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General Cloud Backup, Veeam

Veeam, Cloud Backup and the Insanity of Periodic Full Backups

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I have been seeing a lot of attention being given to very low cost storage providers like Wasabi, Backblaze, and also public storage providers such as AWS to point Veeam offsite backups. Never do I see mentioned that these solutions require a periodic full backup to be performed over the internet. Think about that for a second. A cloud backup solution that requires you to perform full backups regularly? That is, quite frankly, INSANE! Organizations are creating ever more data, but the hours in the day remain fixed. Even 10 years ago, industry analysts like Forrester Research was advising clients to avoid backup products that require full backups (see report here), and instead recommended “incremental-forever” backup technology – and that was almost 10 years ago! Full backups across the internet might be just fine if you are a small business with a few hundred gigabytes of data, but even modest size companies are going to find it difficult to efficiently backup even a few terabytes of data on a regular basis. Veeam best practices say you should not have an incremental chain of backups over 30 incrementals long. This could be 30 days of backups if making a backup once per day. So that means at minimum, a full backup should be made once every 30 days – and even at that, a worse case scenario would be the loss of 29 days of backups if the incremental chain is corrupted. If you’re making a backup every 4 hours, then a full backup should be performed every 5 days. Full backups over the internet are problematic because they can take days to run and consume large amounts of bandwidth. Companies often pay to increase their internet bandwidth to help resolve the issue, which takes away the cost effectiveness of the low cost storage solutions! As data volumes increase, the bandwidth will also need to be increased. Moreover, while the full backup is completing, then no other offsite backups are occurring. So if it takes 3 or 4 days to perform a full backup that means you are going 3 or 4 days without an offsite backup. To solve this issue you need to run compute on the cloud side to enable “synthetic full backups”, which is a process by which Veeam re-builds the full backup on the cloud side without having to perform an actual full backup. In this configuration you can enable a true “incremental-forever” backup method that will not require periodic full backups to be made after the first full.  This can be achieved in AWS and Azure where compute resources, such as a Windows server, can be used to process the synthetic full, but then there is the added cost of compute resources and the client has another server to update, monitor, and manage, increasing costs. Low cost storage providers such as Wasabi and Back Blaze, offer no computing resources so there is no option for this on their platforms.  You might be saving in storage costs, but also experiencing other costs such as increased bandwidth requirements and delaying additional offsite backups from occurring. Veeam Cloud Connect Service Providers eliminate many of these issues as these are specialized services focused on Veeam cloud backups. The service provider performs the synthetic full backup on their side, which avoids periodic full backups over the internet. Additionally, a Veeam Cloud Connect Service provider will also have the Veeam expertise and generally better service level agreements around backup and DR services. Summary:  By leveraging a Veeam Cloud Connect Service provider you get true incremental-forever backups, minimize bandwidth usage, and get better service levels. Interested in learning how Managecast can help your business with its cloud backup and disaster recovery solutions? Fill out this form for more information!

Veeam

What is Veeam?

