Isilon Snapshot used as the source for a Veeam Backup

[Don Rogers]

All,

Working with a Veeam prospect that has an existing Isilon with Snapshots and replication turned on. They use the snaps and replication as a rudimentary level of data protection, but are looking to add in a Veeam NAS backup job for the Isilon. They would like to use the existing Isilon snapshots as the source for the Veeam Backup jobs, but I can't find any details RE is this supported, and if so, how would the Veeam NAS backup job be setup?

[Andreas Neufert]

The Isilon integration will create own snapshots for integration and uses the Isilon change file tracking engine to detect the changed files and back it up.

Alternatively you can work without the integration and define an "Alternative Path" for the source of the backup and point it to a snapshot. You can work with scripts to schedule snapshot and mount them to the alternative path location as needed.

The idea is that you backup from the alternative path while restore goes directly into the original path.

[Don Rogers]

So, in my scenario, where the snapshots are already created by the Isilon, the scripts kicked off by the Veeam backup job would need to mount the existing snaps to the 'Alternative Path', and then backup from that mount point, correct? If that is the case, then Veeam would not be able to take advantage of the Isilon change file tracking for changed files (correct?), and the backup would essentially be a full backup every time?

[Andreas Neufert]

The alternative path backup was build for the idear to create snapshots with the scripts and mount the snapshots to a specific path that you then use as "Alternative Path" in Veeam. We would then detect changes there and backup those. Next run need to perform backup of a new snapshot with newer (changed) data.

If you want to use it for exisiting snapshots, you need to present those snapshots with the script or extern to a specific place that is used as alternative path. We scan and detect changes and backup them.

If you want to backup all your historic snapshots, then you need to make sure that you start with the oldest snapshots and go forward in the correct time sequence.