Backup of Cloud Machines

To back up data of Amazon EC2 instances or Microsoft Azure virtual machines (both objects can be also referred to as cloud machines), you can use Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows or Veeam Agent for Linux together with Veeam Backup & Replication. Veeam Backup & Replication allows you to discover cloud machines and deploy Veeam Agents using cloud native API instead of the connection over network.

Veeam Backup & Replication supports backup of the following cloud machines:

• Amazon EC2 instances
• Microsoft Azure virtual machines

You can back up cloud machines running Microsoft Windows or Linux OSes that are supported by Veeam Agent and by cloud service provider.

• To learn lists of OSes supported by Veeam Agent, see system requirements for Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows or for Veeam Agent for Linux depending on the type of Veeam Agent you plan to use.
• To learn lists of OSes supported by cloud service provider, see this Amazon article or this Microsoft Azure article depending on the type of cloud machines you plan to protect.

Getting Started

To back up cloud machine data, you must complete the following steps:

1. Add a Microsoft Azure blob storage or Amazon S3 storage to your infrastructure depending on the type of cloud machines you plan to protect. To learn more, see Adding Azure Blob Storage or Adding Amazon S3 Storage in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

2. Get the cloud user with the required permissions. With this user, Veeam Backup & Replication connects to the bucket or container on the cloud. To learn more, see Permissions.
3. Configure a protection group for cloud machines. Keep in mind that the protection group of the Cloud machines type is the only applicable protection group to back up data of cloud machines. To learn more, see Creating Protection Groups.

4. Configure a backup job. Depending on the OS running on your cloud machine, see one of the following sections:

• Creating Job for Windows Computers
• Creating Job for Linux Computers

How It Works

On cloud machines, Veeam Backup & Replication installs Veeam Transport Service and Veeam Cloud Message Service that perform necessary operations on the machine. Veeam Cloud Message Service is also installed on the Veeam backup server. Using these components, Veeam Backup & Replication communicates with the cloud machine and Veeam Agent in the following way:

1. Veeam Cloud Message Service on Veeam backup server sends a message to the queue service on the cloud: Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) and Azure Queue Storage.

To learn more about queue services, see this Amazon article or this Microsoft article depending on the cloud that you use.

2. Veeam Cloud Message Service on the cloud machine with Veeam Agent checks the queue, reads the message, and performs one of the following operations depending on the message content:

• Runs the command. For example, if your cloud machine runs the Microsoft Windows OS, Veeam Agent can run the Windows PowerShell command.
• Re-sends command to another Veeam component. For example, Veeam Agent or Veeam Transport Service.

3. Veeam Cloud Message Service sends the command result to the queue service.
4. Veeam Backup & Replication reads the queue and receives the command result.