¶ Introduction
Veeam Backup & Replication 12 introduced the ability to invoke backups directly into object storage via the S3 protocol.
This was a game changer architectural design on behalf of Veeam's engineering team, as this resolved and enhanced the following things:
- Reduction of cost of managing SOBR (Scale Out Backup Repositories)
- Eliminating the need to use block-level storage as the primary backup target.
- Restoring VM backups and executing file-level recoveries directly from object storage via S3.
- Scalability amongst multiple buckets, availability zones, and regions.
¶ Veeam Integration with VMware Cloud Director
VCSP (VMware Cloud Service Providers), orchestrate and operate under a subscription based model, where they offer multiple self-service options like the major public hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, and GCP) by leveraging VMware Cloud Director's multi-tenancy model.
Veeam's VCD plugin allows VCSPs to orchestrate and position a self-service multi-tenant DRaaS cloud operating model.
The VCD + Veeam DRaaS Cloud Service Provider Model enables VCSPs to invoke the following:
- DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as Service)
- Faciliate workload and backup management
- Leverage the VMware Cloud Director Object Storage Extension (OSE)
- Back up VCD VMs (located in OrgVDCs) to object storage via S3
- Object-Lock functionality for immutable backups
- Sovereign Cloud Data Protection with Veeam and Cloudian
- There are (2) vmLIVE architectural presentations that illustrate sovereign cloud GTM positioning:
- Single pane of glass management via VCD for the Veeam and OSE extensions
- Multi-tenancy cloud operating model for the Veeam and OSE extensions
- Self-Service driven tasks and workload operations
¶ Veeam Architecture for VMware Cloud Director
¶ VCD + Veeam + OSE Architecture Configuration for VCSP
- Note: In this article, I'm featuring Cloudian HyperStore as the underlying object-storage vendor; however, OSE supports AWS, ECS, MinIO, and OSIS (Object Storage Interoperability Service) compliant vendors.
¶ VCD Configuration
1. VCD leverages the Veeam plugin to orchestrate a DRaaS multi-tenancy cloud operating model.
2. The Veeam VCD plugin invokes API driven calls to the Veeam Backup Enterprise server. (Default Port 9443)
- Note: My environment SSL offloads through a load-balancer and leverages port redirection.
¶ Object Storage Configuration
A bucket must be created prior to configuring the Veeam multi-tenancy workflow.
Note: If you will be leveraging immutable backups, you must enable object lock during the creation of the bucket.
VMware Object Storage Extension | Tenant View
¶ Veeam Backup and Replication Configuration
In the Veeam Backup and Replication console, a VCSP will need to configure a repository for each tenant organization.
There are (2) architectural methodologies that a VCSP can invoke and orchestrate:
- SOBR (Scale-Out Backup Repository)
- In V12, you can leverage object storage (S3) as a Performance Tier and Capacity Tier
- Backup Repository
- In V12, you can leverage an object storage (S3) backup repository without using a SOBR.
¶ Immutability for Object Storage Repositories
Veeam Backup & Replication allows you to prohibit deletion of data from the object storage repository by making that data temporarily immutable and to protect data against malware activity by maintaining several versions of a single backup.
Note: The compliant object storage system must support the object-lock feature in order to leverage Veeam's immutability.
- For more information:
¶ Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager
In the Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager, a VCSP, will have to configure the following attributes for each tenant organization:
- Organization: VCD tenant organization
- This is the VCD tenant organization that you will propagate permissions to.
- Repository: SOBR (S3), Direct-Attached Storage (Block Level), NAS (Network Attached Storage), Deduplicating Storage Appliance, or Object-Storage.
- In Veeam (VBR), you can leverage a SOBR for S3 backups or creating a Backup Repository by electing a compliant object storage vendor.
- In this example, we are focusing on object-storage backups via the S3 protocol.
- Repository Friendly Name: Name for the repository.
- Quota: The amount of consumable storage you will be providing to the tenant organization
- Sizes can be elected in
GBorTB.
- Sizes can be elected in
- Job Scheduling: Permissions that you want to grant a tenant organization to be able to execute
- Allow: Tenant has full access to all job scheduling options
- Allow: Tenant can create daily and monthly jobs only
- Deny: Creates daily jobs with randomized start time within the backup window
- Deny: Creates jobs with no schedule assigned
- Job Priority: Backup job prioritization (Normal or High)
- Advanced Settings: This is useful if you want to copy a backup job template to a tenant organization. (Optional)
- For more information: Veeam Self-Service Backup Portal for Cloud Director
¶ VCD Veeam Tenant Access
¶ Veeam Login (Automatic Token Based Authentication)
¶ Dashboard
¶ Jobs
¶ VMs
¶ Files
¶ Items
Note: In my environment, I'm not leveraging DBs backups within Veeam.
