backup strategy and long term retention

[aantoniani]

Hi colleagues, I would like to ask for your your opinion and suggestions on how to implement a backup solution.

We are currently backing up about 70 virtual machines with Veeam and the size of a full backup is about 20 TB.
Current retention is as follows:
30 days of daily backups
12 months of monthly backups
2 years of yearly backups

Until now, we have done this by keeping 30 daily backups (Reverse Incremental) online in our Veeam repository and once a month we copy a full backup to tapes. Tapes are saved and kept for 12 months. Last tape of the year is kept for 2 years.

Now we want to do the same, but keep the whole rotation online readily available, because restoring data from tapes is very time consuming and does not meet recovery time objectives. This is simple, we just need to have a repository with enough capacity (incrementals and periodic active full backups).
Adding to that, we want to keep the monthly and yearly backups offsite, being that a storage in a different office remote to the datacenter, or an online provider.

What would you suggest to implement?
Backup copy, Cloud Connect, Virtual Tape Libraries, anything else? We are available to any solution.
What would need to be the size of the storage for the solution you are proposing, size of a full backup multiplied for the number of retained copies or less (maybe incrementals with periodic active fulls)?

Thanks in advance, Alessandro

[Dima P.]

Hi Alessandro,

Fist you need to decide where you want to keep these offsite backups and then you can go with the technology around it.

- Storage at another location with decent connection to the main site > create another repository and use backup copy.
- Storage at another location but slow links and connectivity issues > Cloud connect together with WAN acceleration & Backup copy (such approach also works for the fist case). That would require you building your own Cloud Connect infrastructure.
- Storage of the service provider. If you don't want to build your own Cloud Connect infrastructure you can use of one the Veeam Service Providers.
- Cloud storage with Tape VTLs. Basically, you can configure the virtual tape outs to Amazon (take a look at StartWind VTL ).

Hope it helps, cheers!

[foggy]

For space calculation, use this tool.

[aantoniani]

Dima, thanks for the suggestions.

What pros and cons do you see in the use of backup copy as opposed to a backup job when targeting a remote storage like a Cloud Connect infrastructure or provider?
Is it correct to assume that a backup copy will always create copies of a full backup while normal backup will be fulls and incrementals, thus consumnig less storage space?
Can you see any other advantages or disadvantages between the two?

For space calculation, use this tool.

Very nice, thanks!

[Dima P.]

Direct backup to the cloud repository:

- slow links will affect the backup/restore performance
- you don't have a secondary copy of your data: if something goes wrong at that site - you will lose all your backup files

Backup copy to the cloud repository:

- you don't care about connection: backups are created locally and then copied by backup copy job, you have a local copy to perform fast recovery anytime you need
- you have a secondary copy of your data: you are protected against the total disaster within one of the sites
- you pay with double storage requirements