Backup Directly to Tape

[Poweruser]

we dont want any disk backup, just tape only!
yes disk is usefull but it is too expensive to keep all vms there and at least 2 times during backup.
especially if there are 2 different jobs for the same vms.

1 offline backup 1 online vss backup job.
nearly same data, but wasting double hdd space.
but go to different tapes.
so i want to keep one series there only.

[Shestakov]

I've got your point.
The request is taken into account, thanks!

[titan4]

Good day!
We also really need the function for direct backup from the RMAN plugin - to the tape library. We do not have extra space to store backups on disks. Tell me please, should we wait for such a function or switch to software from another vendor?

[wishr]

Hi Ulan,

We hope you understand we cannot comment on future release plans, product roadmaps, and timelines, however, in this particular situation I can mention that there are no short-term implementation plans for "direct RMAN to tape" functionality.

Regards,
Fedor

[baber]

Is that possible create a job that can directly reside backup on TAPE and don't copy them on repository directly send to TAPE

[wishr]

Hi Babak,

No, currently there is no way to send backup directly to tape. Please review the above posts for additional information.

Thanks

[andrii.shagov]

Dear support,

Looks like it's been almost 5 years since this feature was requested, and is still highly demanded. Do we still have no news/hightlights/anything that can make me believe I did a right thing chosing Veeam?

Regards,
Andrii Shagov

[Gostev]

Hi, Andrii. Unfortunately, this capability is not planned for delivery in the foreseeable future, as our focus here at Veeam is D2D backups. Thanks!

[Poweruser]

It would be easy to realize this function.
especially if you dont have a NAS in your system and just one server only.
thats the usual way to backup to tape only.
at least veeam could add a quick hack by allowing to keep 0 (zero) instead of 1 (one) last backup in local repository. so we would waste much space temporary but just per backup.
this should be realized very fast without much work for veeam.

[shehanj369]

We have an infra which having 4 physical servers and need to backup to tape. Backup data will be SQL BD files and some files (no VMs). So as previously mentioned can we go for files to tape directly with out D2D2T?

[Dima P.]

Hello Shehan,

This thread is mainly related to vm/agent backup to tape without staging the backup file to a repository. If you need to backup specific files to tape, then yes you can do that today via File to Tape jobs in Veeam B&R. Cheers!

[Poweruser]

Veeam is aware, that this wish could use much time of their programming team.
What i suggest is:

Just keep the process as it is, but set the last kept backups to zero instead of 1 so the latest (1) backup in repo will be deleted directly after backup.
this will help much!

[Regnor]

@Poweruser: Every backup would result in a full backup which takes it time and you would always have the same amount of backup data on your disk. Wouldn't it be better to do forever incremental with 2 restore points in that case? You'll get fast backups, fast restores (from the last 2 runs) and a minimal storage consumption.

[Poweruser]

Here is the Use Case:

I do Mo-Fr Backup on Tape "Online" VM.
And i do an monthly Backup "Offline" VM. (powered off)

Both consume double space, because the Data is nearly the same.
So it will waste double space. its right, for just one backup, deleting data wouldnt be an effort.
But i run very low at disk space if i have everything on the same VM Host machine.

All Production VMs + Host VM OS + Full VM Backup Online + Full VM Backup Offline + VM Host Backup. So the space grows far too fast.

[Regnor]

Are online and offline VMs the same virtual machines? If so, can't you backup those with the same job?

[Poweruser]

yes same VMs.

Sometimes an online or an offline backup is better.
online forces exchange etc. to purge the logs, run jobs etc.
offline is more secure.

also they run onto different tapes.
online mo-fr and offline once a month.

[Regnor]

So why are you utilizing two backup jobs instead of a single job? You can add a single backup job to multiple tape jobs.

[Poweruser]

One Job is Offline Backup to Tape run manually
1. do offline backup VMs then after 1. is finished backup vm host machine then backup it all to tape.

Another Job runs every weekday mo-fr
1. do online backup VMs then after 1. is finished backup vm host machine then backup it all to tape.

a) there are different methods of how the backup is made
b) they are concatenated
c) they use two different sets of tapes.

maybe a simple script could help like this pseudocode:

after backup job run script.pseucode:
deletefolder \veeam\repo\job1\*
veeam.refresh repo

sth like this.