HELP!! Backup Repository Retention + Backup Job Schedule

[n2v]

Hello,

I'm currently tasked to setup Veeam for Office 365 and was given instructions to have the following retention policy:

Backup Daily for 31 Days
Backup Monthly for 12 Months
Backup Yearly for 7 years

In order to achieve this I was going to create 9 repositories (keeping items individual / tidy):

mailbox_daily
mailbox_monthly
mailbox_yearly
onedrive_daily
onedrive_monthly
onedrive_yearly
sharepoint_daily
sharepoint_monthly
sharepoint_yearly

Now, im lost, because A) I cannot choose a yearly retention on a specific date and B) I'm thinking the above scheduling should be done at the Backup Job level not at the creation of a Repository?!

Advice would be much appreciated to get my head round Repository vs Backup Job and scheduling

Thank you

[n2v]

Example solutions would b great. After further reading, am I right in thinking VBR is best copying the Backup Reposotory files from the VBO server and placing them else where once a month / year etc?! Thanks

[Mike Resseler]

Hey Andrew,

What you are trying to achieve is something which is a bit more difficult with VBO. I understand that you received this task, but what is the requirement when it comes to restores? Do you need to be able to restore data from SharePoint from 1 year, 2 years, 3 years ago from a specific point in time? The backup you are doing is not a VM so as long as you have that data from 1 year, the restore will be done to the current setup of SharePoint. You don't need to restore an "operating system and application".

That said, for your case, there are most likely 2 possibilities:

1. Set the retention to item-level
This means that, if you choose a retention level of (as example) 7 years, each item that has a modified (changed) date younger than 7 years will be in your backup at all times. This might already be a solution depending on what the exact SLA requirement is

2. Set the retention to snapshot-based
Which is like you probably do today for on-prem VM backups. In that case, you might want to set the retention date to 31 days. After that (run your VBO server(s) as a VM) use VBR server to protect those servers (you will also notice that this backup through VBR will recognize it is a VBO server and will give you Item Level Recovery possibilities) and go from there to achieve what you need

Hope it helps
Mike

[n2v]

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the response.

Need to resolve something first if you may, please. I installed VBR 9.5 update 4 on the same server as VBO v.2

The Explorer doesn't work anymore! Is it best to flatten everything and just install VBO v.3 (I'm assuming it is the full working version and not BETA AND has newer features that might help with a possible solution) and then go from there?

It would be great if you could better explain the retention at backup repository level too if you have time please? I notice you dont set a policy on the VBR

Thanks
Andrew
ps. the software automatically knows the difference between Item-level and snapshot based? as I didnt have an option to set it.

[Polina]

Hi Andrew,

First, you need to update VBO to version 3.0 to resolve the compatibility issue with VBR 9.5 Update 4. Also, before installing VBO v3 make sure you have .NET 4.7.2 installed, as it's required.

Next, the two different retention types - item-level and snapshot-based - are introduced in the new version 3.0. Item-level type essentially is the default retention option provided in VBO 2.0, and it's based on items' modification date. The new snapshot-based retention is similar to the VBR-like retention which you're familiar with.

Unlike VBR, in VBO, retention applies to a repository - not to a backup job. Thus all backup jobs pointed to a certain repository will have the same retention type and period. You may want to read the documentation for more details on VBO retention.

Thanks

[n2v]

Thank you Polina

So, since I it only a test envirnoment at the moment, it is best to remove VBO V.2 and then Install VBO V.3 + the dotNET tool. Will my 30 day Evaluation License still work? (now on 28days).

Also, like the post here: veeam-backup-for-microsoft-office-365-f ... 56181.html

This person has asked of a similar backup procedure which I would like to have. Can this solution be put in place? and what is the best way of going about it please?! assuming I may have to include VBR

Thankyou
Andrew

[Polina]

Andrew,

There's no need to remove the 2.0 installation, you can simply upgrade the solution as described in the Release Notes or in the User Guide. Your Evaluation License must be added to the new installation automatically.

Now, if you need daily restore points that are stored within the required retention period (whether it's 31 days, 12 months or 7 years), you can do it with VBO. Backup job will be scheduled to run daily and will be pointed to a corresponding repository with a retention policy set, for example, to 31 days. With snapshot-based retention type, you’ll have an entire object backup (i.e. entire mailbox) and daily restore points for the last 31 days. With item-level retention type, your backup will include items modified within the last 31 days and daily restore points the same timeframe.

If you additionally need monthly or yearly backups, as Mike suggested above, you can use VBR to back up your VBO VM(s) with application-aware processing.

[n2v]

Hi Polina,

Since we last spoke. I have removed VBO Version 2.0 and installed Version 3.0 onto our Azure Backup VM.

1) Backup Proxy and Repositories are on the same VM

2) I Ran a backup job for the Entire Organisation on 9th April @ 10pm into one Repository. It is still going now (11th April 11am), only having moved 372GB with many errors (Mail Item data export failed. Unable to read data from the transport connection....)

3) We are having Bottleneck issues at Source and Target.

On a side note, I have installed VBR 9.5 on the same VM, as we also want to Backup the Azure VMs too!!

I can guess that our current setup is not sufficient and some configuration changes / extra servers maybe needed ?!

Thank you

[nielsengelen]

Could you give some more insight on the resources assigned to this Azure VM in terms of CPU/memory/disk types?

[n2v]

Hello Niels,

The VM is Azure Standard A4 v2 (4 vcpus, 8 GB memory) with Standard HDD.

Thanks
Andrew

[Polina]

Andrew,

A4 v2 is the minimum configuration for a VBO server. If you have VBR installed on the same machine as well, there's likely not enough resources to run the two servers.

I'd also suggest you open a case with our support team to let them fine-tune your installation and investigate the errors you get with VBO backups. Please also take a minute to share your case ID here for tracking.

Thanks