Veeam Backup & Replication is a proven data protection solution that offers efficient and reliable backup and recovery for virtual, physical, NAS, and cloud environments (https://www.veeam.com/vm-backup-recovery-replication-software.html). It leverages advanced algorithms to provide fast, granular recovery of individual items, instant recovery for VMs, and replication for DR and mobility (https://www.veeam.com/solutions/data-recovery.html).
One key capability of Veeam Backup & Replication is the ability to use tape as a backup repository. This provides an air-gapped, offline backup target for long-term retention and archival.
Benefits of Tape Backup
Tape backup offers several key benefits that make it an attractive option for long-term data retention, including:
Long term retention – Tape has a long shelf life, with some tape cartridges rated for 30 years or more of archival storage. This makes tape ideal for long-term data retention and compliance requirements. Tape’s offline nature also helps protect data against malicious attacks or accidental deletion.
Air gap security – When tapes are stored offline and offsite, they are physically isolated from networks and systems. This “air gap” provides an extra layer of protection from cyber threats like ransomware which target online systems.
Portability – Tape cartridges are small and portable, making them easy to transport for offsite storage. This facilitates disaster recovery as tapes can be easily retrieved from secure offsite locations.
Overall, tape offers cost-effective and robust data retention capabilities for backup and archiving needs. The long shelf life, air gap security, and portability make tape well-suited for long-term data storage.
Veeam’s Native Tape Support
Veeam Backup & Replication includes native, integrated support for backing up to physical tape drives and libraries. This feature, called Veeam Backup to Tape, allows you to easily create tape-based backups of your Veeam backups.
With Veeam Backup to Tape, there is no need for third-party tools or complex configurations. The tape backup capabilities are built right into the Veeam Backup & Replication console. This native integration means setup and management of tape backups is straightforward within your existing Veeam deployment.
Veeam Backup to Tape works by archiving already created Veeam backups to physical tape. This allows you to leverage the performance and features of Veeam’s disk-based backups, while also getting the long-term retention abilities of tape. Veeam Backup to Tape supports a variety of tape drives, autoloaders, libraries and media pools for flexible archival storage.
How Veeam Backup to Tape Works
Veeam Backup & Replication provides native, direct backup to tape functionality. This allows backups to be written directly from the backup repository to physical tape media without the need for additional backup software.
During the backup job, Veeam Backup & Replication leverages the Veeam Data Mover service on a Windows-based tape server to manage the connection to the physical tape device and handle writing backup data to tape. The Veeam backup server itself does not connect directly to the tape device.
Backups are streamed from the backup repository over the network to the Veeam Data Mover on the tape server, which then writes the backup data directly to the connected tape drive. This provides the benefits of tape without requiring a staging backup to disk first.
Veeam also includes built-in capabilities for managing tape media rotations, performing restores from tape, and advanced features like tape library slots and barcodes. This provides a fully integrated disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) backup workflow and eliminates the need for additional third party tape backup software.
For more details on Veeam’s architecture and components for tape backup, see:
[Veeam Backup & Replication Architecture](https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/tape_architecture.html?ver=110)
Supported Tape Drives
Veeam supports a wide range of tape drives and libraries from major vendors like IBM, HP, and Quantum [1]. The most commonly used tape drives with Veeam are LTO drives due to their high capacity and performance.
For LTO drives, Veeam is compatible with LTO-5, LTO-6, LTO-7, LTO-8, and LTO-9 drives from vendors like IBM, HP, Quantum, and Dell [2]. Both internal LTO drives and external autoloaders/libraries are supported.
In addition to LTO drives, Veeam also supports IBM 3592 Jaguar drives including the TS1150, TS1155, and TS1160 models [3]. These enterprise tape drives provide very high capacity and throughput for large scale backup environments.
The key advantage of Veeam’s broad tape device support is flexibility to use both LTO and enterprise class tape drives to meet any environment’s requirements for capacity, performance, and costs.
Tape Media Pools
Veeam Backup & Replication uses tape media pools to organize and manage tapes for backup jobs. Media pools act as target destinations for backup to tape and file to tape jobs. The media pools track which tapes are empty and available for overwriting as well as track used tapes.
To create a tape media pool in Veeam, navigate to Backup Infrastructure > Tape Infrastructure > Media Pools and click Add Media Pool. Give the pool a name and optionally a description. You can create separate pools for different backup jobs or retention policies. For example, you may want daily backups written to one pool and monthly backups to another.