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I’ve Heard Of Veeam, But What Is It? You may have heard of Veeam and have a vague idea of what it does. Veeam is a software company that was founded in 2006 with a great growth story. In 2008, with 10 employees, it released Veeam Backup and Replication – a software application to backup and copy virtual machines on VMware’s increasingly popular virtualization platform. Today, as of 2018, it has 2000 employees and revenue of nearly a billion dollars. The name Veeam has become ubiquitous with easy and reliable VM backup and restore and is widely deployed in companies of all sizes. It has also extended it’s backup capabilities to Microsoft Hyper-V as well as to physical Windows and Linux servers. It has extended into the cloud with Backup for Office 365.  Thousands of companies around the world trust their data protection to the simplicity and affordability of Veeam software. Backup and Replication – What’s the Difference? Backup and Replication, the flag ship product, can be thought of as two functions. “Backup” is one function, related, but separate from “replication”. Backup is what you might think in that Veeam offers backup capabilities, including the ability to see your data back in time weeks, months, years. However, from a disaster recovery perspective, you need to restore data and be back up and running as quickly as possible and you are most concerned with restoring the most recent data. Unfortunately, the restore process from backups can take many hours to days to restore the data based on how quickly the data can be “restored”. For this reason, using backup for disaster recovery is not ideal. Replication solves the recovery time problem by keeping your most recent data copied to another location that is ready to be “turned on”. For example, you can have a file server at location A that is fully copied  to location B. If location A becomes unavailable you just need to “turn on” the server at location B and it’s current as of the last replication.  No restore process was needed and recovery can usually be measured in minutes. Regular replications are added to the target in a way that never requires a full restore. By avoiding a restore process the replicated server is available quickly. Other Notable Things About Veeam • Its monitoring and management software Veeam Monitor and Veeam Reporter was combined and renamed as Veeam ONE and was first released in 2010. • It developed and released the free VM copy tool call WinSCP in 2007 and was a precursor to Backup and Replication software. • In 2014, it started the VeeamON annual conference for all things Veeam. • In 2016, it made it into the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup. • 2016 also marked the year in which Vit delivered backup for Office 365. Want to Know More? Managecast has been in business for 19 years and has been a long-time Veeam partner for more than 10 years.  We welcome the opportunity to speak with you about Veeam and what it can do for you. We can set you up with free trial licenses, including Veeam Cloud Connect for easy offsite backups.  Feel free to call us at 513-735-6868, Option 2. Or visit us here.

DRaaS, General Cloud Backup

Backup VS Disaster Recovery (DR)

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Several years ago your main, and usually only option for disaster recovery was to take backup media and perform a restore onto new hardware. This means copying a large amount of data from backup media back to a server. We call this “Backup Recovery” or “Standard Recovery”.  It’s the process most people are used to and the standard method for decades. As data volumes have exponentially expanded, combined with an “always on” culture of today’s society, the old means of recovery are no longer adequate for a lot of businesses. Disaster Recovery  Unfortunately it is sometimes at the worst time, during an actual disaster event, that it is fully realized the current backup solution is no longer meeting the disaster recovery requirements of the business. When management realizes it takes 48 hours to just restore (copy) the data is when the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is more clearly appreciated! Many times after these events companies update their RTO policies and implement changes. Obviously it would be better to consider this situation and enact changes prior to the disaster. For organizations that need quicker recovery time, the option is to implement some form of “replication” in which all of the production data is replicated to another system for DR purposes. The replication could be local, and/or could be offsite to a service provider. The key to replication is that you are keeping a copy of your entire server in another place so that if your primary server is compromised in some way, you can “turn on” the DR server and be back up and running within minutes, current as of the last backup.  This typically allows the organization to resume operations much more quickly since the data did not need to be restored, but rather was already in a state to be used almost immediately. Replication is really the only way to minimize the recovery time since it eliminates the restore process. Backup On the other hand, backup still serves a valuable service that is not well addressed by disaster recovery (replication).  In a disaster situation you are typically most interested in the most recent version of data and not the data from months or years ago. Organizations with retention policies may want months, or even years of past versions of backup data. DR does not address this need, however, backup is used for retrieving data that may have changed in the past. For instance, a user may delete a file, but not notice for months. Backup would be used instead of DR for this older data since DR is focused around the most recent version of data. Typically no one wants to do a disaster recovery with 6 month old data! Backup is also usually much easier to use for granular restores of a few files or directories. DR is focused around an all or nothing approach. In a DR situation you are typically restoring entire servers. Backup makes a granular recovery easier. For this reason, backup is typically more often utilized than DR. So Which One Do You Need? There is often the need for both backup and DR solutions to address both needs. VEEAM Backup and Replication, for instance, gives you the capability of choosing Backup or Replication (DR), or you can elect to do both.  If you can not afford to do both then you will need to contrast the pros and cons of backup and DR and decide on which one best meets your requirements. For example, if you need quick recovery, but do not need long-term retention, it may be possible to use DR as a form of backup. On the other hand, if you do not require quick recovery, but need long-term retention then backup-only may be best.  However, if you need both quick recovery and long-term retention then you need both backup AND Disaster Recovery. The table below contrasts some of the differences between Backup and Disaster Recovery. Interested in learning how Managecast can help your business with its cloud backup and disaster recovery solutions? Fill out this form for more information!

