In the whirlwind of holidays and various events that followed the holidays, one could lose sight of the fact that the long-awaited release of Veeam Availability Suite version 10.0 will see the light very soon - in February.
A lot of materials have been published about the new functionality, including reports at online and offline conferences, blog posts and various communities in different languages. For those who have not yet had a chance to get acquainted with them, and just for everyone who is interested in industry news, today I will briefly list the new features of Veeam Backup & Replication and dwell on one of the key ones in more detail.
So, welcome to cat.
βAll works are good - choose to tasteβ
Indeed, all development teams contributed to the anniversary release. For each potential client, there is a set of features that are necessary specifically for its infrastructure. Here is just a partial list of new products:
- Backup NAS and file share
- Data Integration API
- Linux VIX and Backup Proxy for Linux
- Block cloning support on XFS
- Updated Cloud Tier and SOBR repository
- Backup repository on NFS
- Working with NetApp ONTAP SVM
- RMAN Plugin for Solaris
- Archiving transaction log backups (transaction logs backup copy job)
- Jobs with retention policy GFS Retention M Primary Backup Jobs
- Improved WAN Accelerator
- Enhanced Backup for Virtual Infrastructures on the Nutanix AHV Platform
And these are just the innovations in Veeam Backup & Replication! But the upcoming version of Veeam Availability Suite includes both the new Veeam ONE and the new Veeam Agents. We expect, no doubt, a lot of interesting things - but still, let's start in order.
Backup for NAS and file shares
This functionality has been long overdue, and our engineers have been hard at work on it for months. Users will receive a toolkit with very flexible options for backing up and restoring files and folders, all implemented on the basis of a clear and scalable architecture and in a familiar interface.
With the kind permission of our Vanguard Evgeny Elizarov (), who visited the Veeam Vanguards forum at the end of 2019, I share a link to his on this feature.
For my part, I will tell you a little about the scheme of work and the procedure for setting up this type of backup.
How does it work
The general scheme of work is shown below:
As you can see, the following components are involved in the backup process:
- Source file storage (NAS, SMB share)
- Veeam Backup & Replication server responsible for management
- Auxiliary proxy server File Backup Proxy that performs data transfer during backup, namely: enumeration, reading, writing, compression, decompression, encryption, decryption. (This component is identical to the well-known backup proxy.)
- Backup repository where backups and metadata files are stored that describe the original structure of the balls and the location of the corresponding files and folders in the backups.
- Cache Repository: A snapshot of the file tree taken the last time the backup was run is stored here. Thanks to him, incremental passes are made much faster, because. there is no need to compare each source folder with the one contained in the backup. In addition, it speeds up the file recovery process. This repository can be hosted on a directly connected physical or virtual Windows or Linux server, or you can use a NAS (or SMB share). It is recommended to place such a repository on an SSD, closer to the ball.
Note: In this role, you can use the existing Veeam repository in the infrastructure, where backups of virtual machines are stored. However, keep in mind that SOBR / Deduplication storage / Cloud repository cannot be used as such a repository.
- An archive repository, if there is a need - and it most often is - for long-term storage. Here you can use inexpensive storage and set up regular archiving of backups from the main repository, as will be shown below.
Note: Rotated drives are not supported as repositories.
The main steps of the process are summarized as follows:
- Veeam Backup & Replication initiates the enumeration and building of a tree of folders and files in the source ball.
- These actions are performed by the file proxy, which transfers the constructed structure to the cache repository for storage.
- When the file proxy receives a new structure, it compares it with the previous one stored in the repository. If changes are detected, the cache repository sends a request to the backup repository for its resources
- The File proxy starts reading new data from the original share and transferring it to the backup repository. They are transferred "packed" into BLOBs: each BLOB contains the backup data in the form of 64 Mb files. Metadata files are also saved.
Let's see how all this can be configured in the interface.
Setting up a file backup in the Veeam console
First you need to configure the necessary components: proxy, file share and repository.
File proxy setup
You can use a Windows server as a proxy for file backup - the main thing is x64, and it is very desirable that it is older than Windows 2012R2 if you need to backup CIFS balls using VSS.
This machine must already be included in the backup infrastructure, or you can add a new server - for this, in the view Backup Infrastructure right click on node Backup Proxies and choose a team Add file backup proxy. Then we go through the steps of the wizard, indicating:
- New proxy name
- Maximum concurrent tasks (1 task - 1 source share). Default value - calculated automatically based on available resources.
On the move Traffic Rules configure the rules for processing network traffic, as we usually do for a proxy.
