Veeam Backup for Office 365 v4.0 provides the capability of using an Object Storage (AWS S3, Azure Blob, IBM Cloud and S3-compatible providers) as Backup Repository.
The new feature allows the administrators to store backups directly to the cloud taking benefit of Object Storage capabilities reducing costs.
Blog series
Veeam Backup for Office 365 v4.0: installation - pt.1
Veeam Backup for Office 365 v4.0: setup Object Storage as Repository - pt.2
Veeam Backup for Office 365 v4.0: Backup Job creation - pt.3
Veeam Backup for Office 365 v4.0: restore a mailbox - pt.4
Add an Organization to protect
From the main Dashboard select Organizations and click Add Org.
Select Microsoft Office 365 as deployment type and specify services to protect. Click Next.
Select the authentication method to use and click Next.
Specify the correct credentials to connect and click Next.
The new Organization is added to Veeam Backup for Office 365. Click Finish to exit the wizard.
The new Organization to protect has been configured successfully.
Setup Object Storage as Repository
A new feature provided in version 4.0 is the support for direct backups to an Object Storage. To configure a new Repository, access the Backup Infrastructure area and select the Object Storage Repositories item. Click Add Object Storage in the menu to proceed with the configuration.
Enter a Name for the Object Storage Repository and optionally a Description. Click Next.
In this example will be used an S3 Compatible provider such as Wasabi. Click Next.
Specify the Service Point and the Data center region. Click Add to specify the credentials to connect the bucket to use.
Enter the Access key, the Secret key and a Description. Click OK to confirm.
When the correct credentials have been selected, click Next.
Select the Bucket to use and click Browse to specify the folder to store the backups. Click New folder to create a new folder and click OK to confirm.
Clicking Advanced you can specify the storage consumption limit to keep costs under control. Click OK.
Click Finish to save the configuration.
The new created Object Storage Repository.
Configure the local Repository
Next step is the configuration of a new local backup Repository used to store metadata and cache since an Object Storage Repository cannot be added to the default Repository. From Backup Infrastructure area, select Backup Repositories and click Add Repository in the menu.
Enter a Name and a Description then click Next.
Specify the Backup Proxy to use and the Path to the location to store the backups. Click Next.
To take benefit of the Object Storage feature, enable the Offload backup data to object storage option and select the previously created Repository from the drop-down menu. A new feature in version 4.0 provides in addition the capability to Encrypt data uploaded to object storage. Enable this option and set the Password. Click Next to continue.
Specify the retention policy settings. Specify the Retention policy and the retention type:
- Item-Level Retention - select this type if you want to keep an item until its creation time or last modification time is within the retention coverage.
- Snapshot-Based Retention - select this type if you want to keep an item until its latest restore point is within the retention coverage.
Additional info about Retention Policy can be found here. Click Finish to save the configuration.
The new Repository has been created successfully.
Migrate data from one repository to another
If you need to migrate Veeam Backup for Office 365 backups from one Repository to another, there is a useful tool written by Niels Engelen that allows an easy and automated migration. The script is available via GitHub.
Part 3 will explain how to create a Backup Job to protect the data of the Organizations configured in Veeam Backup for Office 365 4.0.
