M365 bakup data to tape

[adam900331]

Hy!

I will deploy an on-prem and M365 backup solution with Veeam. There will be a phisycal server and I will install the B&R and Backup for M365 software. I will have a tape library which connected direct to Veeam server. This server has many local disk for the backup files store. How can I archive the M365 backup data to tape? Are there any best practise?

Thanks.

[Mike Resseler]

You cannot do this with Veeam backup for Microsoft 365 directly. There are a few ways, and one our customers take the most is backing up the entire VB365 backup server with Veeam Backup & Replication and move that backup to tape.

[adam900331]

Ok, but what is your solution If the Veeam B&R and Veeam backup for M365 software is installed on the same phisycal Windows server?

[karsten123]

That is exactly the case, why it is not recommended.

[adam900331]

What is not recommended?

[karsten123]

… to install vbr and vbm on the same machine.

[adam900331]

Which Veeam document include this rule to not install the VBR and VBO on the same server? Is it not supported by Veeam?

I am thinking about the solution for the VBO backup to tape. Can I create a file to tape job to archive the VBO backup files?

[Mike Resseler]

It is supported, but not recommended. It is only needed when you are running Veeam Cloud Connect and VB365 and offer it as a service provider.

I assume you are using a JET DB repository for your backups? I have not tested the scenario with file to tape job and I think the biggest issue will be that it are running databases. So to get a file to tape backup, I assume you need to stop the VB365 service so those DBs are consistent

[adam900331]

Hy Mike.

Thanks, but what is the recommended configuration for th VBR and the VBO installation? We dont want to buy another phisycal server for the VBO, but we would like to archive the JetDB. Can you suggest a workaround?

[Mike Resseler]

I'm afraid I don't have a workaround. Does the VBO installation have to be at a physical server? Can it be a VM (if you are running a virtual infrastructure)

[dasfliege]

Hi Adam

- Install Windows Server on your physical server
- Install Hyper-V Role
- Create two VMs, one for B&R, one for VBM365
- Depending on what storage you use as repository, attach them accordingly either directly to the VMs or pass them through Hyper-V
- Backup the whole VBM365 VM with B&R and write it to tape. You can use the Hyper-V host itself as tape-server inside B&R, as you probably have your tape-library attached to the physical server anyway.

We do it this way for quite large environement. We even have seprate VMs on the same host for our Repos (ReFS / XFS). You will have some overhead in terms of CPU, RAM and Disk usage, but as long as your physical host is sized accordingly, this should not be an issue.

With Windows Server Standard, you can run up to 2 VMs for free. So you don't even need additional licenses.

[sogapex]

Hi, in my case, we went with storage object to achieve that =
- Veeam B&R and VBO on the same physical server
- New "MinIO" VM on production (S3 local storage object)
- VBO is pushing data on MinIO
- VBR is backing up the MinIO VM like any other VM (full, incremental, whatever we want)
=> veeam-backup-for-microsoft-365-f47/best ... 86189.html

[adam900331]

I'm afraid I don't have a workaround. Does the VBO installation have to be at a physical server? Can it be a VM (if you are running a virtual infrastructure)

Hy!

It will be a new deployment and the VBR and VBO should be the phisycal server. The virtual infrastructure doesn't include large free space for O365 data.

[bdaeumling]

You can run an agentbackup of you phsyical server to your repository and create then a backup copy of it to tape. This is pretty storage intense because of multiple copys of your jetDB (Repository of VB365). The size depends on your M365 environment. Maybe consider to use minIO and make an additional copy to an external storage. It is cheaper than you tink (example: wasabi.com) and you can add immutability(read only access) to your backupenvironment. Another strong argument is: Noone has to change tapes !

[mdiver]

We still see the demand to do secondary tape backups with M365 data with our customers quite often.
The workarounds to push M365 backups to tape are clumsy.
I would consider this a valid feature request.
Possibly in conjunction with VBR. But even this is cumbersome and prone to error currently.

[stevepogue]

We have VBO and VBR Essentials installed on the same Windows Server. We use VBR "File to Tape Bcckup" to backup the VBO repositories. Unfortunately after upgrading VBR to V12, Veeam now allocates 1 VUL for every 500 Gb of Unstructured data so you will have to acquire more VULs to backup this already Veeam VBO backup data. Depending on how much O365 data you have this could get costly.

[darcon]

"We have VBO and VBR Essentials installed on the same Windows Server. We use VBR "File to Tape Bcckup" to backup the VBO repositories. Unfortunately after upgrading VBR to V12, Veeam now allocates 1 VUL for every 500 Gb of Unstructured data so you will have to acquire more VULs to backup this already Veeam VBO backup data. Depending on how much O365 data you have this could get costly."

Not sure why I couldn't quote, but this is an issue for us too. We've been a customer since 2015 and are quickly getting priced out of the product. We already had to trim what we backup because of the socket change, now we get nickeled and dimed again with the File to Tape change which required more trimming. We already pay to backup our M365 data, then we have to pay again to back it up to our desired media (tape). Next, they're going to start charging us every 500gb of VBK's we backup to tape.

[Ben.online]

File to tape jobs should detect if the data to tape is Veeam data and if so should not charge that data.
As far as i know Veeam does not charge u with data created by Veeam, just like a VM in multiplejobs should only consume one license.

see tape-f29/v12-tape-costs-t80842.html

[Mildur]

We have VBO and VBR Essentials installed on the same Windows Server. We use VBR "File to Tape Bcckup" to backup the VBO repositories. Unfortunately after upgrading VBR to V12, Veeam now allocates 1 VUL for every 500 Gb of Unstructured data so you will have to acquire more VULs to backup this already Veeam VBO backup data. Depending on how much O365 data you have this could get costly.

This should be solved in Veeam Backup & Replication v12 CP2.
There was a bug which counted veeam backup files if they were added as files. Please check again after the upgrade to CP2.

Best,
Fabian

[adam900331]

Hy!

I have another question. When I backup the O365 backup files (JETDB) with File to Tape job, will it consume 1 instace for 500Gb in v12 version?

Thanks?

[Mildur]

Hi Adam

No, the VB365 file extension is excluded from license consumption:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

Best,
Fabian