Duplicate tape

[rodrigo.catarino]

Hi all,

Is there a way to duplicate a tape used in veeam backups?
We are currently using Veeam 9.5 and the library is a IBM TS3200 with two drives.
Each drive is being used in two diferent systems, backups of Windows machines and backups of AS400 machines.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Rodrigo Catarino

[Shestakov]

Hi Rodrigo,
Do you mean copying all data from one tape to another or writing same data from disks on 2 tapes?
Thanks!

[rodrigo.catarino]

Hi Shestakov,

Lets say that I have a tape with backup from last month and I need to duplicate the information from that tape to another tape for archiving purposes.

Best regards,
Rodrigo Catarino

[Shestakov]

Tape to Tape operations are not supported. You may restore the information on disk and write it on another tape.
Is that one time operation or you do it often?
Thanks!

[rodrigo.catarino]

Hi Shestakov,

This would be a one time operation maybe once a year.

Regards,
Rodrigo

[Shestakov]

Thank you for the reply, Rodrigo!
As was mentioned, the only way is to restore and write data on another tape.

[Didi7]

Hello Shestakov,

tape duplication is a standard feature in traditional backup products for archiving puposes, sometimes used weekly, monthly or yearly, so consider it being widely used.

I know it's not supported in VBR, but it's an Enterprise feature and I am sure VBR wants to be considered an Enterprise products, as mentioned in Gartner's quadrant.

Consider it being a feature request.

Regards,
Didi7

[Shestakov]

Hello Didi7,
The request is taken into account. Thank you!

[ha_saqib]

Please add my request too for this feature.

[lalaith75]

Please add my request, too.

Do you know if there are any news about this since July?

Thank you!

[wishr]

Hi Lalaith75,

Thank you for the vote! It's noted.

Unfortunately, no new information we could share at this moment, however, we pay close attention to this FR. Please, stay tuned for updates.

Thanks

[Giacomo_N]

Hi Wishr, what do you mean with FR? Update 4 or next?

Thank you

[wishr]

Hi Giacomo,

Saying "FR" I meant Feature Request. Hope you understand we cannot comment on any future release plans/roadmaps/feature ETAs.

Regards,
Fedor

[Giacomo_N]

Hi Wishr,

ok, sorry, now I've understand and I've just read the U4 release notes.

Have a good day!

[wishr]

No worries, have a good day as well, Giacomo!

[Giacomo_N]

Wishr, Vicenza it's the city name

[Dima P.]

Hi folks,

Mind me to chime in. Instead of sharing + 1 please let us know how you would like to use this feature, as it helps the most.

Are you looking for the ability to copy old generation tapes to the new generation (basically migrate the tape media from one to another)? Or you see this feature as ability to write the second copy of tape media during the regular backup to tape/file to tape job run (to keep the identical data with the same retention but on separate media)? Thank you in advance!

[rm76]

My vote for tape duplication, as well!
It would be great if tape dup job will accept "number of pairs of drives to use" as a parameter.

Also, "create extra tape sets" parameter will be a great improvement for any general tape job, for example "create extra tape sets: 1" will create 2 media sets with same content during "backup to tape job", etc.

[18436572]

FYI We are considering a Quantum Scalar device, so I would add my voice to this FR. Tapes are a great way to build an "air gap" as well as a different media to store data (you know, the 3-2-1 concept).

Also we would use this to build an identical media library offsite. Our goal is to have onsite and offsite with the same datasets, that's very difficult to achieve

[Samba222]

Vote for tape duplication, +1 for migration Jobs (LTO5 -> LTO7) and +1 for simple duplication Tape to Tape Job

Thx!

[basic39]

+1 for copy old generation tapes to the new generation (basically migrate the tape media from one to another). By large amount of data it's impossible to use this workaround(restore the old tape to disk and write the data to a new tape). Some other Backup solutions(for example EMC Networker) support this feature.

[Dima P.]

Hello folks,

Thank you for sharing your feedback. I've added your votes to this feature request. Cheers!

[shweta]

Hi all,

Is there a way to duplicate a tape used in veeam backups? We already have backup in tape gateway in one AWS account, we wish to duplicate same backup in another aws account tape gateway.
Is it possible to achieve this using Veeam backup software?



Thanks in advance.

[wishr]

Hi Shweta,

Sure, you may use Tape Copy functionality.

Thanks

[shweta]

Hi wishr,

Thanks for your response , could you also help me to understand the initial steps needed to copy tape data from aws tape gateway in an aws account A lets say, to tape gateway in another account 'B' using Veeam backup application? Shall we import the backup into Veeam application first from Account A tape gateway and then copy to Account B tape gateway? Is it possible to connect to 2 different gateway IP's with Veeam application ?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Shweta

[Dima P.]

Shweta,

You would need to download the emulated tape media from Amazon to the local storage, then perform a tape copy to another amazon account using another instance of VTL.

Since you can install multiple gateway servers to emulate as many VTLs as you like, I'd rather run two independent backup to tape jobs pointed to VTL Gateway 1 for Amazon account A and VTL Gateway 2 for Amazon account B, that should cover the copy scenario and wont nor cost you additional downloads from Amazon.

Can also recommend StarWind Virtual Tape Library as good alternative to Amazon VTL, as under one StarWind deployment you can configure multiple VTLs and point those to different locations.

[shweta]

Hi Dima

Thanks for quick responses.

Can we copy our on-premise tapes backup directly to S3 object bases storage without using aws gateways using VEEAM.

After going through this blog , i got this idea.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/storage/us ... e-backups/

Please suggest if we can do that with few steps.

Regards,
Shweta

[Dima P.]

Hi Shweta,

Sure, you can copy or move backup files to object storage added as Capacity tier to a Scale-Out repository. Here is the guide for Scale-Out backup repository configuration. Thanks!

[shweta]

Hi,

Next query is can we move on premise tape backup to VEEAM repository from where we could use scale out backup repository to move it to S3?

OR

Can we restore tapes from AWS tape gateway to VEEAM repositories and then use scale out backup repository to move it to object based storage (s3) in another account?

Thanks

[Dima P.]

Hello and sorry for the delay, somehow missed your last post.

No unfortunately that wont work. You can restore backup files from any tape media (regular or emulated by VTL) to a regular or Veeam Scale-Out repository, such backup files will be marked as Imported and will be ignored by capacity tier offload procedure. Thanks!