Veeam Backup Cloud Edition - Long term storage ?

[Aggi]

In the newly released Veeam Cloud Edition, is it possible to keep backups longer on the Cloud storage than in the local repository ?

I have read the quick start guide and whatever else I could find, but did not find anything about this. In the video demo, however, the presenter mentions "long term" and "pruning of backups2 so that suggests it is possible to have longer retention periods in the cloud. If so, then this could replace tape for many customers.

[chrisdearden]

It looks like you can set some quite advanced pruning options - at the most basic you can prune a backup x number of days after it has been pruned form the local repository.

[Vitaliy S.]

is it possible to keep backups longer on the Cloud storage than in the local repository ?

Yes, you can do it. Cloud edition has its own retention policy that is applied to the cloud storage.

[bradclark]

I've used Cloudberry for a long time and this looks like the exact same product. Is that the case?

[Gostev]

No, it is not the same. UI is almost the same, but upon a closer look, you will find slight differences in the available options, plus some internals have been modified to accommodate this particular use case. Original CloudBerry product was simply never designed for handling large backup files reliably. Basically, they considered 10GB file to be "large" when building the product, as they had a totally different use case in mind.

[cparker4486]

Gostev,

1. But it is licensed from them, no?
2. I'm also a CloudBerry user but I have yet to use it for Veeam backups. Is it correct that your recommendation for existing CloudBerry users is to have Veeam's implementation replace the original?

[Gostev]

1. For the sake of simplicity, consider this as licensed from them, yes. Although, as I've explained, this is not just simple rebrand of CloudBerry product - and generally, relationship between Veeam and CloudBerry is much more close than simple OEM. I am just not sure what I am allowed to say in the public domain regarding this part.

2. Correct. You should go with Veeam Cloud Backup. Technical reasons aside, this way you will also be getting support on this functionality directly from Veeam.

Thanks!

[bradclark]

I'm an Enterprise license customer. I installed the AddOn and it says I'm not licensed to use it. Is this something additional I need to purchase then?

[Gostev]

Yes. You need to license Cloud Edition to get access to this functionality. This new product edition is what we have released today. There is Licensing and Pricing FAQ at the bottom of the Cloud Edition web page.

[bradclark]

I don't mean to be a pain, but I read the FAQ and just have a few questions still.

1. Does the cloud solution support Backup only or Backup and Replication? For example can I do Replication using this to Amazon S3 and fire up the replica using EC2 or should I look into the AWS Gateway solution for this?
2. Is what is stored in the Could just a copy of the VBK, VIB, VRB image files then?


Thanks,
Brad

[bteichner]

In one of the screenshots for "Create Backup Plan Wizard" it shows "File System" as an option in the Cloud Storage provider list. Does this mean you can point these backups to your own "internal cloud storage"? We are currently using a combination of NetBackup (for retention policies) and ExaGrid (for offsite replication/storage). If we can possibly take NetBackup out of the mix, this may be a better approach for creating offsite copies of our Veeam backups.

Thanks

[tsightler]

1. Does the cloud solution support Backup only or Backup and Replication? For example can I do Replication using this to Amazon S3 and fire up the replica using EC2 or should I look into the AWS Gateway solution for this?

This tool is specific to backup. You cannot simply replicate VMs to S3 and then run them in EC2, even with AWS Gateway (at least as far as I know). There is a VM import/export function for AWS.

2. Is what is stored in the Could just a copy of the VBK, VIB, VRB image files then?

Yes. It's a simple GUI tool used schedule automatic copies of your onsite backups and replicate them to cloud storage for offsite and long term retention and safekeeping.

[cparker4486]

There is Licensing and Pricing FAQ at the bottom of the Cloud Edition web page.

I don't see pricing anywhere. Can you provide a link?

[Lunddahl]

I have two questions.

1. Is there any integration to the main VBR product, so that "Moving files to the Cloud Service" is not done when backup jobs is modifying the same files.

2. Is the amount of data transferred "deduplicated" in any ways, so that i can use Reverse Incremental for local storage and only have the changed blocks in the VBK files transferred over the internet connection ?

- Ulrik Lunddahl

[Gostev]

I don't see pricing anywhere. Can you provide a link?

Pricing depends on the region. Please contact your preferred Veeam reseller for a quote.

[cparker4486]

It's very confusing. Why does everything have to be an edition? The way it's being presented makes it sound like a completely different product.

[Gostev]

1. Is there any integration to the main VBR product, so that "Moving files to the Cloud Service" is not done when backup jobs is modifying the same files.

Locked files cannot be moved regardless of integration. But yes, there is integration, for example Veeam Cloud Backup sessions will appear in B&R history.

2. Is the amount of data transferred "deduplicated" in any ways, so that i can use Reverse Incremental for local storage and only have the changed blocks in the VBK files transferred over the internet connection ?

There is no deduplication. At this point, this is just a simple, no-frills solution for small shops to automatically and periodically backup Veeam backup files to the cloud. So much easier than having to carry external hard drives home every weekend. Of course, we are planning on extending functionality based on feedback, if there is sufficient demand.

[Gostev]

Why does everything have to be an edition?

Because the Cloud Edition, just like all the other cloud things out there, has a different licensing scheme (subscription based licensing). Basically, just a business decision.

[bradclark]

The offering looks very interesting. I will have to crunch some numbers though.

Our topology is a standalone physical server with Veeam B&R running the Proxy and Local Repository doing direct SAN over 10GBe. The images take up around 3 to 4 TB of space. We also do Replication out to a DR site of critical VMs as well. The physical Veeam server has a Dell Autoloadre LTO-4 unit which backs up once a week and we ship the tapes off to Iron Mountain with a Weekly (3-4 weeks) and Monthly (1 year) rotation of tapes. This gives us 3 copies of data. One on the physical backup server, one at DR site as Replication and one as tapes of the backup server.