Once a media pool is created, insert a blank tape into the tape drive. Veeam will detect the blank tape and inventory it, assigning a media ID. The blank tape will now show up in the Free media section of the media pool. As backup jobs run, Veeam will use this tape to store backup data, moving it from Free media to Used media.
Over time, as tapes fill up they will be marked for overwrite based on the retention policy. Tapes marked for overwrite will move back to the Free media section, making them available to be reused by future backup jobs. The media pools provide an organized way for Veeam to efficiently utilize and recycle tapes.
For more on configuring and managing tape media pools, see the Veeam user guide (https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/custom_media_pools.html).
Tape Job Settings
Veeam Backup & Replication provides a variety of configuration options for backup to tape jobs. When creating a new tape job, you can specify settings such as:
Backup mode – This determines if the backup will be a full, incremental or differential backup. Incremental and differential backups are smaller in size and allow for faster backups. Full backups take longer but are required periodically for restore purposes. According to Veeam’s best practices, a common scheme is weekly full backups with daily incrementals.
Compression level – Higher levels compress the backup data more, reducing storage requirements but increasing the backup processing time. The default level is typically a good compromise between size and speed.
Backup proxy affinity – This binds the tape job to a specific proxy server for load balancing purposes. The proxy handles all data transfers between the backup repository and the tape device.
Tape media rotation – Options like “Use free media first” and “Eject media after job finishes” help automate media handling when multiple tapes are in the media pool.
Retention settings – This controls how long backup data is kept on tapes before being overwritten. Older backups can be marked as “Keep forever” if desired.
According to Veeam, after configuring the tape job settings you can save them as defaults for future job creation. Overall the tape job settings provide flexibility to optimize backup policies for your environment.
Restores from Tape
Veeam Backup & Replication provides flexible options for restoring data from tape backups. You can perform full VM restores, file-level restores, or application item restores from tape. When restoring from tape, Veeam first stages the restore to the backup repository before sending the data to the production environment.
To perform a VM restore from tape, use the Restore Backup from Tape to Repository wizard in the Veeam console. This allows you to browse the restore points on tape and select the VMs to restore. The backups will be extracted from tape to the repository first before going to production [1].
For file-level restores, Veeam provides the Restore from Tape wizard. This allows browsing and recovery of individual guest files and folders from the tape catalog. Veeam extracts only the required files from tape rather than the full VM image [2].
Application owners can also use Veeam Explorers to restore application items like Exchange emails, SharePoint sites, and SQL databases directly from tape backups. The items will be staged through the repository first before going to production.
A key benefit of Veeam tape restores is the ability to restore backups without having the original backup repository online. This provides an added layer of protection and availability.
Tape Management
Veeam Backup & Replication includes robust tape management capabilities to keep track of your tape media and ensure protection.
The tape catalog maintains an index of all backup files written to each tape, similar to a library catalog. This allows quick lookup of backups on a tape without needing to load and scan the media. The catalog is stored in the Veeam database and backed up as part of the Veeam configuration [1].
Veeam also performs media verification jobs to periodically load tapes and check their health and readability. This detects potential issues like media deterioration and drive malfunction before they cause data loss. Media verification jobs can run automatically on a schedule or manually on-demand [2].
For tape retention management, Veeam Backup & Replication integrates with tape rotation schemas like Grandfather-Father-Son and tower of Hanoi. This automates overwrite protection for monthly, weekly, and daily backup points as per defined policies [3].
Conclusion
In summary, Veeam provides native and robust support for backing up to tape. Veeam Backup & Replication can directly write backups to physical tape drives, without need for a separate backup application. Tape serves as a great option for long-term retention of backup data offsite.
Veeam allows creating tape media pools to allocate tapes for backup jobs. A variety of settings can be configured per tape job, including retention policies, backup schedules, and data compression. Backups written to tape can be easily accessed and restored when needed. Veeam also provides tools for monitoring and managing the entire tape infrastructure.
With its tape functionality, Veeam delivers an enterprise-ready availability solution covering modern backup repositories along with traditional tape media. For organizations seeking an efficient and reliable way to store backups off-site for disaster recovery, Veeam’s direct backup to tape is an excellent choice.
