Veeam Backup Repositories

Veeam Plug-ins store backup files in repositories added to the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure. In this section, you can find the list of supported backup repositories and limitations for Veeam Plug-in backups.

Before you start performing operations on backup repositories within the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure, consider that you need to set the access permissions for each repository. For details, see Access and Encryption Settings on Repositories

Supported Backup Repositories

You can use the following types of repositories added to the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure to store backups created with Veeam Plug-in for Oracle RMAN:

SMB (CIFS) Share

NFS Share

If you plan to use HPE StoreOnce as a backup repository for Veeam Plug-in backups, the total number of stored files (data and metadata) must not exceed 3,000,000 per Catalyst store. If necessary, multiple Catalyst stores may be created on the same StoreOnce system.

Quantum DXi

ExaGrid

Make sure the repository is configured as described in the ExaGrid section in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

Hardened Repository

Scale-Out Backup Repository

Make sure that the performance extents of the scale-out backup repository contain repositories supported by Veeam Plug-in for Oracle RMAN. For example, you cannot use object storage repositories as performance extents to keep backups created with Veeam Plug-ins.

Backup Repository Limitations

For Veeam Plug-in backups, the warning which indicates that free space on a storage device has reached a specified threshold is configured in the veeam_config.xml file of Veeam Plug-in. The warning settings in the Veeam Backup & Replication console does not affect this setting.

To configure the warning settings, add the following parameter in the veeam_config.xml file.

Keep in mind that you must add the parameter to the existing line in the veeam_config.xml file. If you create a new line with the same name as the existing line, Veeam Plug-in will consider parameters only in the first detected line. Other parameters will be ignored.

The plug-in configuration wizard will not show repositories where the Encrypt backups stored in this repository option is enabled. To learn how to disable the encryption option, see Access and Encryption Settings on Repositories.

If you want to use the same backup target with the repository-based encryption and Veeam Plug-ins, create a second repository in the subfolder for Veeam Plug-in backups.

Veeam extract utility cannot extract Veeam Plug-in backup files. By design of Oracle RMAN, these files cannot be imported “as files” to RMAN as they contain additional metadata bound to the used SBT device.

Veeam Plug-ins do not support backup operations targeted directly to object storage repositories.

To learn more about object storage repositories, see the Object Storage Repositories section in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

Veeam Plug-ins do not support backup operations to object storage added as a performance extent of a scale-out backup repository.

Veeam Scale-Out Backup Repositories

If you want to store Veeam Plug-in backups in scale-out backup repositories, consider the following:

You cannot rename a scale-out backup repository with Veeam Plug-in backups stored on this repository.

For Veeam Plug-in backups and backup copies, the Performance policy of a scale-out repository functions differently:

Veeam Backup & Replication checks if there are extents without warning on free space insufficiency.

If there is no extents without the warning, Veeam Backup & Replication uses an extent with the largest amount of free space that has a free task slot.

For the extents without the warning, Veeam Backup & Replication checks if there are incremental extents with free task slots.

If there are no incremental extents with free task slots, Veeam Backup & Replication uses a full extent with the least amount of used task slots.

For incremental extents with free task slots, Veeam Backup & Replication sends backup files to an incremental extent with the least amount of used task slots.

If several extents has the same least amount of used tasks, Veeam Backup & Replication uses an extent with the largest amount of free space.

To learn more about file placement policies of scale-out repositories, see Backup File Placement section in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

If a scale-out repository is configured in the Data locality policy, repository extents are selected according to the largest amount of free space for each Oracle RMAN connection. If the selected extent does not have free task slots, Veeam Backup & Replication uses the extent with the next largest amount of free space.

If there are two extents with only one task slot on each extent, the backup is performed using two parallel streams (one stream per extent).

If you want to add a backup repository which contains Veeam Plug-in backups as an extent to a scale-out backup repository, you must do the following:

On the Veeam Backup & Replication console side

Select Veeam Plug-in backup files that reside in this backup repository and remove them from configuration.

To learn more, see the Removing Backups from Configuration section in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

Delete the Veeam Plug-in backup job.

To learn more, see the Disabling and Deleting Jobs section in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

Add the repository as an extent to the scale-out repository.

To learn more, see the Extending Scale-Out Repositories section in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

Rescan the scale-out repository.

To learn more, see the Rescanning Scale-Out Repositories section in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

Note

[For imports to the scale-out backup repository] Before importing your backup, consider that the names of all backup files (.VAB, .VASM, .VACM) and paths to these files contain only the following allowed characters:

a-zA-Z0-9
_-.+=@^

If your backup was initially created on a standalone backup server, the default name of the backup metadata file (.VACM) contains forbidden characters. Before importing, you must delete forbidden characters from the file name or replace them with the allowed characters.