DRaaS, General Cloud Backup, Veeam, Zerto

What is Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)?

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Until recently, implementing quick fail-over to a remote site came with significant costs, complexity, and time commitments—making it accessible only to large companies with deep pockets. However, advancements in technology and the internet have made Disaster Recovery (DR) more affordable for businesses of all sizes. Today’s consumers expect uninterrupted service, driving companies to seek out DR fail-over solutions to avoid business disruptions. What is DRaaS? Hosting a disaster recovery site on your own can be cost-prohibitive, both in terms of money and resources. The costs of maintaining a remote site, managing servers, applications, backups, replication, and performing regular tests can add up quickly. This is where Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) comes in. DRaaS allows organizations to leverage service providers like Managecast to protect virtual servers in a cloud environment. Service providers offer the infrastructure, software, and management needed for DR solutions—helping businesses reduce costs and complexity. Failover: How It Works With DRaaS, organizations replicate their data either continuously or periodically, depending on their Recovery Point Objective (RPO), to the service provider. In the event of a disaster, businesses can fail-over all or part of their environment by powering on their virtual machines (VMs) in the service provider’s cloud infrastructure, ensuring continued operations. Organizations can access failed-over replicas through predefined methods: Once local infrastructure is restored, fail-back is possible. This involves replicating any changes made in the DR environment back to the production environment. DR Testing Regular DR testing is essential to ensure the failover process runs smoothly during an actual disaster. Most DRaaS providers allow businesses to perform their own tests. Testing can be as simple as logging into the service provider’s web console, powering on a VM, and verifying application or service functionality. Cost Structure The pricing model for DRaaS varies among providers, but a common model is usage-based billing—charging businesses only for the resources they use during a failover event. Management and Support In addition to offering the infrastructure, many DRaaS providers offer extra management services. These can include: While disaster recovery may seem like an additional cost for organizations, for DRaaS providers, backup and replication are their primary focus. By using a service provider for DRaaS, businesses gain access to expert management and support for their DR needs. In Conclusion:DRaaS has transformed disaster recovery by making it accessible and affordable for businesses of all sizes. By utilizing a service provider, companies can safeguard their operations without the massive expenses and complexity that traditionally came with DR solutions.

General Cloud Backup, Veeam

Avoid Memory Issues with Veeam and ReFS

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There have been reports of issues that users have run into after incorporating ReFS repositories with Veeam Backup and Replication. Here’s how to best avoid running into them: According to reports, users are running into issues on Windows 2016 servers using drives formatted with ReFS while running Veeam synthetic operations. So far this issue has been primarily reported by users who have formatted their ReFS volumes using a 4K block size, which is set by default when formatting a new volume. Veeam spokespeople have recommended that users use a 64K block size as the primary method to avoid this issue.  Check the current allocation unit size of ReFS volumes using: fsutil fsinfo refsinfo <volume pathname> Microsoft has also released a patch(KB4013429) as well as a corresponding knowledge base article regarding this issue. The fixes include a patch + registry changes specific to the issue with ReFS. The patch adds the option to create and fine tune the following registry parameters to tweak the ReFS memory consumption: RefsEnableLargeWorkingSetTrim | DWORD RefsNumberOfChunksToTrim | DWORD RefsEnableInlineTrim | DWORD The reason for the errors during the synthetic operations performed during Veeam Backups to ReFS repositories is that Veeam synthetic operations are very I/O intensive. Users have uncovered an issue with the ReFS file system where metadata stored in memory is not released properly. This causes the utilized memory on the system to balloon and can eventually lock up the OS. Using the Windows SysInternals Tool: RAMMap, users can monitor the memory usage during synthetic fulls. This will help determine if the metafile is growing and if there will be a potential issue with memory. Finally, suggestions for avoiding running into this error: If you are currently using an ReFS volume with 4K Block Size consider migrating the repository to a new volume with 64K Block Size. This post may assist you. 64K block sizes are already largely recommended as a best practice for Veeam repositories, considering how Veeam works with large files. The issue here being that Windows sets the default allocation unit size at 4K so users may skip past changing it when formatting new volumes. Hopefully future releases of Veeam will be able to detect and warn users against 4K block sizes during the creation of ReFS repositories. Update 11/3/17: Some users with larger amounts of backup data report issues even when using 64K block size yet. More current updates of Windows Server 2016 now include additional registry settings to curb some of the issues that users have continued to report. As of the time of this update, it has been suggested that those experiencing these issues set these decimal values for the following registry keys: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\RefsEnableLargeWorkingSetTrim = 1 HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\RefsNumberOfChunksToTrim = 32 HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\RefsDisableCachedPins = 1 HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\RefsProcessedDeleteQueueEntryCountThreshold = 512 Some Veeam technicians/architects have also suggested, for backup jobs whose retention requirements are 100 days/restore points or less, to avoid synthetic fulls unless they are specifically necessary. eg: For a retention policy going back a month, aim for 30 daily incremental restore points, rather than 7 daily and 3 weekly restore points. This will still provide the benefits of fast cloning from ReFS but avoid the issue of synthetic full merges potentially locking up the storage during the full backup file merge processes. More Info: Veeam Forums; VeeamLive; Microsoft KB4016173; Microsoft KB4035951

