Offsite Configuration Backup Options

[Vejete]

I have two sites: Houston and Dallas. Each site has its own vSphere infrastructure, Veeam infrastructure, StoreOnce, and tape. The sites are connected by a very slow WAN link.

What is the best way to get Houston Veeam configuration backups to Dallas and vice versa?

[Gostev]

Considering that Veeam configuration backups are fairly small in size, the easiest approach would be to set up a Veeam repository in the other site, and point your configuration backup job there.

[Vejete]

That was our first inclination. We did test that with a local gateway pointing to a remote Catalyst store. It worked, and that's good. It gets the config backup offsite immediately. But I'm not sure I like it only being offsite. Should a VBR server recovery be necessary absent the WAN link to the other site, we're sunk. So we are pondering config backup to a local repository followed by a backup copy to remote site. That leaves us a local copy for easy access and also a second copy tucked away safely offsite.

[Andreas Neufert]

Backup Copy Job do not transport the config backups. Please use "File Copy Job" instead.

[Gostev]

Yes, these are simple files so should be trivial to copy around... and as far as I remember, it's always "full backup" (so no incremental chains or anything).

[Vejete]

File copy job wants a target server and directory path on a system known to the local Veeam server. Wouldn't that preclude making the file copy target an offsite system that's managed by the offsite Veeam server?

[Andreas Neufert]

you can use a share as well created on any storage that use CIFS. Just type in the share as target address in the file copy job.

[Vejete]

Tried that. Permission denied. Looks like we have access issues to get sorted. I presume that the data mover (running as LOCAL SYSTEM) on the chosen target server is what is trying to make the connection to the UNC we are providing to the CIFS share on the NAS?

[jmmarton]

I've set this up before. As I recall, the account for the backup service on the backup server is what's used to authenticate to the remote site. By default that's Local System so you need to switch the backup service to use a service account which has permissions.

Joe