We could eliminate tape with this solution, but the only concern I would have is the ability to handle data over the wire in terms of backup and restore. All 5 of my jobs are a weekly synthetic of 2+ TB and incrementals the rest of the week with a 5 day retention on them. I know we could save money with solutions like Amazon Glacier versus Iron Mountain, but will I be able to get the backup images out there to the cloud in a decent amount of time and also meet RTOs when it comes to recovery "IF" I ever need the images. Instant Recovery with the physical server is recovery option #1 and the replication to our warm standby site is option #2. The tapes are simply if everything else fails we still have a safe copy of data offsite.

[Lunddahl]

Locked files cannot be moved regardless of integration. But yes, there is integration, for example Veeam Cloud Backup sessions will appear in B&R history.

I had hoped for a little more technical answer, like when a backup job is done, this happens, and if the job wants to start again before the data i moved to the cloud, this happens ?

There is no deduplication. At this point, this is just a simple, no-frills solution for small shops to automatically and periodically backup Veeam backup files to the cloud. So much easier than having to carry external hard drives home every weekend. Of course, we are planning on extending functionality based on feedback, if there is sufficient demand.

From: http://www.veeam.com/news/veeam-backup- ... ition.html

"Backups to the cloud are compressed, deduplicated, and protected with up to AES 256-bit encryption."

I'm confused, is this really an intelligent way of replicating the local backup repository to a Cloud Service, or is it simply a "braindead" scheduled "robocopy" from repository to cloud. ?

- Ulrik Lunddahl

[Gostev]

simply a "braindead" scheduled "robocopy" from repository to cloud?

This.

[cparker4486]

According to the demo video it still had Advanced Mode which, if similar to the original product, does compression, deduplication, and encryption. IIRC the "deduplication" is done against versions of the same file.

[andersonts]

In one of the screenshots for "Create Backup Plan Wizard" it shows "File System" as an option in the Cloud Storage provider list. Does this mean you can point these backups to your own "internal cloud storage"? We are currently using a combination of NetBackup (for retention policies) and ExaGrid (for offsite replication/storage). If we can possibly take NetBackup out of the mix, this may be a better approach for creating offsite copies of our Veeam backups.

Thanks

Yes there are a couple ways to leverage your existing storage to replace other products/technologies for archive copies. OpenStack and File System for sure and possibly other methods depending on how creative you want to get.

[foggy]

I had hoped for a little more technical answer, like when a backup job is done, this happens, and if the job wants to start again before the data i moved to the cloud, this happens ?

There is no smart integration in terms of backup jobs/backup plans scheduling currently (no checks, no retries, etc.). However, Veeam Cloud Backup allows to run it from the command line so what you can do to avoid such situations, is to chain VM backup and backup file upload operations using Veeam B&R post-job activity. In this case, backup file will be automatically uploaded to the cloud right after being created in the backup repository.

The syntax is pretty simple:

Code: Select all

C:\Program Files\Veeam\Cloud Backup\cbb.exe" plan -r "BackupPlanName"

[bteichner]

Thanks andersonts. So just to clarify, "File System" is not referring to a cloud provider, but actually pointing to a file system that you specify?

[tsightler]

"File System" would be anything that your local Windows system can access, even network shares (for example a NAS device). You might have to configure the service to run as an account with permissions to a file server to get that to work correctly.

[collinp]

What I am hoping that this could eventually morph into, is to use Veeam with a cloud provider for DR. If I could take the cloud backup copy and do an instant vm recovery into the cloud then I could save my organization the costs to maintain a DR site. As it exists now, if something happens to my primary site, I have the Veeam Cloud backups at a file level only.

[andersonts]

What I am hoping that this could eventually morph into, is to use Veeam with a cloud provider for DR. If I could take the cloud backup copy and do an instant vm recovery into the cloud then I could save my organization the costs to maintain a DR site. As it exists now, if something happens to my primary site, I have the Veeam Cloud backups at a file level only.

So the intent of Cloud Edition is for archiving files...think tape replacement. I certainly cannot predict what this will evolve into in the future but there are tons of providers out there already (probably at least 20 in the territory I support alone) who already offer both Replication as a Service and Backup as a Service. So what you are looking for is actually already available today. We will have our website updated soon with a list of providers who do this type of service. If you need further information now I would advise you to get in touch with your local Veeam account team and they can point you in the right direction.

[tsightler]

Right, there are already Veeam Cloud Providers that offer this exact service today, and they offer some advantages, such as forever incremental, so they are much more bandwidth friendly. This tool is target primarily at "archive to the cloud", basically an offsite replacement for tape or rotating drives.

That being said, if you're willing to be creative, you should be able to pull of "recovery in the cloud" today. For example, if your store your backups in S3, they're already in the AWS datacenter, so, after a disaster you can spin up a Windows AWS instance with a large amount of local storage (there are some instances with a huge amount of storage), install Veeam cloud edition into this instance, connect to the cloud storage and then restore the VMDK files to the local storage on the AWS instance. You should then be able to use the AWS VM import tools to import the VMs and their associated VMDK files into AWS instances. I've of course not tested this, but in theory it should work, and the entire recovery process would happen "in the cloud".

[collinp]

The beauty that I see in Veeam is that my single backup file, let's say a particular .vbk can be used both for file recovery and vm recovery. I don't have to have one set of backups for archiving and another set for DR (double the space, double the money). We are a large organization that uses a major cloud provider that isn't flexible enough to allow Veeam Replication, Storage Replication, etc.