This is an archive version of the document. To get the most up-to-date information, see the current version.

Adding S3 Backup Repositories

An S3 backup repository is a folder in an Amazon S3 bucket with a specific storage class assigned.

AWS Plug-in for Veeam Backup & Replication supports the following types of S3 backup repositories:

Standard backup repository

A standard backup repository is a folder in an Amazon S3 bucket with the S3 Standard storage class assigned. AWS Plug-in for Veeam Backup & Replication uses this repository to store image-level backups of EC2 instances and additional copies of Amazon VPC configuration backups. We recommend you to store frequently accessed backups in this repository.

To store backups in a standard backup repository, first add it to the infrastructure and then enable image-level backups in a backup policy. For more information on how to create a policy, see Creating EC2 Backup Policies in the Veeam Backup for AWS User Guide.

Archive repository

An archive repository is a folder in an Amazon S3 bucket with the S3 Glacier or S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage class assigned. Archive repository allows you to archive image-level backups of EC2 instances, that is, to store backups for long periods of time at lower costs. However, restoring from an archived backup is longer and more expensive than restoring from a backup stored in a standard backup repository. To restore data from an archive, you first need to retrieve data from it. For more information on how to retrieve data, see Retrieving Data from Archive.

We recommend you to archive data if it is rarely accessed or you want to reduce data-at-rest costs and to save space in the high availability standard backup repository.

To archive backups, first add an archive repository and then enable backup archiving in a backup policy. For more information on how to create a policy, see Creating EC2 Backup Policies in the Veeam Backup for AWS User Guide. For more information on how archiving works, see the Enabling Backup Archiving section in the Veeam Backup for AWS User Guide.

Note

When you create an archive repository, Veeam Backup for AWS does not create any S3 Glacier vaults in your AWS environment. Veeam Backup for AWS assigns the selected storage class (S3 Glacier or S3 Glacier Deep Archive) to backups stored in the repository. That is why the archived backups remain in Amazon S3 and cannot be accessed directly through the Amazon S3 Glacier service.

Depending on your configuration, you can connect to existing repositories or deploy new ones.

Connecting to Existing S3 Backup Repositories

All S3 backup repositories that have been already configured on a Veeam Backup for AWS appliance are added automatically to the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure when you connect to this appliance.

If a repository that is already added to the Veeam Backup for AWS infrastructure is not available in the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure, follow the instructions provided in the Editing Veeam Backup for AWS Appliance Settings section. For a standard backup repository, at the Repositories step of the Edit Veeam Backup for AWS Appliance wizard, specify credentials to be used to access the repository. Click Apply, and the repository will be added to the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure.

Note

[For standard backup repositories] If you do not want or you do not have an option to add the Veeam Backup for AWS appliance where a standard backup repository is deployed to the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure, follow the instructions provided in the Adding External Amazon S3 Storage section in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide. In this case, restore from backups stored in this repository will work as described in the How Restore to Amazon EC2 Works section in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide. This configuration might be necessary, for example, if your product license is not supported.

Deploying New S3 Backup Repositories

When you deploy S3 backup repositories in the Veeam Backup & Replication console, they are added both to the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure and Veeam Backup for AWS infrastructure.

For instructions on how to deploy a repository, see the following sections: