Hi @jaceg23 -
I was not able to provide more context to my last comment and wanted to do so to hopefully clarify some of the options you have, even moreso specifically to SOBR Copy/Move to Capacity Tier. We recently had a webinar on this topic in the VMCE Study Hall a little over a week ago. It was a good discussion because those modes can be a little confusing.
There are some limitations and/or requirements to Move mode (not so much with Copy mode) you need to be aware of so you know exactly where your Backup Files are located when you use SOBRs. When you initially backup, they will obviously be on your Performance Tier; and if you select the Copy mode when you add a Capacity Tier, Veeam will immediately copy your backups to Capacity Tier once the backup job completes. So you’d then have 1 copy on Performance Tier and 1 copy on Capacity Tier. Pretty simple. The only item to be aware of when setting Copy mode up is the “Window” link at the bottom of the ‘Add Capacity Tier’ SOBR wizard. This “window” is a timeframe, or window, you can configure to ‘allow’ or prohibit” when Veeam is allowed to Copy, or Move if you have that mode configured, your backups to Capacity Tier.
Move mode is different in a couple respects → for this mode, you have to configure an “operational restore window”. Up until recently, I didn’t know what the heck that was 😂 What this is is basically a timerframe you configure when you are most likely to do restores of your data. Typically, this is within 7-14 days. As such, you want as fast restores as possible, so you want to restore your backup data from Performance Tier. And during this ‘window’ Veeam is not allowed to Move your backup files. After the configured days for this setting, Veeam will Move your data to Capacity Tier; afterwards, you now do not have data on Performance & Capacity, but just on Capacity. According to the Guide, Veeam does this every 4hrs. A caveat to this? A couple things: 1. at the end of 4hrs you could still be in your “prohibited” operational window you configure (if you configure this); 2. active backup chain → Veeam only moves inactive backup chain files, which are “sealed” by a Full. There’s a bit more validation which needs to take place you can check out in the Guide, but generally speaking, that’s how Moved mode works.
So there you have it...Copy vs Move 🙂 So, between this option, or storage replication (either via array directly or via Veeam), or GFS...which should you use? Great question! Well, it will honestly depend upon your environment and the ease vs complexity (I think SOBRs can be a bit complex in configuring as well as knowing where your backup data resides at any given time) you’re willing to configure and maintain. From a high-level, as I mentioned previously, with GFS you can use a calculator to guesstimate how much storage you’ll need. When you enable this, be aware all your data → short-term and long-term (GFS) data will be on the Repository you configure for the Job. You also have the luxury of using Block Cloning here so your Fulls won’t be outrageously large. Configuring a “secondary location” in your Jobs just replicates all this data to a partner/secondary array, so this is basically Storage Snapshot orchestration. You can’t really control location there too much. Whereas with SOBR, you can add almost any kind of Object Storage you want to your Veeam Console and configure those as Capacity Tier options for your jobs. Much more storage control. It’s advisable to be up-to-speed on knowing where your backup data is residing is all.
Well, that’s all I know about options of where to keep your backup data short vs long term. Choice is yours 🙂 Let us know if you still have questions.