Adding the original balls
In view Inventory new node appeared File Shares, as well as the corresponding commands:
- Add file share - add a new ball
- Create jobs - create backup task
- Restore - restore from backup
We add a file share to the infrastructure in this way:
- After clicking on a node File Shares you have to choose a team Add file share.
- Select the type of object to be added.
You can select as the source file storage:- Windows or Linux file server.
- NFS share - Versions 3.0 and 4.1 are supported.
- SMB share (CIFS), and for SMB3 backup from Microsoft VSS snapshots is supported.
For example, let's select the option c SMB share.
Note: When specifying an account for accessing the original share, make sure that this account has at least read permissions (and if you want to restore, then write). And do not forget that the proxy servers used must also have read permissions.
- If you want to use snapshots for backup, you should click Advanced and specify what type of snapshots you need to use - VSS or storage.
Note: VSS support requires the correct configuration of the File Backup Proxy. And if you want to use storage snapshots, then you will need to configure their creation on the side of your storage.
- The next step is to set the processing settings:
- Specify which file proxy we plan to use - by default, all available proxies will be used (All proxies).
- Specify the path to the cache repository - Cache repository. Remember that SOBR/Deduplication/Cloud cannot be used as such a repository.
- Using setting Backup I/O control, select the preferred characteristics of performing operations during backup.
- lower impact (least impact on your NAS) - read requests will be processed in one thread;
- Fast backup (high speed) - respectively, multithreading; applicable to high performance storage.
Which option is better to use in your infrastructure, it turns out, of course, with the help of testing. But the general principle is this: if you have a storage system designed for Enterprise infrastructures, then you can safely set Fast backup, and if a modest home-level NAS, then, of course, we focus on lower impact.
- Then we talk Apply, we complete the steps of the wizard - and in the infrastructure tree of Veeam Backup we see our file ball.
Backup job
Now we need to create a backup task. From the menu backup job Choose file share.
The Job Setup Wizard starts. In it, we first specify the name of the new task, and then at the step Files and Folders - what specifically we want to back up.
If we want to set including-exclusive filters, click the button Advanced. By default, all content will be backed up.
Then we go to step Storage, where we set the storage settings:
- Backup repository - repository path
- Keep all versions of each file for N days - short-term storage period, i.e. how long you need to keep all versions of backed up files in the repository in case you need to restore (by default 28 days - yes, for files we do not consider βrecovery pointsβ, but just days).
- If you need long-term storage, check the box Keep file versions history and specify how long to store old versions of files, which ones and where (here you can specify not the main, but the auxiliary storage, it can be configured in the next step).
To choose which files to organize long-term storage, click Choose:
Here, in addition to the including-exclusive filter by mask, you can also separately configure how many versions should be stored for active files and for deleted files (fields Active file versions to keep ΠΈ Deleted file versions to keep, respectively). Of course, all these settings must be done in accordance with your data availability policy.
Click OK and return to the wizard's step.
The usual settings for notifications, custom scripts, etc. available by clicking on Advanced.
If you need long-term storage on an auxiliary archive repository, then go to the step secondary target. Data archiving will start at the end of the backup.
This is also a small update. In fact, these are well-known Backup Copy tasks, but they are immediately built into the main one, i.e. there is no need to create a separate one.
If you want to further configure the storage policy, encryption, and archiving window duration for a particular repository, you need to select the repository in the list and click Edit.
Next, set up the schedule - everything is as usual.
Well, at the last step, we check the settings and, if necessary, select an immediate launch (Run the job when I click Finish), after which we observe the progress of the backup:
Recovery options
Restoration is possible in three modes: you can restore the entire ball to a certain point in time, you can select specific files for recovery or restore all files that have changed at the time of backup.
- The file ball is restored entirely to the state in which it was backed up and got to the selected restore point. All files and folders will be restored; you can restore them to their original location or to another location:
- Rollback to the selected point in time by restoring only changed files: everything is clear here too - first we select the desired point in time, then the files of the folder that we want to restore.
The logic for choosing a restore point has changed a bit. When you run the recovery wizard, you can choose:
- Latest Restore Point - restore from the last backup in the selected mode.
- Selected restore point β if you missed a restore point, now you can select it again right in the wizard (previously you had to go to the main interface to do this).
- All Time - in this mode, you can see the entire history of backups of the balls, plus you can recover from the archive storage.
In addition, for the object being restored, you can also specify its version:
For today, perhaps, everything. But to be continued!
More
Source: habr.com