When Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 4 went Generally Available a couple of weeks ago I posted a What’s in it for Service Providers blog. In that post I briefly outlined all the new features and enhancements in Update 4 as it related to our Veeam Cloud and Service Providers. As mentioned each new major feature deserves it’s own seperate post. I’ve covered off three feature so far, and today i’m going to talk about two features that are more aligned to Managed Service Providers, but still could have a place in the pure IaaS world.
As a reminder here are the top new features and enhancements in Update 4 for VCSPs.
- Cloud Tier
- Cloud Mobility
- vCloud Director Support for Cloud Connect Replication
- Gateway Pools for Cloud Connect
- Tape as a Service for Cloud Connect Backup
- vSphere RBAC Self Service Portal
- External Repository for N2WS
Cloud Mobility:
The Cloud Mobility feature is actually the new umbrella name for our Restore to functionality. Prior to Update 4 we had the ability to Restore to Microsoft Azure only. With the release of Update 4 we have added the ability to Restore to Microsoft Azure Stack and Amazon EC2. It’s important to point out what Cloud Mobility isn’t…that is a disaster recovery feature set. in that you can’t rely on this feature in the same way that Cloud Connect Replication allows you to power on VM replicas on demand for DR.
Though you could configure restore tasks to run on demand via PowerShell commands and have systems in a ready state after recovery it is difficult to attach an RPTO to the recovery process and therefore Cloud Mobility should be used for migrations and testing. In essence this is why it is called Cloud Mobility…to give users and Service Providers the flexibility to shift workloads from one platform to another with ease.
Restore to EC2:
The ability to restore direct to EC2 is something that is demanded these days and the addition of this feature to Update 4 was one of the most highly anticipated. In enabling the restoration of workloads into EC2 we have enabled our customers and partners to have the option to backup workloads from the following:
- vSphere or VMware vCloud Director using Backup & Replication
- Microsoft Hyper-V VMs using Backup & Replication
- Microsoft Windows or Linux machines created using Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux
- Backups of EC2 instances created using N2WS Backup & Recovery for AWS (N2WS CPM).
- Backups of Nutanix AHV VMs created using Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV
These backups, once stored in the Veeam Backup File format, ensures absolute portability of those workloads. In terms of restoring to EC2, the process is straight forward and can be done via the Backup & Replication console or via PowerShell.
Again, the focus of this feature is to enable migrations and testing. However when put together with the External Repository, we also complete a loopback by way of having a way to restore EC2 instances that where initially backed up with N2WS Backup & Recovery and archived to an Amazon S3 Bucket.
It should also be noted that to perform a recovery, only the most recent restore point can be used.
External Repository:
The External Repository allows you to add an Amazon S3 bucket that contain backups created by N2WS Backup & Recovery for AWS environments. Backup & Recovery for AWS will create backups of Elastic Block Stores disk volumes of EC2 instances. As part of the 2.4 release these backups where able to be placed directly to Amazon S3 object storage repositories. This is what is added to the Veeam Backup & Replication console as an External Repositories.
Backup & Recovery for AWS uses the Veeam Backup API to preserve the backup structure in the native Veeam format which are housed in the Amazon S3 Bucket as oVBKs. The External Repository cannot be used as a target for backup or backup copy jobs. Once the External Repository is configured, N2WS VMs can be manipulated through the Backup & Replication Console as per usual. This allows all the restore capabilities including Restore to EC2 and also more importantly the ability to perform Backup Copy Jobs against the backed up data to enable even longer term retention outside of Amazon S3.
Wrap Up:
The addition of Restore to EC2, Azure Stack and the External Repository can be used by manager service providers and service providers to offer true Cloud Mobility to their customers. Also, while a lot of organization are moving to the Public Cloud…this is not a fait accompli and they do sometimes want to get workloads out of those platforms and back on-premises or to Service Provider Clouds.. It shouldn’t be a Hotel California situation and with these new Update 4 features Veeam customers have more choice than other.
References:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/restore_amazon.html?ver=95u4
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/external_repository.html?ver=95u4
