Using Veeam Backup & Replication with Object Storage

Veeam Overview

Veeam Backup & Replication is a proprietary backup application, developed by Veeam for virtual environments built on VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors.

The solution provides backup, restore and replication functionality for virtual machines, physical servers and workstations as well as cloud-based workloads.

A native S3 interface for Veeam Backup & Replication is part of the Release 9.5 update 4, available in General Availability since January 22nd 2019. It allows to push backups to a S3 compatible service to maximize backup capacity.

The following schema represents the functionality of Veeam Backup and Restore which acts as an intermediate agent to manage primary data storage and secondary and archival storage:

Requirements

• You have a machine running VMware vSphere
• You have an intermediate instance running Veeam Backup & Replication
• You have configured an Object Storage Bucket
• A Veeam “Enterprise” or “Enterprise Plus” license is required in order to configure the Scale out Repository feature which is required for Object Storage. Contact your Veeam Account Manager in case you need a license upgrade. More information on Veeam Backup & Replication licensing.

Configuring Veeam Backup & Replication

Note: By default, Veeam manages data in small objects of 1MB/object. It is recommended not to store more than 500.000 objects in a single bucket on the Object Storage platform for performance reasons. For optimal performance and storage of your backups, the configuration of Local Target (Large Blocks) in the storage options of Veeam is recommended. This setting allows you to store your backups in objects of 4MB/object: We are currently working on a new backend (available in private beta), which will remove this limitation.

Configuring an Object Storage Repository

1 . Once the Veeam Application is installed on your intermediate backup machine, start the Veeam Console by double clicking on the corresponding icon:

2 . Enter the appropriate credits (normally these values are pre-filled) and click on Connect:

3 . Once logged into the Veeam console, click on Backup Infrastructure:

4 . Click on Backup Repositories to enter the backup repository settings:

5 . Click on Add Repository to add the Object Storage bucket as repository:

6 . Choose Object Storage:

7 . Click on S3 Compatible:

8 . The setup wizard for the repository appears, provide a name and additional information for it, then click on Next:

9 . Click on Add (1) to enter the API Key (2) related to the bucket. Optionally a description can be provided:

10 . Provide the Service Point and the Region of your bucket, before clicking on Next:

Note: The service point depends on the geographical location of your bucket.

• For a bucket located in the Amsterdam region, the service point is s3.nl-ams.scw.cloud and the region is nl-ams.
• For a bucket located in the Paris region, the service point is s3.fr-par.scw.cloud and the region is fr-par.
• For a bucket located in the Warsaw region, the service point is s3.pl-waw.scw.cloud and the region is pl-waw.

11 . Veeam will connect to the S3 infrastructure and download the list of Object Storage Buckets. Choose the bucket to be used with Veeam from the drop-down list, click on Browse and create and select the folder for storing backups. Then click on Next:

12 . Verify all settings in the summary before clicking on Finish:

Configuring a Local Backup Repository

1 . As Veeam cannot currently push backups directly to S3, a local backup repository is required which will be configured as Storage Tier with Object Storage in a later step. Click on Add Repository:

2 . Choose Direct Attached Storage from the provided options:

3 . Click on Microsoft Windows:

4 . Enter a Name and an optional Description for the repository before clicking on Next:

5 . The local machine is pre-configured in this step. Click on Next:

6 . Click on Browse to select a folder for local backups, then click on Next:

7 . Keep these settings with the default values and click on Next:

8 . A summary of the configuration is shown, click on Apply to apply the configuration to the repository:

9 . Veeam applies the configuration and runs some checks. Once they have completed, exit the wizard by clicking on Finish:

Configuring a Scale-out Repository

1 . Enter the Scale-out Repositories section:

2 . Enter a Name and an optional Description for the Scale-out repository, then click on Next:

3 . Click on Add and choose the local Backup repository from the list. Confirm and click on Next:

4 . Choose the Placement Policy for the repository. The default settings can be used, click on Next:

5 . Click on Extend Scale-out capacity with Object Storage and choose your Object Storage repository from the drop-down list. It is also possible to define a time-frame in which backups are uploaded to Object Storage and after how many days backups are transferred automatically. If required data can also be encrypted by activating the option. Once the Object Storage settings are configured, click on Apply:

6 . Once the Scale-out bucket is configured, exit the wizard by clicking on Finish.

Adding a vSphere Hypervisor in Veeam

1 . Click on Managed Servers in the Backup Infrastructure tab of the Veeam console:

2 . Click on Add Server in the menu bar:

3 . Choose VMware vSphere from the list of virtualization technologies:

4 . Click on vSphere to launch the configuration wizard:

5 . Enter the DNS Name or IP of the Hypervisor and an optional description of the server, then click on Next:

6 . Click on Add (1) and enter the connection credentials for the hypervisor (2). Validate by clicking on OK. If the Hypervisor listens on a non-standard port, edit it. Click on Next to go to the next step:

7 . A summary of the connection is shown. Click on Finish to exit the wizard.

Configuring a Backup Job

1 . On the Home page of the Veeam console, click on New Backup, then on Virtual Machine in the drop-down menu:

2 . Enter a Name and an optional Description for the backup job. Then click on Next:

3 . Click on Add (1) and choose the virtual machines or hypervisors (2) to be backed up. Once finished, click on Next:

4 . Choose the previously configured Scale-out repository from the drop-down menu and choose the restore points to keep on disk for the backup. Click on Next once this is done:

5 . Configure guest OS processing options for virtual machines. The default settings should be fine. Validate it by clicking on Next:

6 . Configure a schedule to execute the backup job automatically. If no schedule is configured, the job must be started manually for each backup. Once the schedule is set, click on Next:

7 . A summary of the configured job is shown. Tick the box Run the job when I click Finish to execute the job immediately. If the box is not ticket, the first backup will be created according to the schedule. Click on Finish to exit the wizard:

Veeam proceeds with the backup and stores data on Object Storage. To verify it, log yourself into the Scaleway console, enter the Object Storage section and choose the Bucket used for Veeam. Several files and folders created by the application are visible: