metadata ( basically everything else ) that knows where to put the blocks to make a coherent restore point and keeps track of all the points. You're absolutely correct, you can't manually put this together. A lot of the metadata is just not readable, so you need to rely on VBR to get it all back down. Luckily, it's a pretty simple process.

In a DR scenario where a restore is needed and the main VBR server is down, you could:

1. Fire up a Windows Server
2. Grab the Veeam ISO
3. Install VBR
4. Add your Azure blob storage repository to the backup server
5. Right-click the blob storage and select "Import Backups" ( No need to add it to a SOBR to just restore )
6. Start the restores
7. When done, right-click the blob storage and select "Detach"

This is the fastest way to get the backups restoring. With a traditional SOBR on a DR backup server, you'd have to rescan and it could take quite a while. This way, the metadata is synced up pretty quickly, and it gets you going, usually within the hour. If you wanted, you could have a server set up with VBR but completely blank just sitting, turned off, as part of your DR plan to make this even quicker. I can't say when or if a tool like that would be coming and I haven't seen anything regarding it specifically. You're always more than welcome to request a feature, most of our product's features are based on community suggestions.

Let me know if there's anything I missed here, Ciao!

[patrikcze]

Many thanks for reply.
I understand that it would be really hard to programmatically get it all together (except those who make it). We already experience rescan processes which took several days. But still imagine situation where you lose all your data, including your hyper visor and you have to rebuild everything. And imagine situation where your architecture is setup in centralized style where more or less your infrastructure is built in DC and on remote you have just repo + proxy (which is gone). Yes it’s easy to bring it up like you described. Anyway we still have locations where the easiest way is just to provide data in most readable way to be able to restore. There are people who are not familiar with technology and trust me. Some of our sites were recovered with just simply providing vbk file and couple of instructions how to get them back to esxi with veeam extract tool …

We would probably extract data from object storage, using export backup on different instance of VBR, to Azure Files or something and provide just a link to files then.

[HannesK]

Hello,

We already experience rescan processes which took several days.

did that happen with V11, or V12? If that happened in V12, can you maybe provide a support case number for that? Because that should have been improved with V12.

Veeam Backup & Replication (community edition in worst case) is the "extract tool" for object storage. Yes, it takes some more clicks than the classic "extract tool", but with object storage things are more complex than a "VBK file". Programming a tool that does what VBR is doing for import would be re-creating VBR with reduced functionality. That makes little sense

Best regards,
Hannes

[patrikcze]

Happened with Veeam 11, I have to admit that Offload and also scan is much faster with Veeam 12 You did great improvements in that area.