Veeam V12 is finally released on Feb 2023 with brunch of new features. YAY! I haven’t digested all the new features, however, one hidden feature I am interested in this release is the Veeam integration with HPE StoreOnce Cloud Bank.
What is the HPE StoreOnce Cloud Bank?
To answer this question, I suggest reading one of my previous posts as below first to familiar Catalyst Store:
In short,
- HPE StoreOnce is a deduplication storage system providing efficient data compression and deduplication capability and suitable for data backup and long-term retention.
- Catalyst is a backup protocol developed by HPE that is optimized for disk-based data protection. Data protection applications can use Catalyst to store, replicate, and archive customer data to Catalyst Store created in HPE StoreOnce.
- Cloud Bank Store is a “special” Catalyst Store, it can leverage public cloud storage as an extension of catalyst store and provide cloud-based long-term retention with lower cost.
As per the above figure referenced from “HPE Reference Configuration for HPE Cloud Bank Storage with Microsoft Azure”, Cloud bank could be used as an extended cloud-based storage of StoreOnce.
It is noted that, before Veeam V12, since HPE StoreOnce Cloud Bank utilizes Catalyst protocol, Veeam could not tell the difference between Catalyst Store and Cloud Bank. Therefore, Cloud bank could be added in Veeam Backup Repository, but it will report error when executing the backup copy job with Cloud Bank as target.
But in Veeam V12, when adding HPE StoreOnce Cloud Bank as a Veeam backup repository, the Veeam can identify the Cloud Bank store.
Why am I interested in this improvement in Veeam V12?
This new feature enriches the ability of Veeam and StoreOnce to utilize public cloud to store backup copy in a simplicity approach.
As shown in the above figure, a simplicity backup solution could be composed by one Veeam server with local storage, one StoreOnce appliance and public cloud storage.
The primary backup will be stored in Veeam server storage for fast restoration, then second backup copy will be sent to StoreOnce Catalyst store by utilizing Catalyst inline deduplication with GFS enabled and the third backup copy will be sent to public cloud for long retention.
In this solution, three backup data copies will be stored in three different locations with three different storage type to ensure a very high resiliency. In addition, I also enjoy the clear data flow by utilizing Catalyst Copy, StoreOnce appliance will handle the data copy from Catalyst Store to Cloud Bank in public cloud directly without involving Veeam component to transfer data.
How to configure the integration?
The configuration is simple enough. Take Azure storage account as an example.
- In Azure portal, Create an Azure Storage Account and Container in hot tier.
- In StoreOnce management portal, create a Cloud Bank in StoreOnce and input the Azure storage account and container information.
- In Veeam management console, add one StoreOnce repository.
As you can see that Veeam can automatically tell the difference Cloud Bank and Catalyst Store with a different Icon and type.
Now, you can configure Veeam Backup and Backup Copy job as per the general procedure and leverage Cloud bank as the replication target.
In the end of this post, I would like to mention two tips:
- Based on the Veeam V12 user guide, “You can use HPE Cloud Bank Storage only as a target for backup copy jobs with enabled HPE Catalyst Copy.”
- StoreOnce support this integration from Version 4.3.4.
The offical Veeam and StoreOnce Integration document can be refernce from below URL: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/deduplicating_appliance_storeonce.html?ver=120