Secondary locations for Office 365 backups

[rscurrah]

Is there anything in the roadmap for secondary backups of Veeam Backup for MS Office 365 data, e.g. to tape or cloud?
We recently had problems with some data storage and were concerned we might permanently lose all our Office 365 backup data!

[nielsengelen]

Hi Richard, currently this is only possible if you have the backups running in a VM (by using VBR and a backup copy job or AWS/Azure integration). We are looking at possibilities for this but there is no timeframe yet.

[Mike Resseler]

Richard,

Niels is correct. My best practice is always to have the VBO server that handles the data (e.g: proxy, which could be the all-in-one server, or separate servers depending on your implementation, size, locations...) as a VM and use VBR to back that VM up. Then you can sent it to tape or other location. The good news is that VBR will recognize that backup as a Veeam Backup for MS Office 365 server and item-level recovery will work directly from that backup also

[CKESSLER]

Hello,

I'm also in the situation defining a second backup concept (prefered Tape).

I really like having VBR recognize the virtual VBO server and enhancing the restore options.

We have two storages, an expensive one for VMWare and an cheap one for Backup (both iSCSI).

I thought about three solutions, but all with withdraws.
(Let's asume I have about 5 TB O365 data to back up)

1. Virtual VBO on expensive storage
The VBO hosts also the repository and backs up the 5TB O365 data.
Then the phsical VBR backs up this 5TB VM to its cheap repository and then to tape.

Withdraw:
- It would fill up my expensive storage with about 5 TB of backup data
- I have the 5 TB twice (expensive and cheap storage)

2. Virtual VBO on cheap storage - Full VM Backup
I could create a own iSCSI volume on the cheap storage, mount it to the virtual VBO and use it as VBO Repository.
VBR backups up this VM to the cheap storage, but on a different volume, then later to tape.
Now I wouldn't use the expansive storage for Backups.

Withdraw:
- I have the 5 TB twice (cheap storage, but different volumes)

3. Virtual VBO on cheap storage - VM Backup with excludes
Same as solution 2, but in the VBR job I exclude the backup drive.
In this case I wouldn't use up 2x 5TB on the cheap storage.

To get the O365 Backups to tape, I could create a FileToTape job for the VBO repository

Withdraw:
- I guess restore process from tape is more complicated. I need to restore the VM (optional?), and the VBO repository files.
The VBO Repository files could be restored as a new temporary repository so that the original doesn't get overwritten.



I'm happy to discuss these solutions and maybe someone has comments.

Regards,
Chris

[Mike Resseler]

Hey Chris,

I would go for the #2 version in this case. I would consider this the cheapest and best way. If you still have tape, I would advise you to do a backup copy job of that VM backup to a tape (doesn't even has to be daily imho). Just as another precaution.

[nosignal]

Hello,

I'm also in the situation defining a second backup concept (prefered Tape).

I really like having VBR recognize the virtual VBO server and enhancing the restore options.

We have two storages, an expensive one for VMWare and an cheap one for Backup (both iSCSI).

I thought about three solutions, but all with withdraws.
(Let's asume I have about 5 TB O365 data to back up)

1. Virtual VBO on expensive storage
The VBO hosts also the repository and backs up the 5TB O365 data.
Then the phsical VBR backs up this 5TB VM to its cheap repository and then to tape.

Withdraw:
- It would fill up my expensive storage with about 5 TB of backup data
- I have the 5 TB twice (expensive and cheap storage)

2. Virtual VBO on cheap storage - Full VM Backup
I could create a own iSCSI volume on the cheap storage, mount it to the virtual VBO and use it as VBO Repository.
VBR backups up this VM to the cheap storage, but on a different volume, then later to tape.
Now I wouldn't use the expansive storage for Backups.

Withdraw:
- I have the 5 TB twice (cheap storage, but different volumes)

3. Virtual VBO on cheap storage - VM Backup with excludes
Same as solution 2, but in the VBR job I exclude the backup drive.
In this case I wouldn't use up 2x 5TB on the cheap storage.

To get the O365 Backups to tape, I could create a FileToTape job for the VBO repository

Withdraw:
- I guess restore process from tape is more complicated. I need to restore the VM (optional?), and the VBO repository files.
The VBO Repository files could be restored as a new temporary repository so that the original doesn't get overwritten.



I'm happy to discuss these solutions and maybe someone has comments.

Regards,
Chris

Hey Chris,

Just curious, did you end up with going with your 2nd option? If so, curious if you added the storage as an iscsi target on the VM, or to vSphere and store the data on a datastore/guest disk?

[Luca82]

Hi everyone, is it possible to "copyjob" an O365 backup which is stored in a local nas repository? I would like to copy job to an azure blob repository....

[HannesK]

Hello,
as of today, there is no "copy" built-in VBO.

As your database is located on NAS, I actually have no idea. That setup does not even allow easy backup, which is one of the reasons why I would avoid it.

Best regards,
Hannes

[CKESSLER]

Hey Chris,

Just curious, did you end up with going with your 2nd option? If so, curious if you added the storage as an iscsi target on the VM, or to vSphere and store the data on a datastore/guest disk?

Hello nosignal,
Sorry for my late response, just saw your message.

Well yes, I ended up with option 2. Not finally finished, but that's the plan.
Just a small adjustment: We decommission Tape backup and purchased a immutable S3 Object Storage for our Backups (Cloudian with Object Lock enabled).
All our VBR backups, including this VBO VM, are first created on the cheap repository, then immediatly copied to Object Storage. This is handled with an SOBR.