With the release of Update 4 for Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 we introduced the Cloud Tier, which is an extension of the Scale Out Backup Repository (SOBR). The Cloud Tier allows for data to be stripped out of Veeam backup files and offloaded as blocks of data to Object Storage leaving a dehydrated Veeam backup file on the local extents with just the metadata remaining in place. This is done based on a policy that is set against the SOBR that dictates the operational restore window of which local storage is used as the primary landing zone for backup data. The result is a space saving, smaller footprint on the local storage.
Overview of Offload Job:
By default the offload job is run against the data located on the Performance Tier extents of the SOBR every 4 hours. This is a set value that can not be changed. To offload the backup data to the Capacity Tier, the Offload job does the following:
- Verifies whether backup chains located on the Performance Tier extents satisfy validation criteria and can be offloaded to object storage.
- Collects verified backup chains from each Performance Tier extent and sends them directly to object storage in the form of data blocks.
- Saves each session results to the configuration database so that you can review them upon request.
The job and job details can be viewed from the History Menu under System or the Home Menu under Last 24 Hours.
The details of the job will show how much data was offloaded to the Capacity Tier per VM residing on the SOBR. It will show statistics on how much data was processed, read and transferred. Once this job has completed, the local backup files only contain job metadata with the data residing on the Object Storage.
Forcing The Offload Job:
As mentioned, the Offload Job by default is set to run every 4 hours from the creation initial configuration of the Capacity Tier extent on the SOBR. The default value of 4 hours can not be modified however if you want to force the job to run you have two options.
First option is through the UI, under the Backup Infrastructure Menu and under Scale-Out Repositories, do a CONTROL+Click against the SOBR and select the Run Tiering Job Now option. This is hidden by default as an option and will only be shown with the CONTROL+Click
Second option is to run the following PowerShell command:
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PS C:\> Start-VBRCapacityTierSync -Repository SOBR-01 CreationTime : 2/21/2019 2:13:22 PM EndTime : 2/21/2019 2:13:29 PM JobId : 1e76d6cb-2192-4b25-bc59-adf725523318 Result : Success State : Stopped Id : 1f07476c-8419-42dd-b42a-7e221fa19f14 |
This tiggers the Offload Job to run.
Note that once the Offload Job has been forced the 4 hours counter is reset to when the job was run…ie the next job will be 4 hours from the time the job was forced.
It’s important to understand that running the job on demand doesn’t necessary mean that you will offload data to the Capacity Tier any quicker. The conditions around operations restore window and sealed backup chains still need to be in place for the job to do its thing. Having the job run six times a day (every 4 hours) is generally going to be more than enough for most instances.
If no data has been offloaded, you will see the following in the job details:
Wrap Up and More Cloud Tier:
To learn more about the Cloud Tier head to my veeam.com post here, and also check our Rhys Hammonds post here. Also look out for a new Veeam White Paper being released in the next month or so which will deep dive into the Cloud Tier in more detail. I will post a few more posts on the Cloud Tier over the next few weeks as well looking at some more use cases and features.
References:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/capacity_tier.html?ver=95u4
