Many SMBs with a single site all have a common challenge with disaster recovery (DR). As all their systems reside in a single site they depend on a simple recovery strategy, which is to rebuild their systems after a new site or wait until the existing site is available again.
This strategy may result in an unacceptable Recovery Time Object (RTO), which is the time it takes to bring critical systems online again so business transactions can resume.
Some clients look at standing up a DR site - where essentially you rent space/power/connectivity and invest in software and hardware to create a warm DR site. This approach reduces the RTO, however, this is usually at a higher cost as you would be investing in two similar sized IT environments.
A more recent approach is to create a simple cost-effective DR solution whilst leveraging your current backups being sent off-site, or to leverage DR-as-a-Service. This is where Veeam Backup & Replication can help, and we will delve into this in more detail below.
Veeam recovery to Microsoft Azure
This solution leverages the on-premises Veeam Backup Server & an Azure Subscription for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) to backup from a VMware or Hyper-V environment. Also supported are Veeam Endpoint devices (Windows & Linux physical servers).
Once the backups are stored on the on-prem backup repository we can run a backup copy job to transfer this on-prem backup data to Azure where a Veeam Backup Repository is configured. This can store backups for a longer retention period.
The Veeam PN (Powered Network) appliances are deployed from the Azure marketplace, allowing network connections to be made between on-prem and Azure.
Together with Veeam Backup & Replication server and the Veeam PN, you will be able to restore in four scenarios:
- On-premise restores
- Azure restores to on-prem
- Direct Azure restores
- Azure restores to a DR
Veeam solution outcomes
Veeam recovery to Microsoft Azure offers:
- Automation of backup/restores - using Veeam Backup & replication you can schedule jobs to automatically check backups and restores to ensure backup data integrity and application restores work
- Onsite backup - delivering fast onsite recent restore points which provide a faster RTO, in turn reducing business impact by making IT services more available
- Offsite backup - delivering long-term archiving restore points which remove the need for legacy tape and offsite tape management, therefore reducing complexity and manual intervention
- Cost-effective DR - provided in two options, offsite backups in Azure can be restored to:
- Azure by using the direct restore to Azure feature; all VMs are recovered into Azure IaaS and then you can connect clients to Azure to resume access to systems
- DR or another on-prem site by using the Veeam PN which connects Azure to the on-prem site and then restores can be completed
How we can help
We can deliver a Veeam backup server to protect virtual machines (VMs) and/or physical servers in your on-premises environment. Our deployment service includes a design workshop, backup server and configuration for up to 10 VMs.
Many existing Veeam customers who have already been using Veeam Backup & Replication may have some new-found challenges, bottlenecks and backup issues that have been left unresolved. Our Health Check delivers a report which highlights health issues, risks and recommendations for fine-tuning.
- By Richard Choi (Solutions Architect)
