RIGHT WAY TO BACKUP OFFICE 365 Backups to Tape

[sdelacruz]

We recently purchased a Tape Library and have been moving my Veeam Backup files to tape.
I also want to move my Office 365 Backups Files but the O365 console does not have any settings on moving them to tape.

Can anyone point me out how can I move these files and also do I need to include the Database in case I need to restore and browse for old emails or mailboxes?

Thanks in advance.

Sam

[nielsengelen]

Is your VBO 365 server virtualized? You can back it up with VBR and afterwards put this backup on tape. Keep in mind VBR will notice it is a VBO server and offer restore option directly via Veeam Explorer for Exchange via the console.

[sdelacruz]

My VBO is also my VBR. I have a Tape library attached to it to move the Veeam Jobs to Tape Weekly.
I did not see the O365 Jobs when I configure a Tape Backup job.
Do I need to back up those O365 jobs as File Backups? Do I need to backup any DBs for O365 jobs?

[nielsengelen]

Correct, you will need to use a file to tape job if you have VBR & VBO on the same server. Just copy the VBO repository to tape and you should be good.

[pmansfield]

Kind of related to this, I've setup a File Copy job to take the O356 repo and copy it to a second B&R server in Azure.

When I run the job, I get the following error.
+++
10/11/2017 15:05:57 :: Failed to get file '\\?\Q:\O365\2014\adb.log'
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
Failed to open file [\\?\Q:\O365\2014\adb.log] in readonly mode.
Failed to open file [\\?\Q:\O365\2014\adb.log] for reading.
read: End of file

The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
+++
I've just pointed the copy job at the top level folder that holds the O365 backup files. Is there a better way to configure it?

[nielsengelen]

As I haven't tried it myself I guess the files are locked because of VBO. You can contact support for assistance here. I will do some tests as well but requesting help from support is advised.

[pmansfield]

I've raised it with support (02380530) and they say that it's expected for the log file to be locked by a VBO service. This makes it a bit difficult to backup the backup in order to follow the 3-2-1 philosophy.

[Mike Resseler]

Correct,

If your VBO server is installed on the VBR server, I suggest that you deploy a new VM (a proxy) and store the data over there. That will allow your VBR to backup that proxy (and the data) as a VM. The item-level recovery engine will even detect that the specific VM is a VBO VM and will allow you to directly run Veeam Explorer for Exchange on it.

Brgds,
Mike

[rweis]

@Mike Resseler When you say this:

I suggest that you deploy a new VM (a proxy) and store the data over there.

[rweis]

...continuing the above reply - couldn't edit the reply so here is the rest of it:

Are you saying to move the VBO repository (store the data over there)?
If so, what is the recommended way to do this?
The VBO is a VM. The VBR I am testing with a customer is a separate VM. These are in EC2. Customer would like to back up the VBO server to VTL, to satisfy compliance requirement. AWS VTL tapes are WORM by default, so he would be happy with this.
Right now, there is an agent on a test VBO VM and he backed that up, but the services were not running, of course.
Should we install VBR right on the VBO VM, connect to the VTL and back it up that way? A pre-job script could be run to shut down the VBO services temporarily, and post script to start them up again. This way, an agent would not even be necessary, since the VBR is doing backing up a file from itself. (Doing this with Community Edition now.)
Thoughts on this?

[Polina]

Hi Randy,

I believe that Mike's response applied to the scenario when both VBR and VBO servers were installed on the same machine. In such a situation, deploying a new VBO proxy and storing backups there will allow backing it up with VBR as a VM (which is recommended). (Existing VBO backups can be moved between the repositories with PowerShell)

Also, here's a good discussion on the same subject.