Veeam + Tape Backup + Long term backup

[dschrader@iu17.org]

Hello,

I have researched a solution for Tape Backups and I am currently going to try to implement Veeam + Symantec Backup Exec to do tape backups. My issue is that why should I use a third party solution in order to do tape backups?

My question is Veeam looking into including a tape backup add-in or built in program for tape backups? I know tape backups are being phased out (or at least they are trying to phase these out) but for a company that has already invested so much into tape backups and has bought a lot of tapes it is a very hard sell to get them to move away from them. And some servers have to be backed up by using tape as it is required by the state to have a backup of this data. For instance courthouses do not have a lot of extra money to buy external drives so they have to stay on what they are currently using. If Veeam cannot do tape backups effectively than we can not virtualize a server that needs to be virtualized because there is no good way of backing it up. Third party programs are good and all but Veeam knows what the .vbk files are and how to use them whereas other third party programs do not have a clue what this file is and it does not really care. It just backs it up and drops it.

What I am basically asking is:

1. Is Veeam looking to build a tape backup add-in into Veeam? (with this when we put a tape into the drive, we would tell Veeam to read the disk, and everything would come up in the Browser Window that Veeam currently has implemented.)
2. Would it be possible for Veeam to implement the tape backup idea into the backup job. So that I can tell the job that when it is done running to write the backup to tape. (maybe a schedule on when to backup to tape)
3. Implement in the history a Tape Backup spot so that we can see if the tape backup failed. Separate from the Backup history. Also, instead of just having the backup job say Failed possibly have it say backup failed and tape backup failed to let the user know right away what failed.

Also to expand on this into the new generation of technology, maybe also do something with external drives for long term backup. Veeam has a great way of backing up for both short term and long term but it is not feasible for some places that do not have a lot of money to spend on getting a backup server with enough hard drive space to backup for the amount of time that the state requires. (roughly 7 years for some things). This would allow those companies to buy a server with backup space for a few months and then use the tapes or external drives for the long term backup solution.

If I was looking at backup solutions I would think that this would be a very big selling point for me if I had a lot of tapes because I would want to use them and get some use out of them. If Veeam could implement a way to do long term backup in the form of tapes or external drives that is automated I would think that would be great for the company. Personally I do not want to add a third party solution into the mix. It just adds layers of complexity and it makes it harder to diagnose the exact error when you have to use two different products to do 2 tasks.

Thanks,
Dan

[Gostev]

My question is Veeam looking into including a tape backup add-in or built in program for tape backups?

Hi -- yes, we are certainly looking into it. Adding this feature is a high priority for us. Thank you.

[tfloor]

Cool, so you are working on a archive to tape solution ... Nice!

[dellock6]

Oh, this is a really interesting statement by Veeam!
I know Veeam has a release policy based on "It will come out when it is ready", but having tape management directly inside Veeam will allow customers to buy only Veeam without a second software for tapes. Great!

[Cokovic]

Great news. Hopefully i can get rid of BackupExec then

[cyberswb]

This is something we've long looked for as a reseller. When we engage with our SMB customers with virtualization we always try to get them to use Veeam, but nearly all have or want offsite capability, too, and that's clumsy and unreliable with HDDs (unless performed by someone half-smart on site regularly) but fairly trivial with BackupExec and a tape drive. Most of the time we get away with recycling an old copy of BackupExec they already had been using, but in some cases its not possible and its painful to try to sell two backup packages, although BE isn't too awful if you don't have to load it up with agents.

Native tape support in Veeam would be a godsend, both cutting the configuration overhead, cost and general complexity.

[dschrader@iu17.org]

Any idea when this would be released?

[cffit]

Every time I call into support for a case I bring up how nice it would be for VEEAM to include backup to tape. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a means to transfer the files to tape and pull back from tape. They never give me solid information, but in so many words they give me a strong impression that this will be coming out in the next full version. When that comes out, who knows? Maybe summer.

[Daveyd]

Integrating some type of tape backup functionality for archiving would be awesome!

[Andreas Neufert]

hi everybody ... please keep in mind that you need additional tape drives or a partitioned tape library for that. If you have an existing b2t solution it is cheeper to use this software together with the existing library. I love the possibillity to offload veeam backup files with the customers existing choice of legacy backup solution. In the forum and in our whitepapers you can find manny examples how to do that automatically. You can also use your legacy backup scheduler like ibm tsm or your enterpirse scheduler like tivoli workload manager to schedule veeam jobs. CU Andy

[lewish]

We use Robocopy and extract backup files based on a reverse date (number of days) and copy to an external Sata drive that is hanging off our Veeam server - it is a physical box. We run replication to an offsite DR site but use this method daily in the event that both Production and DR sites are hit with a disaster (both in the same town so an Earthquake/Tsnami could take them out) we have copies on site (stored in waterproof/fireproff safe) that can be taken to any external data/host supplier. We had to do a bit of scripting to make it automatic but runs well. We still need to do the odd check to ensure files are being backed up to external disk. Automatic "copying" would be great - save time in scripting.

