2D Erasure Coding: The Breakthrough Behind Quantum’s ActiveScale Cold Storage for Veeam Backup & Replication’s Archive Tier

We are closing in on the 5th year birthday for Veeam Backup & Replication’s (VBR) Archive Tier.  During those 5 years we saw the Archive grow from initially using Amazon S3 Glacier and Microsoft Azure Archive Storage when VBR v11 was released in February of 2021 to being able to use on-premises S3 compatible object storage with data archiving capabilities. 

When this feature was made available with the launch of VBR v12.1 in December of 2023, one of our 1st Technology Alliance Partners (TAP) to provide a compatible storage solution was Quantum with its ActiveScale Cold Storage (ASCS).  Veeam TAP partners can enable the on-premises Archive Tier by implementing the  Smart Object Storage API (SOSAPI).  SOSAPI is the mechanism that Veeam created to enable deeper integration with our object storage partners like Quantum and their ActiveScale product.

What Is the Archive Tier?

The Archive tier is an additional tier of storage that can be attached to a scale-out backup repository (SOBR) within Veeam Backup & Replication.  You can transport applicable data to the archive tier for archive and cost saving purposes.

The following types of backups files are eligible to be sent to the archive tier:

• GFS backups (Grandfather-Father-Son)
  • Orphaned GFS backups
  • Veeam Backup for Red Hat Virtualization GFS backups
• VeeamZip backups
• Exported backups
• Kasten K10 backups

How it Works

• Veeam transforms eligible backup chains into self-contained, encrypted GFS restore points
• The Archiver Appliance  (typically the Veeam Backup & Replication server itself) writes these to ASCS
• ASCS applied 2D EC and stores the data on tape
• Restore requests are optimized and reordered by ActiveScale to maximize performance and minimize tape mounts and movement

The following illustration shows how you can utilize ActiveScale as a target for the primary backups, which are stored on the Performance Tier, and ActiveScale Cold Storage used as the Archive Tier:

Veeam Backup & Replication will use the backups stored in the Performance Tier to create the GFS backups that will be moved to the ActiveScale Cold Storage backed Archive Tier.  The creation and moving of the GFS backups is managed automatically via policies the customer defines within VBR.

Concerned about using tape?

Most of the on-premises S3 compatible object storage solutions with data archiving capabilities that have been validated via the Veeam Ready program’s Veeam Ready Object – Archive Tier (On-premises) program (Veeam Alliance Partner Integrations & Qualifications)

This usage of tape sometimes will generate concerns from customers due to their fear of the tapes degrading during the long-term retention of their archived GFS data.  This is a valid concern because in the world of backup and long-term data retention durability of the backup data is a primary concern and is non-negotiable. 

Quantum’s patented 2-dimensional Erasure Coding (2D EC) feature addresses and solves this concern. However, 2D EC isn’t just a feature, it’s the foundation of ActiveScale Cold Storage (ASCS). It is what makes ASCS one of the most resilient on-prem Glacier-class archive tier available for Veeam Backup & Replication.

What Is 2D Erasure Coding?

Traditional tape-based archives rely on multi-copy redundance, which is expensive and inefficient. Quantum’s 2D Erasure Coding replaces this with a smarter, software-defined approach that combines Across-Tape and Within-Tape Erasure Coding. It is designed specifically for tape-based object storage.

Across-Tape Erasure Coding

• Protects against full tape or library failures
• Example: 18+3 Erasure Coding, tolerates 3 simultaneous tape failures
• Ensure that each object can be read from a single tape, due to a clever on-tape data lay-out

Within-Tape Erasure Coding

• Protects against soft read errors, reducing read error rates by a factor 100
• Wide-stripe erasure code, applied to each 100GB block of data written to tape, with a very low storage overhead (4%)
• Recovers data after read errors without mounting other tapes

Combined they deliver:

• Up to 19 nines of data durability
• Storage overhead as low as 15-25%
• Efficient restores and minimal tape wear
• End-to-end data integrity with checksum verification

This is not replication. This is mathematical resilience, optimized for tape.

Real-World Efficiency

Let’s compare ASCS with legacy tape strategies for a 5PB usable system:

This is the power of 2D Erasure Coding. With fewer tapes and dramatically lower storage overhead, ASCS delivers durability levels that rival hyperscale cloud providers, while remaining fully on-prem. It eliminates the need for costly multi-copy strategies and manual tape management, offering a smarter, more resilient way to protect backup data at scale.
2D EC isn’t just more efficient – it’s fundamentally more durable, more recoverable, and more cost-efficient. For Veeam users, it means your GFS backups stored in the Archive tier are safer, cheaper, and easier to restore than ever before.

Why it matters for VBR’s Archive Tier?

Quantum’s ASCS is an ideal target for VBR’s Archive Tier due to the following:

Key Benefits for Veeam Users

• S3 Glacier API support for seamless integration
• Single bucket for both Active and Cold tiers
• Immutable backups with AES-256 encryption
• End-to-end integrity with checksum verification
• No manual tape management
  • ASCS handles all tape operations and management
• Restore from a single tape, even in multi-library deployments

Deployment Simplicity

• ASCS supports Veeam’s Scale-Out Backup Repository (SOBR) with:
  • Performance Tier (ActiveScale Active Storage)
  • (optional) Capacity Tier (ActiveScale Active Storage)
  • Archive Tier (ActiveScale Cold Storage with 2D EC)
• SOSAPI support ensures Veeam recognizes ASCS as an archive-capable target

Final Word

If you’re using Veeam Backup & Replication’s Archive Tier to retain backups for years or decades, ActiveScale Cold Storage with 2D Erasure Coding is an extremely advanced, efficient, and resilient solution which is an ideal option.

It’s not just tape. It’s tape reimagined – with the intelligence of object storage and the mathematical precision of erasure coding.