Office 365 Backup

Do You Need to Backup Office 365 data?

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Many people assume that Microsoft fully protects their data in Office 365, so they don’t need to worry about backups. However, this is a dangerous assumption. In reality, Office 365 lacks comprehensive daily backup and archiving capabilities, which can leave you vulnerable after data is deleted or automatically removed from the recycle bin—or if a user intentionally deletes their data. Let’s explore some common scenarios where you might lose critical data: 1. Deletions Whether accidental, intentional, or malicious, users delete data. Office 365 has a default retention policy of 14 days, which can be extended to 30 days. After that, the data is permanently gone. Intentional deletions, including data deleted from the recycle bin, are unrecoverable. Additionally, if a user account is deleted, the data is lost forever. 2. Ransomware/Malware While Microsoft offers anti-malware protections, they don’t guarantee full protection against data corruption caused by ransomware or malware. Recovering from such a scenario can be painful, time-consuming, and with Microsoft’s built-in data protection measures, there’s no guarantee of successful recovery. 3. Liability Microsoft’s liability for data loss is extremely limited. In the case of Office 365, their liability is capped at $5,000. The cost of legal action alone would exceed that, making this essentially the same as having no liability for your data. 4. Compliance If your business has strict compliance requirements—such as retaining backups for 7, 10, or more years—Microsoft’s built-in tools won’t meet your needs. Even businesses without legal mandates often have lengthy retention policies, and requiring more than a month’s history may exceed what Microsoft offers. Industry Experts Recommend Backup Analysts from organizations like Gartner, Forrester, and ESG recommend that businesses review their data retention needs and determine if additional Office 365 backup solutions are necessary to meet compliance and recovery objectives. Recommendation To ensure you can always recover critical Office 365 emails, files, and SharePoint sites, use a third-party backup tool to protect your Office 365 data. This provides an extra layer of security and peace of mind, knowing your data is safe from accidental loss, malicious deletion, or compliance violations.

General Cloud Backup, Veeam

Veeam and AWS Storage

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Amazon cloud storage, particularly S3 and Glacier, are popular options for offsite data storage, and Veeam is a leading solution for VM backups. You can integrate the two, but the question is: should you? The answer depends on several factors. Veeam and AWS Integration Integrating Veeam Backup & Replication with Amazon storage is done through an AWS Storage Gateway—an appliance that connects your Veeam server to the AWS Cloud. You can configure the gateway as a file server, direct attached storage, or as a Virtual Tape Library (VTL). Virtual Tape Library (VTL) Using AWS as a virtual tape library allows you to present the storage gateway to Veeam as a tape server, which lets you create tape backups in AWS. Veeam Cloud Connect: A Simpler Option Alternatively, Veeam offers Cloud Connect, an offsite backup method built into its platform. Cloud Connect partners—third-party Veeam service providers—offer storage and compute resources specifically tailored for offsite backups. Users simply input their provider’s credentials into Veeam and can start sending backups to the Cloud Repository. For most businesses, a Cloud Connect partner offers a simpler, more cost-effective solution, allowing true incremental forever backups without the hassle of setting up your own infrastructure. When to Use AWS for Offsite Backups Using AWS for offsite backups with Veeam can work, but regular full backups are required. This option might only be suitable if: Conclusion While AWS can be used for offsite Veeam backups, it’s generally not the most efficient or cost-effective option for larger datasets or frequent backups. A Veeam Cloud Connect partner provides a better solution for: Choosing a Cloud Connect provider often leads to simpler management, lower costs, and faster backups, making it a more feasible choice for most businesses.

