3-2-1 for your Veeam Configuration Backups

If you’ve worked with Veeam Backup and Replication in the past, then you may be familiar with the 3-2-1 rule,

This rule states:

• There should be 3 copies of data

• On 2 different media

• With 1 copy being off-site

Veeam has multiple options available to help you achieve the 3-2-1 protection goal for your environment and production workloads.

But how about the steps you take to protect Veeam itself?

The most basic and essential method to do this is by enabling the Configuration Backup. To enable the Configuration Backup, open up the “Configuration Backup” from the console menu, enable the backup and select the repository (Note – SOBRs can’t be used). 

Easy, my Veeam configuration is now protected. 

But what if I want to have 3-2-1 protection for my configuration backup?

Looking through the Veeam console, it doesn’t look like this functionality is available.

Well one method that we can use to achieve this is by utilising Veeam’s File Copy jobs.

So let’s create the File Copy job. From the Home View, Select the Copy Job drop down menu, and Select File.

We then give our File Copy job a name and description. 

The source will be the repository server with the folder location of the Configuration Backup specified.

The destination can be a Windows or Linux Directory. The great thing about the File Copy job is that this doesn’t need to be a repository, it can be any server which has been added as a Veeam managed Server.

And then we add a schedule, let’s do 2 hrs after the scheduled configuration backup time (12:00PM).

I’ve now setup the job copying my configuration backup files to a second destination. But I think I might have a problem here… If I leave this file copy running for a while, eventually I’ll have hundreds of configuration backup copies at the destination!

That’s where we need to get a bit creative, so let’s investigate use of Windows Task’s or Linux Cron jobs to “sync” the files. Wecan use Powershell or Bash commands to prune off the older backup files to create a synced folder.

For Windows I can use the PowerShell command below to remove any files older than 10 days –

Get-ChildItem -Path “<path\to\destination\folder>\*.bco”-Recurse | Where-Object {($_.LastWriteTime -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-10))} | Remove-Item

Then I can create a task to run the PowerShell command daily, and schedule this just after our file copy job.

If I want to use a Linux server as the destination, then I can create a bash script with the command below –

#!/bin/bashfind ‘/path/to/destination/directory/*.bco’ -type f -mtime +10 -exec rm {} \;

Then on the destination server, I’ll create a Cronjob with a similar schedule.

There we have it, I’ve now got a second destination which is in sync with the contents of the primary configuration backups. 

I can then include this destination server in a backup job and have this copied to another location (via SOBR, backup/tape copy etc). This way I’ve now got another copy of the configuration backup on separate media in a different location, 3-2-1 achieved.

Mission accomplished.

Andrew Newman

Andrew is an integration engineer focusing on Backup, Storage, Virtualisation and Server Infrastructure. With a professional background in support and Managed Services, Andrew has a strong focus on customer interaction and is dedicated to achieving the best possible outcomes for his clients and customers. He has a keen interest in the latest technologies and has extensive experience working with VMware, Commvault, Veeam, Dell EMC and Hitachi Storage Arrays.