Extending a Veeam backup for O365 Repository

[marieelieg]

Hello experts,

I have VBO v4 already installed and Exchange Online + SharePoint Online backups already configured and running for a while now. The current repository is a local directory on the VBO server itself. However, it is getting full and therefore we are looking to offload the backups to another location so that we won't have to delete older data.

I saw that we can extend the repository to an Azure blob storage (Object Storage). I have a few questions regarding this:
1- Will the most recent backups be stored on the local directory and the older backups be archived to Azure blob storage? Or will all the backups be stored in the Azure blob storage and only cache be stored in the local directory?
2- If all the backups will be stored on Azure, what will happen to the existing data in the local directory?

Also, let's say I want to offload the backups to tape (and not to Azure blob), I can create a repository for the local directory on a VBR server and create a file to tape job for it. However, I'm not sure what to do if I want to restore an item from tape. I'm not sure which files in the repository I will need to stage to disk in order to be able restore my needed item. Please advise.

Thanking you in advance.

[Polina]

Hi @marieelieg,

Extending to object storage works in a bit different way - you cannot extend an existing local repository which already contains the data; instead you'll need to create a new repository and associate it with object storage of your choice. Next, you can migrate (with PowerShell scripting) the existing data from your current local repository to object storage, point existing backup jobs to this new repository and continue to back up to this new location.

When object storage is the target, backup data goes there directly, and only metadata/small cache is stored locally. Here you can find more information on how it works: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbo36 ... tml?ver=40

To use tapes, the best would be creating a backup from the entire VBO machine using application-aware processing. VBR will identify that this is VBO and allow for application-item restore (with no need to restore the entire server). Check out this forum thread for more details: veeam-backup-for-office-365-f47/backup- ... 66049.html

Thanks!

[marieelieg]

Hello Polina,
Thank you for your reply.

Regarding the PowerShell scripting, do you have any scripts available for this manner?

Also, I read the second forum regarding the tape backup. In our case, the VBO server is a physical server so we will need the Veeam agent for MS. However, VBR and VBO are installed on the same physical server. Will that cause any problems/disconnections (mainly while creating/deleting the snapshot) for the VBR backup jobs/VBO backup jobs? If not and in our case, we will not be able to take the entire server as backup selection since it also contains the VBR repository, so what selection will be enough for the tape job?

Thanking you in advance.

[HangTen]

Hi! I found this post which is closely related to a project we are working on so I hope I can get some guidance on top of what was posted here.

*I would also be interested in finding out what scripts are available for migrating existing data to object storage.
*If we are moving from a repository with snapshot based retention to one with item-level retention would that data migration still work or would the jobs just do a full backup anyway?

Thanks in advance.

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Hin,

I don't think we have a script available (maybe @nielsengelen has one on his github repository...) but the powershell cmdlet is rather easy to use with a loop. See here: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbo36 ... tml?ver=50

For going from snapshot-based to item-level will not work I'm afraid, then it is better to start from zero and do a (controlled) full backup again

[nielsengelen]

Here are 2 scripts which you can look into.
VBO Data Manager (small UI to manage per user/site): https://github.com/nielsengelen/veeam-p ... anager.ps1
VBO Data Migrator (small UI to mass move data): https://github.com/VeeamHub/powershell/ ... O-Migrator