backup – d8taDude

Veeam V11 – Whats new and HPE Integrations

Veeam have recently released the latest major update to their flagship product, Veeam Backup and Replication. VBR 11 is packed with 200 plus improvements and enhancements, today we will discuss some of the most interesting ones.

This release continues Veeam’s evolution from simple backup product to data management suite. Data administration is one of an IT enterprises key challenges with a greater volume of data, more locations for that data plus increased threats including Ransomware. This release of Veeam 11 offers a suite of features to help manage this disparate data, deliver a higher level of availability and to enhance the security of the data.

Linux and Security

Ransomware continues to be a key threat, with high-profile cases like the Garmin attack providing a warning to all. Ransomware holds you hostage by encrypting your data. In a worst case scenario ransomware can also encrypt backup data held on disk, leaving you in a chicken and egg scenario. Veeam offered a solution to this in version 10 with Copy Mode being added to the Cloud Tier. This allowed backups to be instantly copied offsite and stored immutably in Amazon S3. V11 enhances security further by offering hardened Linux repositories, this allows local backups to also be held in an immutable format removing the threat of backups becoming encrypted by ransomware.

Further enhancements are brought to Linux focused customers with the introduction of further backup modes with the Linux proxies. Previously the only available backup mode was hot add, now the list of available modes is comparable to a Windows proxy including direct SAN and network mode.

Other features include the ability now use the Veeam agent to backup Mac. You can read a full guide on implementing the Mac Agent by Michael Cade.

CDP

Continuous data protection, is not a new concept and in many ways is easier to understand in its traditional implementation. Previously when physical servers where the norm CDP was enabled through a physical device. You connected it to the server and it acted as a write splitter so that each write was effectively written twice, once to the primary storage and a second time to a CDP appliance. CDP in Veeam utilises VMware VAIO, which like a traditional CDP appliance splits writes. This approach means that there is no need to use snapshots for backups allowing for very low RPO down to 2 seconds and minimal performance impact. To configure CDP you first need to push out the VAIO drivers to the ESXi hosts, which you can do via the Veeam console. Matt That IT Guy has written a walkthrough on setting up and creating your first CDP job.

Instant Recovery Enhancements

Instant recovery has always been one of the nicest features of Veeam. This allowed VM’s to be spun up directly from backup. There was some enhancements to the performance of this feature in Version 10 that allowed several VM’s to be instantly recovered at the same time. This is further enhanced in version 11 which now allows instant recovery of SQL and Oracle DB’s plus NAS.

Cloud Enhancements

Google Cloud becomes available as a backup target you can add to a scale out repository.

Veeam also adds an archive tier to scale out repositories which allows longer term retention of data in Amazon S3 Glacier (including Glacier Deep Archive) and Microsoft Azure Archive Storage.

Hardware and HPE Integrations

Version 11 brings improvements both in terms of efficiency and performance for dedupe devices. Dedupe performance is improved by changing the way metadata is stored. Customers using a HPE Store once as a NAS target can expect up to a 4 times increase in storage capacity. Performance is also improved by increasing the blob size of the data that is being written and by writing metadata to higher performance disks.

If you are backing up a physical machine with SAN attached storage you will also benefit from some new features. Prior to V11 SAN attached storage was recognised by an agent as local storage and backed up in this way. In V11 a physical SQL server attached to for example a Nimble array can use storage based snapshots as part of the backup process alleviating the load from the host.

It also becomes possible to use an HPE Apollo 4500 as a Veeam appliance Calvin Zito discusses this and all the other changes in this podcast.

To get started you can download Veeam Backup and Replication

March 3, 2021March 3, 2021

Richard ArnoldLeave a comment

Cloud Volumes Backup

The major announcement from HPE Discover Virtual for storage was Cloud Volumes Backup. Cloud Volumes Backup enables a method for storing your backup data in the cloud, this can be natively using HPE storage and RMC or using existing backup solutions such as Veeam and CommVault.

The drive to protect data is arguably stronger than ever but increased complexity including;the volumes of data, the location of data and increased security requirements make the process increasingly complex. Let’s look at how Cloud Volumes Backup can help with some of these challenges

Scaling

One of the key advantages of the cloud from day one has been scaling. The need for complex planning, multiple years ahead and costly upfront purchasing is removed. Targeting data to the cloud offers almost limitless capacity for growth.

The same is true with Cloud Volumes Backup. When you create a cloud volume you do not specify the size, this is not a requirement. Cloud Volumes are created without a set size and just grow as required on demand.