General Cloud Backup, Veeam

Migrating and Seeding Veeam Backups to ReFS Storage

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IMigrating to Veeam ReFS Volumes: Steps to Unlock Fast Cloning and Spaceless Fulls To fully realize the benefits of Veeam’s integration with Windows Server 2016 ReFS, all full and incremental backups must be created on the new ReFS volume. Simply moving existing backups over won’t immediately enable fast cloning and spaceless fulls—additional steps are required. For more details on the benefits of using Veeam with ReFS, be sure to check out our related post. Update: Make sure to use 64K Block Size when formatting the Veeam repository volumes to avoid issues with 4K Block Size and ReFS. Read this post for more information. Migrating Existing Backups to ReFS Volumes The first key point to remember is that only new full and incremental backups created on ReFS will benefit from fast cloning and spaceless fulls. After moving your data to the new ReFS volume, performance and storage efficiency improvements won’t take effect until: Dealing with Deduplicated Storage If you’re migrating from a deduplicated storage, moving your backups to ReFS can result in rehydrated data, which could significantly increase the size of your backup files and overwhelm storage. To mitigate this, you might want to: Planning for Storage Needs Remember, ReFS benefits won’t be applied until both the most recent full and all incrementals are created on the ReFS volume. This means you’ll need storage for at least two full backups plus all incremental backups during the migration process. We recommend scheduling a GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) retention policy to create a full backup as soon as possible. This allows you to delete older full backups from the ReFS volume, freeing up space. Once the synthetic full and new incrementals have been created on the ReFS storage, you can delete the oldest archive points from ReFS, and all subsequent backups will benefit from the ReFS filesystem improvements. Seeding Offsite Backup Copy to ReFS Volumes Seeding a backup to ReFS can help reduce initial WAN utilization, as it prevents the need for a full backup over the internet. However, even after seeding, all backups must be created on the ReFS volume to benefit from the new features. Here’s a process that has worked well for us when seeding backups to ReFS (you’ll temporarily need storage for two full backups and two incremental restore points): Steps to Seed Backups to ReFS: Forcing a GFS Synthetic Full Backup: Once the GFS synthetic full is created, you can delete the archived full (…_W.vbk) to free up storage. (You can keep it, but archived fulls won’t benefit from ReFS spaceless fulls and will consume storage until deleted by retention.) Afterward, you can change the retention settings of the backup job as needed, and any new backups will benefit from the ReFS filesystem. By following these steps, you’ll ensure that your existing backup chains transition smoothly to ReFS while unlocking the powerful benefits of fast cloning and spaceless full backups.

General Cloud Backup, Veeam

Veeam 9.5 Issues Seeding Backups

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After upgrading to Veeam 9.5 we had a customer needing to seed new backups to our cloud repository. We created a new backup copy job and backed up to a temporary seed repository pointing to an external drive. Once the backup completed the drive was shipped back to us and we imported the data to our cloud repository and re-scanned it on the customer side. After mapping the job to the imported data we ran the job. At this point it should have continued from the already backed up data and started an incremental backup. However, it was doing a full backup. It was creating duplicate entries for the VMs in the backup data. Veeam 9.5 update 1 was released 1 week prior to this incident and our policy is to wait at least 30 days before applying new releases. After reading through the fixes that this update would apply we were unable to verify that it would resolve our errors, however Veeam lists this update as non-breaking and after some confirmations with Veeam support we applied the update. We then started the process of re-importing the data. Instead of removing all of the data and then re-importing it from the seed drive we were able to re-import just the seeded .vbm file and leave the already imported .vbk file then re-scan from the customer side. Veeam showed 1 backup as ‘updated’ during the re-scan. Once the update was applied and the backup was re-imported, the backup continued incremental backup from the seed data as expected.

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