Limitations for Cloud Repository

Veeam Backup & Replication has the following limitations for cloud repository usage:

Backup, Backup Сopy and Restore

1. Every tenant can perform one backup or backup copy job and one restore task targeted at the cloud repository simultaneously. Parallel processing is not supported. For example, if the tenant starts a backup job while another backup job is running, the second backup job will be put on hold until the first job completes and will run only after that.
2. Veeam Cloud Connect does not support parallel data processing. Within a backup or backup copy job, several VMs and VM disks are always processed sequentially, one by one.
3. Veeam Backup & Replication does not support backup copy jobs if the cloud repository is used as a source backup repository. The backup copy job must use a backup repository configured locally on tenant's side as a source one.
4. Instant VM Recovery and multi-OS file-level restore for backups in the cloud repository are not supported.

File Operations

Tenants can manually copy backup files to and from the cloud repository using the Files view in Veeam Backup & Replication. Scheduled file copy jobs are not supported.

Deduplicating Storage Appliances Used as Cloud Repositories

It is not recommended to use deduplicating storage appliances as cloud repositories. To protect VM data that is backed up to the cloud repository, tenants are likely to use data encryption. For deduplicating storage appliances, encrypted data blocks appear as different though they may contain duplicate data. Thus, deduplicating storage appliances will not provide the expected deduplication ratio. To learn more, see the Data Encryption section in Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide at: https://www.veeam.com/documentation-guides-datasheets.html.

If the SP uses a deduplicating storage appliance as a cloud repository, the SP must consider the following limitations:

EMC Data Domain

The length of forward incremental and forever forward incremental backup chains that contain one full backup and a set of subsequent incremental backups cannot be greater than 60 restore points. To overcome this limitation, the tenant can schedule full backups (active or synthetic) to split the backup chain into shorter series. For example, to perform backups at 30-minute intervals, 24 hours a day, the tenant must schedule synthetic fulls every day. In this scenario, intervals immediately after midnight may be skipped due to duration of synthetic processing.

If the SP plans to use EMC Data Domain as a cloud repository, it is strongly recommended that the SP informs tenants about limitations for the backup chain length.

ExaGrid

1. ExaGrid deduplicating appliances achieve less deduplication when multi-task processing takes place within a backup job: processing only a single task at a time within each backup job produces the best deduplication. If the SP decides to use ExaGrid as a cloud repository, all tasks executed within a backup job should be processed sequentially, one by one. To do this, the SP can limit the maximum concurrent tasks to 1 in the properties of cloud repositories used with ExaGrid appliances.

In this scenario, only one tenant will be able to access the cloud repository at a time.

2. The ExaGrid appliance can receive many concurrent backup jobs, with one of the highest ingest rates in the market. To accomplish maximum ingest (hence shortest backup times), the tenant can configure multiple backup jobs, each with its own cloud repository; these jobs can then be scheduled to run concurrently.

In this scenario, the SP will have to configure multiple (N) cloud repositories for one tenant and multiple (N) credentials for this tenant. The tenant, on his/her side, will have to add the SP multiple (N) times under different credentials created by the SP. The tenant will also have to configure multiple (N) jobs, each targeted at a separate cloud repository.

HPE StoreOnce

Veeam Backup & Replication does not support usage of HPE StoreOnce deduplicating storage appliances as cloud repositories.