Quickstart Guide for Veeam 12 Direct-to-Cloud Backups to Backblaze B2 with Immutability

Welcome

With the release of Veeam Backup and Replication Version 12 comes the ability to tier your Veeam Backup Jobs directly to B2 Cloud Storage. 

This guide will walk you through Backblaze buckets and keys, how to set up an S3 Compatible Object Storage Repository pointing to your Backblaze B2 bucket with Immutability, and assigning that repository to a new Backup Job. 

If you would like to set up your B2 Cloud Storage bucket as a part of a Scale-out Backup Repository, or are running either Veeam Version 10 or Veeam 11, please see this guide: Quickstart Guide for offloading Veeam Cloud Tier backups to Backblaze B2 with immutability

A 12 minute walk-through guide is also available below: 

Part 1: Setting up Your Backblaze Account

Begin this guide by signing in to your Backblaze account. If you do not have an account, please sign up here.

1) Click Create a Bucket

2) Give your bucket a valid name, enable Object Lock, then click "Create a Bucket".  

3) Confirm your bucket has been made. Leave the File Lifecycle setting at the default "Keep all versions" Make note of your Endpoint, this will be useful when setting up your repository.

Ex: in this case, the endpoint is "s3.us-east-005.backblazeb2.com"

4) Navigate to the App Keys page. Click the "Add a New Application Key" button. 

5) Give your key a valid name, leave all other settings on default, then click "Create New Key".  

6) Record your keyID and applicationKey. You'll use them to set up your repository. 

Part 2: Adding your Backup Repository

1) Open Veeam Backup & Replication 12.

2) Navigate to Backup Infrastructure, then click Add Repository.

3) Click Object storage.

4) Click S3 Compatible.

5) Fill out the Name and Description fields, then click Next.

6) Fill out the Service point field with your Bucket Endpoint. Fill out the Region field with the 2nd part of the Endpoint. Then click Add... 

7) Fill out the Access key and Secret key fields with your keyID and applicationKey, respectively. Then click OK. 

8) Confirm your B2 credentials on the Account window, then click Next. 

9) Click the Browse... button to the right of the Bucket field. 

10) Select your bucket, then click OK. 

11) Click the Browse... button to the right of the Folder field. 

12) Click New Folder.

13) Type a name for your new folder. Press the Enter key to accept the name. Then click OK.

14) Check the box to select "Make recent backups immutable for x days", set your preferred number of days, then click Next. 

Note: This is a required step in this guide due to Object Lock being enabled in the example bucket. Checking this box is how one enables Veeam Immutability for their backups. Backblaze strongly recommends using this feature to protect your data from ransomware. 

15) Proceed through the Mount Server, Review, and Apply screens without making changes. Then click Finish on the Summary page. 

Congratulations! Your Repository is finished. Find it in the Backup Repositories section of your Backup Infrastructure. When you are ready, proceed to the next section to make your Backup Job. 

Part 3: Creating a Direct-to-Cloud Backup Job 

1) Navigate to Home -> Jobs.

2) Click Backup Job, then click Virtual machine...

3) Fill out the Name and Description fields, then click Next. 

4) Click Add...

5) Browse your VMs and make your selection(s). Click Add when finished. Repeat as necessary.

6) Confirm the selections, then click Next. 

7) Use the Backup repository drop-down to find and select your Backblaze B2 Backup repository.

8) Click Advanced...

9) Navigate to the Storage tab. Use the Storage optimization drop-down to find and select 4MB. Then click OK. 

Note: This is optional, but will improve performance of object storage backups to Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage. 

10) Confirm the selections, Click Next.

11) Proceed through the Guest Processing window without making changes. On the Schedule page, click "Run the job automatically" and set a schedule. Then click Apply. 

12) Optionally click the "Run the job when I click Finish" box, then click Finish. 

Congratulations! Your Direct-to-Cloud Backup Job to Backblaze B2 with Immutability is finished. Thanks for following along.

Again, Backblaze strongly recommends all Veeam customers enable Object Lock in Backblaze B2 and Immutability in Veeam to protect against ransomware. If you have a valid reason for not protecting against ransomware and do not want to enable immutability, please contact our support team for detailed instructions on how this can be enabled.

If you have any questions about B2, please feel free to reach out to our Support Team via our website here: https://www.backblaze.com/help.html