The process to create a cloud volume is quick and simple. Create the volume in the Cloud Volume portal, present to the target and then use as a backup target in your software. We have previously discussed Cloud Volumes in detail if you wish to read further into the background of this technology.

Cloud Volumes backup can be used with RMC:

Or as a target with existing backup software such as Veeam:

As well as the removal of complex planning this allows dynamic scaling, so for example during a period of intensive testing more backup copies could be held and then reduced as the need is no longer required.

A backup target without capacity limits also allows systems to be fully protected and for the correct length of time. I have unfortunately seen backup retention and choice of systems to backup in the real world driven by capacity constraints, for example backups only held on disk for a short number of days.

Mobility

Data mobility i.e. the capability to store data not only with different cloud providers but in many different regions around the world gives great flexibility but also increases the challenge of backups. Things were certainly much easier when you had a simple on-site data centre with all data held locally.

Cloud volumes are co-located or located nearby the cloud providers data centre, to provide the best performance. This gives the opportunity to select a cloud volume backup matching your cloud provider and region to enable the best backup performance.

Alternatively you could do the opposite whereby you choose a Cloud Volume Backup target with a different cloud provider. This could be for reasons of resiliency or more likely to enable the data to be available in another environment for test and dev.

Although data can be held in multiple locations, and multiple cloud providers by using Cloud Volumes it enables multiple sources to be backed up with a single tool without impacting performance. Since Cloud Volumes are co-located or nearby cloud providers data centres.

Cost

All IT organisations are driven by the need for a cost-efficient solution. Cloud Volumes backup assists in a number of ways.

There is no need for a rip and replace. Cloud Volumes Backup works in tandem with existing backup products such as Veeam, CommVault etc. This means that there is no need for additional capital investment. Another advantage is re-skilling is unnecessary since the IT department can still use backup software it is familiar with.

Cloud volumes are consumed in a typical cloud fashion where you are charged for what you use. This means you can scale up and down dynamically as required. There is no need for large upfront capex expenditure.

Another key consideration is data egress charges. This is charges you would incur if you needed to use any of the backup data, i.e. pulling the data from the cloud to your local data centre. Cloud volumes backup eliminates this with no egress charges.

Security

The security of data is key to any organisation. Data is encrypted both in flight and at rest.

Data is protected from ransomware by effectively isolating it from attack.

Ransomware tips from VeeamON

I attended the Veeam Ransomware session at VeeanON. I picked up some useful tips so thought I would share my notes from the session. Credit for all the information to Rick Vanover,Dave Kawula, Brett Hulin.

Background

Data is key to all businesses
Must protect data and therefore the business from threats including ransomware

Prevention

Three pronged approach, not just technical considerations:

Education of users and administrators
Backup and recovery implementation
Remediation plan

Attack methods

Ransomware attacks occur in three most common ways:

RDP compromise, number one method of ransomware attack
Email phishing, second most common attack method. Surprising I would have thought this was the most frequent
Software vulnerabilities

Veeam Data Labs

Allows testing patches and quick recovery

ON demand sand box – restore not directly into production for safety
Sure backup and sure replica – boot VM in virtual lab and test before re-introducing to production
Secure restore – Mount backup for AV scan before restore

Ultra-Resilient Backup

Safest option is to have an ultra-resilient backup. This could be air gapped, immutable or offline. For example:

Tape
Immutable backups e.g. S3 – Backup onsite to performance tier then have policy tier to cloud storage which can be S3. Policy can be set for an immediate copy of data or an archive of the oldest data. Based on Scale Out Repositories
Veeam Cloud Connect + Insider protection. Insider Protection provides an additional data copy that can only be access with a call to support to make it visible

Brett Hulin General Tips

Establish a DR site. Cloud or physical
If possible run Veeam replication to this secondary site
Have your DR plan documented
Understand your recovery order
Involve multiple people
Consider licencing implications of being at fail-over site
Establish chain of command before an incident

Brett Recovery Tips

Shut down servers to prevent further infection
Consider when attack occurred and which backups and replicas are therefore clean
Recover servers without network and check with AV before re-enabling network
Recover infrastructure servers, e.g. AD first
Force password resets
Have multiple restore copies at recovery site. So can recover from different times
Have an air gapped backup e.g. tape

Other tips I picked up from the Veeam Ransomware guide at the Veeam resource library:

Veeam server ensure it has no internet access
Accounts as much separation as possible
Tight file permission on datastore shares
Veeam servers require 2FA for RDP access
Prepare early

June 24, 2020June 24, 2020