In this article, I’m going to show you how to set up an orchestration plan using as a source a CDP replica Job.
This article will not cover how to create and run a CDP replica job from VBR console. If you need a guide please refer to the official guide.
There are four main parts:
Create a Business Category
Setup the Environment
Create an Orchestration Plan
Launch the Orchestration Plan
The first and the second topics will be described in this article. The third and the fourth ones in the next articles.
A. To create a business category for CDP replica, just open the Veeam ONE interface from the VAO server (picture 1).
In this example, the business category is called Ubuntu-CDP , the resource group is called CDP-Linux (Picture 2).
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B. After opening the VAO web interface it’s necessary to follow the next four steps.
1. Add a Role and Scope (picture 3).
In my example, the scope is named Linux-CDP.
The plan Author/Operator is VBR.
Picture 3
2. Add or modify the Recovery Location (picture 4).
In my example, the recovery location is Verderio and has the Cluster-Verderio as Compute resource (Picture 5).
Pictures 6 and 7 show how to remap the Networking and how to set up the changing IP address rules.
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Note1: The Re-IP feature is available just for Windows VMs (please have a look at the official documentation to get all detail (user guide). For Linux VMs it’s necessary creating a custom script.
3. Reporting
Pictures 8, 9, and 10 show how to assign the Linux-CDP scope to your custom reports.
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4. Assign the plan Components
Picture 11
Picture 12 shows how to add the VM group called Ubuntu-CDP to the scope Linux-CDP.
Picture 12
Picture 13 shows how to add a recovery location, i.e. Verderio.
Picture 13
Picture 14 shows how to add the plan steps to the orchestration plan (In my example I included all the plan steps).
Picture 14
The next article shows how to create an Orchestration Plan and run it.
Suggestion: If you can’t wait and want to do it immediately, just read the previous articles 🙂
Before proceeding please check that the VAO current version on the server is 3.0 (picture 1).
Picture 1
After downloading the ISO file from the Veeam website and mounting it (picture 2)
Picture 2
just select the “Setup” voice; the wizard immediately begins the upgrade (picture 3).
Picture 3
Please check that the previous version of VAO has been discovered. If so the upgrade button is available (picture 4).
Picture 4
The setup checks if Visual C++ 2019 Redistributable package is already installed. If not it will automatically be deployed. This procedure requires the server reboot (pictures 5 and 6).
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After reboot is completed, relaunch the setup. The wizard will show which components will be automatically upgraded (picture 7).
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Now the wizard will ask for a valid license (picture 8) and will install the missing components (Pictures 9 and 10).
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The next steps are about the Veeam Databases.
The wizard will ask to connect to them and update the VBR one if necessary (pictures 11 and 12).
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The main point of the upgrade procedure is the certification step.
As shown in picture 13, the wizard will ask the VAO administrator which certificate to use. It can be a self-signed and autogenerated or an own certificate created from an external authority.
My suggestion is to ask your security specialist to know which is the best choice for your company.
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Clicking on the install button it will complete the upgrade wizard as shown in pictures 15 & 16.
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After upgrading please check the versions of VAO (4.0.0.2088), VBR (11.0.0.837), ONE (11.0.0.1379) now installed.
Just a note before ending the article: has already said, VAO (Veeam Availability Orchestrator) has changed its name to VDrO (Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator).
The web pages of the product still show the old name. It will be updated in the next release.
The scope is recapping the different technology available for NAS backup pointing in which scenario they can be adopted.
The following table has the scope of helping and discovering which VBR technology can better fit with the NAS protection service.
Technology
v.11 and later NAS Backup
File to Tape
NDMP
Backup to Disk
Yes
No
No
Backup to Tape
No
Yes
Yes
Restore Files
Yes
Yes
No
Restore Entire NAS
Yes
Yes
Yes
Speed Backup
High
Low
Medium
Speed Restore
High
Low
Medium
Second copy
Yes to Disk
v.11 (Tape cloning)
v.11 (Tape cloning)
Archiving copy
Yes
No
No
Immutability
v.11 (Hardened Repository)
Yes
Yes
Object Storage
Yes
No
No
Scheduling
Yes
Yes
Yes
Licensing
VUL
Any
Enterprise Plus
Table 1
An example:
Your managers are asking for a NAS backup architecture able to answer very astringent requests of backup and restore.
Watching table 1 and looking for the word speed it is possible to assess which VBR technology can answer the request of your managers better (in this case v.10 and later NAS backup).
Note-1: For sure the table can be improved by adding more details.
