Tape backups from offsite server?

[McKITGuys]

Hi all,

We have 2 sites, one in office and one offsite and VBR is installed on both. Originally all the backups were done from the in-office Veeam server and we backed up data from both sites to the onsite server and then from there, weekly to tape.

I have reconfigured this so that each site runs jobs to backup to the local repository and then backup copy jobs are used to send this data to the "other" site (so that if either site goes down, we have backups in each to fully restore on just one server).

But now my tape backups for the "offsite" data center no longer work. It does not produce an error but it just says "no backups found". So this is the onsite server doing the backups and I am thinking that the onsite server only looks in the onsite database and it does not reach across to the offsite server to pull backups into the tape job.

Should this be possible or do I have to do this some other way?

Thanks.

[McKITGuys]

Let me abbreviate and then suggest my own answer:

Site A server: backups
Site B server: backups and tape drive
Question: can Site B do a tape backup of both its own backup jobs and also Site A's backup jobs?

Findings: doesn't seem so: if I add the repository for Site A to the tape backup job, it contains no backups for Site A

Suggested reason: Site B does not read the backup catalog on Site A so nothing happens

Suggested solution: all backups need to be done by Site B as then the backup jobs are in the catalog on Site B and can be seen by the tape backup on Site B.

Does that sound right?

[Dima P.]

Hello McKITGuys,

Backup to tape jobs works only with backup files that have a tape job on the corresponding backup server, all imported backups are ignored (I assume your backups from site A are displayed as imported).

If you need to process backup files from another Veeam B&R server you can use file to tape jobs but that wont be such efficient as backup to tape due to backup files being modified periodically by the backup jobs (basically you may have backup file written by file to tape multiple times due to it's modification during merge process if your jobs are forever forward incremental).

Another idea might be to partition tape library and present two logical libraries to both of your sites. Then configure backup to tape jobs to these partitions at site A and site B respectively. Thanks!

[McKITGuys]

Hi,

If I were to partition the tape library (which is really a single stand-alone HP tape drive), are you saying that I could perhaps do the following:

- Site A (no tape drive):
- a tape job is set up at Site A with the source being the Backup jobs at Site A
- the tape job runs but the tape target is at Site B
- the tape job does not eject the tape when done so that it sits waiting for...

- Site B (with the tape drive):
- at a later time than Site A it runs a tape job
- that appends to the same tape a second tape job
- then the tape is ejected as done for the week (weekly backups)

Does that sound right if I can figure out how to partition the tape library as you mentioned?

[Dima P.]

Partitioning works for a library with multiple slots/drives, I am afraid for standalone drive that's not going to work.

Does that sound right if I can figure out how to partition the tape library as you mentioned?

That will work without partitioning: add the drive to Veeam B&R's Site A and use it for jobs from Site A.

[McKITGuys]

Thanks.

Would Enterprise Manager handle this better? Have not yet set that up.

That is, if EM were set up, would it allow me to pull backups to a tape job from either site? i.e. does it have more capability to read backup logs on both sites?

[Dima P.]

McKellar,

Enterprise Manager adds additional visibility for your backup infrastructure, allows to monitor backup activity across multiple backup servers and perform file level recoveries from multiple sites. On the infrastructure level it does not change anything for tape connectivity or tape processing. Thanks!