On the Veeam Plug-in side

Set the scale-out repository as the target for backups using the following command:

OracleRMANConfigTool --set-repositories

Map the imported backups using the following command:

OracleRMANConfigTool --map-backup

Capacity Tier

You can configure Veeam Backup & Replication to transfer Veeam Plug-in backup files to a capacity tier. Both policies (Move policy, Copy policy) are supported for Veeam Plug-in backups with the following limitations:

For Veeam Plug-in backup files, capacity tier does not verify whether data that is being moved is unique and has not been offloaded earlier. Thus, it is highly recommended to check the pricing plans of your cloud storage provider to avoid additional costs for offloading and downloading backup data.

To offload Veeam Plug-in backup files to the capacity tier, Veeam Backup & Replication splits data into 1 MB objects and compresses the resulting objects. The default object size will be a compressed 1 MB block, resulting in objects of around 512 KB in size.

Veeam Backup & Replication offloads Veeam Plug-in for Oracle RMAN backup files to the capacity tier with the Copy and Move policies in different ways. With the Copy policy, Veeam Backup & Replication checks backup files every 1 hour and runs an offload job only if new backup files exist. With the Move policy, Veeam Backup & Replication checks backup files every 4 hours and runs an offload job, even if there are no new files.

Important

With both the Copy and Move policies, Veeam Backup & Replication copies and moves to the capacity tier only non-active backup files created more than 24 hours ago, which match the capacity tier configuration parameters. To learn more about the capacity tier configuration, see Add Capacity Tier in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

Veeam Plug-in supports encryption of offloaded data to the capacity tier. The Encrypt data uploaded to object storage option in the Capacity Tier settings of the scale-out backup repository ensures that the entire collection of blocks along with the metadata will be encrypted while being offloaded. To learn more about capacity tier encryption, see the Encryption for Capacity Tier section in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

Capacity tier does not track dependencies of full and incremental Veeam Plug-in backup files. Thus, consider the following:

[For the Move policy] When backup files are transferred to the capacity tier, Veeam Backup & Replication takes into account only the creation time of backup files. Make sure that the operational restore window is either longer than the whole backup chain cycle period or exceeds that period. Otherwise, you may encounter the scenario when full backup files are transferred to the capacity tier and their increment backup files still remain in the performance tier.
The capacity tier immutability expiration date does not have the additional block generation period. The immutability expiration date is based only on the number of days specified in the settings of the object storage backup repository.

In case a disaster strikes the scale-out repository and you have a Veeam Plug-in backup file on the capacity tier, you must re-create the scale-out repository before you restore from this backup file. You must connect the capacity tier with the Veeam Plug-in backup file to another backup server with Veeam Backup & Replication and a scale-out repository. After that, you can import the backup files to Veeam Backup & Replication and then perform data recovery operations.

If you use a capacity tier that has been created in Veeam Backup & Replication version 10, you cannot transfer Veeam Plug-in backup files to a capacity tier. However, if you want to transfer them manually, do the following:

If the backup files are created by Veeam Plug-in version 10, upgrade the metadata of backup files as described in the Upgrading Backup Files section.
Run the Set-VBRScaleOutBackupRepository cmdlet with the EnablePluginBackupOffload parameter to offload backup files to the capacity tier.

Hardened Repository

You can configure Veeam Backup & Replication to transfer Veeam Plug-in backup files to a hardened repository. The hardened repository helps to protect Veeam Plug-in backup files from loss as a result of malware activity or unplanned actions. Backup files in the hardened repository become immutable for the time period specified in the backup repository settings. During this period, backup files stored in the repository cannot be modified or deleted.

For Veeam Plug-in for Oracle RMAN backups, immutability works according to the following rules:

Immutability is applied to backup (VAB) files and backup metadata (VASM) files. Backup job metadata (VACM) files are not immutable.

Backup files become immutable for the configured time period (minimum 7 days, maximum 9999 days).

Backup files become immutable after 24 hours have passed since each file was created. The immutability service runs in the background at every hour. This service detects and sets immutability flags for any backup file that can no longer be reused.

TIP

Contact Veeam Customer Support to change the default 24 hour lifespan of a backup file. To do that, you can submit a support case on the Veeam Customer Support Portal.

The immutability period is not extended for the active backup chain.

Data Restore from Hardened Repository

As a result of malware activity or unplanned actions, backup job metadata (VACM) files may become unavailable in the hardened repository. In this case, to restore data from the hardened repository, you must re-create the VACM file. For more information, see Restore from Hardened Repository.