Showstopper for Migration from BENT to VEEAM B&R Std

[pacegmbh]

Hi VEEAM Team,

we've been using VEEAM for a couple of years now and to be honest, we really love your product.
After not having dealt with VEEAMs tape library support until today, I started playing around with the features VEEAM standard has got according to tape backup.

At present we're still using a double strategy.
1. Agent based Backup Exec backups to tape. A couple of tapes are remaining in the 24 slots autoloader. One tape with the full backup of each week gets removed on Monday to be stored on a remote site.
2. VEEAM to disk VM backup. Backups are beeing stored on backup server and remote on a Synology Diskstation.
3. On Sunday Backup Exec stores two VEEAM backup repositories each on one tape. Both are then removed from the library on Monday to be stored on a remote site.

Because it is a hassle to work with two backup systems, there a lots of licensing fees to be paid and because of problems by means of backup timing, I'd like to streamline our backup solution to one driven by VEEAM only.

But today I learned VEEAM B&R Standard doenst support partitioning of tape libraries. So I looks like I'd loose my ability to remove tapes on a weekly basis.Or have you got an idea how to workaround this lack of functionality?
And one more thing. What's the trick to unlock the library (TL2000). After performing some tests, I haven't been able to unlock the library again. (Library tells: Library is locked by host system). In Backup Exec one would simply click on the library and perform an unlock request. Where do I find an equivalent in VEEAM?

Brgds,
John

[Dima P.]

Hello John,

But today I learned VEEAM B&R Standard doenst support partitioning of tape libraries. So I looks like I'd loose my ability to remove tapes on a weekly basis.Or have you got an idea how to workaround this lack of functionality?

Veeam B&R does support partitioning – once tape library is partitioned thru the library UI both logical libraries should be displayed in the VBR console and should act like a separate devices.
Could you please elaborate on this one – how partitioning behavior is related to the removing tapes on weekly basis ability?

After performing some tests, I haven't been able to unlock the library again. (Library tells: Library is locked by host system).

Yes, Veeam tape service lock the library due the rescan operations, but you can disable rescan completely by pushing this registry key. Please refer to this article: Prevent Veeam from locking tape drives. Thank you.

[pacegmbh]

Hi Dmitri,

it looks like I didn't explain my problems good enough for you to understand.
Yes, VEEAM supports partitioning, if it has been done at the tape library.
BENT support logical partitioning. So even when you've got only one drive in your library you can have as much partitions as you've got slots in your lib.

Today we've got five partitions:

• Slot 1 - VEEAM Offsite 1 - Tape gets removed every week and is stored offsite
• Slot 2 - VEEAM Offsite 2 - Tape gets removed every week and is stored offsite
• Slot 3 and 4 - BENT Offsite - Tape gets removed every week and is stored offsite
• Slot 5 to 23 - Onsite BENT Diffs and Fulls
• Slot 24 - Cleaning

What I'd like to achieve with VEEAM is:

• Slot 1 - VEEAM Offsite 1 - Tape gets removed every week and is stored offsite
• Slot 2 - VEEAM Offsite 2 - Tape gets removed every week and is stored offsite
• Slot 3 to 23 - VEEAM OnSite
• Slot 24 - Cleaning

If you've got ideas how to achieve that I'd be happy to hear about.

Brgds
John

[veremin]

Currently it's not possible to tie tape job to a specific slot or pool of slots. The only way to achieve what you are after is to partition tape device, using library native functionality, and present it as multiple devices to VB&R.

Thanks.

[pacegmbh]

Hi Vladimir,
that's sad to hear. Have you got an idea how to workaround this lacking feature?
What do you tell your customers how to perform tape backups with the ability to store tapes offsite?

Brgds
John

[veremin]

As long as library supports partioning, you can split a library into multiple devices and point different tape jobs to them. Also, we will add vault functionality in version 8 that should make management of offline media easier.

Thanks.