Note-2: The second tape copy and harden repository will be available with VBR v.11. Further details are available on the following web pages:
knowing local account’s credential (remote computer)
Important Note: File copy is a copy. It means that if you launch the same job twice, the second time it will delete the files previously saved. It’s like launching two times a copy command without changing any option. To be clearer, it’s not a backup so it can not manage retentionpolicy, nor deduplication/compression.
Note-4: I don’t know if this scenario is supported by Veeam, open a ticket before proceeding.
The following video will explain the steps to set up the environment, perform backup and restore (ps-tools are located to c:\Users\VBR\Desktop\PStools)
In this second article, we are going to cover the File to Tape strategy.
Why tape devices are still widely present in the IT department?
It’s a good way (but not the only one) to manage the offline backup data (read it as improving the Security Strategy of your data).
Media can be easily carried or moved (read it as Portability).
Deployment is often very quickly (read it as speeding up the adoption).
It has a potentially infinite capacity (Just adding media).
The LTO is a neverending technology in a continued evolution.
The tape is a well-known device, IT operators have the skills to manage it.
The costs for GB is lower than disk technologies.
The costs are quite predictable, managers can budget it easily.
VBR needs a WindowsPhysical Server named Tape Server to control the Drives and Robotic, LTO3 or later Drives, and MS-Windows drivers (supply by the hardware vendor).
The official user guide available on the Veeam site gives all detailed info.
Just a note before starting:
VBR uses Tape Technology in two different ways.
The most used one is back up to tape (Picture 1).
In this case, the source backup data are the backups already present and created with a backup job or backup copy job.
They are saved to Repository (Repository is a Disk technology).
It means that the scope of backup to tape is to pour out data to tape.
Picture 1
Please have a look at the following video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il8mH2KB_Uo) to get more details.
The second way is File to Tape and it is the topic of this article (picture 2).
Picture 2
Which type of source files can be saved to tape?
Windows & Linux servers (virtual or physical doesn’t matter)
NAS file share (SMB (CIFS) and NFS ).
NDMP filers (it will be covered in the next article).
How does it work?
Picture 3
Picture 3 shows the data streams when a tape process is performed:
The main components are Data Movers. These Services run on the source and on the Tape Server.
VBR triggers the source Data Mover to perform a copy of the files to the target. At the destination, the target Data Mover check if the files have arrived correctly.
The tape Server manages the write operation to the tape also.
VBR stores all info about files saved (media used, retention, etc.) in a catalog.
In the restore scenario, the step order is four to one.
*Note: To perform a backup of Windows and Linux servers, it is requested to add those servers to the managed server as shown in picture 3. Through this process, the Data mover service is properly installed.
Network Share: Adding SMB/NFS Share as shown in the previous article (A Flexible file backup strategy – Part 1).
Picture 3
Common scenarios
File to Tape backup can be used by any customer. You need just a Tape Server, Tape Devices, Drivers, and VBR.
There are at least two main cases:
Customers who want a copy of their data to tape.
Customers with a small budget who doesn’t need rapid restore
The next video will show how to set it up.
Main Pro
There is not a room limit. It means the license doesn’t count how many GB, TB, PB will be written to Tape.
The VBR architecture is as usual flexible. It’s possible to add more tape servers and more than 1 tape library.
*This behavior is quite common to all backup software that writes data directly to Tape.
For saving a file, VBR needs to trigger a process of discovering the file to the source, gathering and writing it to a media.
If you consider that the common NAS scenario is composed of millions of small files and thousands of folders and that the tape technology has to choose for every file the location in the media (where the file will be copied) it’s clear that this process, common to all backup servers, stresses the hardware architecture and in particular the drive header.
The backup process has a small speed advantage compared to restoring because writings to media are often sequential and not random.
Image to restore 10k files located in 10k different positions in a single tape.
The drive has to perform a great job. It is going to suffer from an effect called shoe-shining (also known as tape back-hitching) which occurs when a tape drive cannot transfer data at an acceptable speed.
Shoe shining can contribute to data loss over time, as the repeated back-and-forth motion will wear the tape drive’s read/write heads and negatively affect the readable portion of the tape
Loss of Tape Cartridge Capacity
Increased Risk of Read/Write Issues
Excessively Worn Tape Drive Heads
Low Data Transfer Rates
Data Loss
The Veeam DB needs to be sized correctly and the best practice is to switch from SQL Express to SQL Standard
Media management is quite challenging when the amount of tapes is big. Remember to store them in a fireproof and non-magnetic safe.
Do you also prefer the NAS backup feature introduced in v.10? Let me know!
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