[Andreas Neufert]

try to use our file copy jobs for that

[JasonC]

I would suggest you checkout LTFS (available on LTO-5 drives) I know at least IBM and HP have vendor implementations of this but the underlying LTFS technology is open.
LTFS will allow you to write backup files to tape without any additional software and make the Tape Drive appear as a Disk Resource. The speeds are generally pretty good too and faster than portable USB/eSATA drives.

For those who have tape drives less than LTO5, unfortunately you cannot use LTFS (as it requires wrap partitioning which is not available in < LTO5) and you will need to rely on backup software to read/write from your drive. If you have BE license just re-install it with basic options... (although IDR can be handy if your licensed for it). Otherwise there are other software like Backup Assist or Nova Backup which both have tape support. Personally if you have BE (even an older version) I would use it. Many of the enhancements in later versions have been in areas you would not use for simple backup jobs.

One benefit of using BE is that you can use it to backup your physical machines as well. If your using LTFS -BE then you might want to look at an imaging product like ShadowProtect or Acronis.

[habibalby]

hello,
I backup my jobs to tapes Friday Full Active Backup and Sunday-Thursday daily as incremental. Configured my Symantec backup to backup the repository as Daily, Weekly and monthly. All the jobs configured as Incremental in Symantec to pull the latest changes files in Veeam repository.

Retention period of deleted VMs from Disk set to 5 and Restore points to keep on disk set to 5.

Thanks,

[axelklos]

Hi -- yes, we are certainly looking into it. Adding this feature is a high priority for us. Thank you.

just saw that post .. great info and can't wait hopefully a good reporting tool will be integrated too.

[dennyparker]

Please god make this happen! Cant wait to loose BE.

[habibalby]

Hi,
Have a look in here; http://dailyvmtech.wordpress.com/2012/0 ... exec-2010/

[stuartmacgreen]

Good webinar.
http://go.veeam.com/webinar-backup-vano ... ckups.html

@52:17
"Is Tape Supported."
"No"
"It is planned"
"In the near term I can give you a timeline"

[sengelmann]

thanks for the information...this would be great...long archiving of virtual servers without second backup software

[Gostev]

Yes, we've been working on native tape support. We just have a policy of not announcing timelines until we are 99% sure we're going to deliver exactly what we promise, and when we promise - so that our customers can make firm plans based on that. And 99% probability is typically reached only about 3-6 months before the actual release.

[dschrader@iu17.org]

Will there also be long term backup to an external drive provided in this update?

[Gostev]

Our roadmap is to deliver every feature our customers request, and just like tape, this is one of the features that has been on the table for future releases. However, I am not allowed to discuss neither timelines nor feature sets of specific upcoming releases for a variety of reasons.

This type of discussions keep getting me into trouble internally. Apparently, anything I say can be, and will be used against me

[J1mbo]

But of course!

[Ric]

Afternoon guys,

Can you tell me if you are any nearer with tape support? I've checked through documentation on B&R 6.5 and can't see any reference to it as yet.

Regards

Ric

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Richard, tape support feature is scheduled for the next major version, which should be available next year. Thank you.

[zoltank]

Unless you're 100% virtualized, is tape integration all that important? If you're not 100% virtualized then you still have traditional backup to tape software, and they can dump Veeam backup sets to tape just fine.

[dschrader@iu17.org]

Your correct zoltank. But I think the goal of everyone that uses Veeam B&R is to get to a point where their datacenter is 100% virtualized. With the improvements that Veeam and other companies have made it is now realistic to virtualize everything. I currently have two products to do backups. Veeam to backup my virtual machines and DPM to backup my backup. Honestly taking a backup of the backup is not something I like doing. I would rather just have Veeam handle everything and be able to get rid of DPM all together.

[Shralok]

Your correct zoltank. But I think the goal of everyone that uses Veeam B&R is to get to a point where their datacenter is 100% virtualized. With the improvements that Veeam and other companies have made it is now realistic to virtualize everything. I currently have two products to do backups. Veeam to backup my virtual machines and DPM to backup my backup. Honestly taking a backup of the backup is not something I like doing. I would rather just have Veeam handle everything and be able to get rid of DPM all together.

Same situation and same desire. Looking forward to Veeam handling 100% of my backups.