Backblaze is a proud partner of Veeam and is fully compatible with Veeam Cloud Tier. Additionally, Backblaze is certified as Veeam Ready - Object and Veeam Ready - Object with Immutability. Immutability is an important part of protecting backups from threats such as ransomware or stolen credentials by ensuring your backed-up data is safe and secure for a specified timeframe.

This guide will walk you through how to recover from B2 Cloud Storage when you lose access to your primary backup environment and need to recover in a completely new Veeam Backup & Replication environment wherever that may reside.

Please note that this guide only applies to Enterprise and Enterprise Plus editions of Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Availability Suite.

Demo Environment

App: Veeam Backup and Replication Version 11.0.0.837

OS: Windows Server 2019 Standard

Compute Host: PhoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud

Cloud Storage: Backblaze B2

Scenario Objective

1. Access to the primary backup environment and repositories are unavailable.
2. SOBR (Scale-Out Backup Repository) is configured with a Backblaze B2 Cloud repository.
3. Windows Compute Engine needs to be created
4. Veeam Backup and Recovery of the same version needs to be installed on Windows Compute Engine.
5. Import Backups from Cloud Repository in Backblaze B2.
6. Deploy ESXi on Equinix Metal
7. Add ESXi Host to Veeam Backup and Replication 
8. Restore VM into your ESXi environment.

Assumptions
Windows Compute Engine and Veeam Backup and Recovery software can be installed by customers with the assistance of the hosting provider and Veeam documentation.

If you need assistance with installing Veeam in your environment, please see their website here: https://www.veeam.com/videos/how-to-install-backup-replication-16156.html

Table of Contents

Add ESXi Host to your Veeam

Add Local Storage as a Repository

Add Your Existing B2 Bucket as a new Object Storage Repository

Importing Cloud Repository

Restoring your files

Add ESXi Server to Veeam Backup and Replication

Once you have Veeam B&R Installed on your windows box, launch the Veeam Console

Next, Under Virtual Infrastructure, click on Add Server and follow the steps below

You may get a certificate prompt as follows: This is because ESXi uses a self signed certificate. You can click continue. This certificate can be updated later on. 

Add Your Existing B2 Bucket as a new Object Storage Repository

If you do not have the Veeam console open, launch Veeam on your Windows Server and click "Connect".

1)  On the Backup Repositories screen, click the "Add Repository" button.

2) Select "Object storage" to continue

4) On the next screen, select "S3 Compatible"

5) Enter a name for the Repository and click "Next"

6) Add the S3 Endpoint you gathered earlier and enter it in the Service Point field. Then, enter the 2nd part of the S3 Endpoint (in this example it is ‘us-west-001’). After you’ve done this, click the "Add..." button to enter your B2 credentials.

7) In the Access Key field, enter your keyID. And in the Secret Key field, enter your applicationKey. Then enter adescription if you like and click "OK".

8) You’ll now see the Credentials field populated. Proceed by clicking the "Next" button.

9) In the Bucket dropdown, select the bucket you created and then click the "Browse..." button to make a folder in your bucket for the Veeam backups.

10) Click the "Next" button to save the configuration and proceed to the Summary page. You can then click "Finish"

The Repository you just created should now appear in the "Backup Repositories" section

Restoring your VMs into ESXi

Now that you have your environment set up and configured in PhoenixNAP. We can begin the restore process. 

First, we need to import the backups from Backblaze B2. 

Right click on the Backblaze B2 Backup Repository that you created above and choose "Import Backups..."

Choose Yes from the following prompt

The import process will begin. Follow the steps below: 

Veeam will prepare for the import process

Once ready, Veeam will let you know when it is ready to start importing the Backups. 

Clicking Finish will start the import process.

Once all the Backups are imported, you will see this screen

From the Home Tab within Veeam, you can expand on "Backups" and see all the Backups that were imported from Object Storage. 

Now let's Restore! 

Click on any of the VMs (one or more) and choose the "Entire VM Restore" button on the ribbon.  

This will open up the Restore wizard. 

Since you are restoring these VMs to the cloud, which is a new location, select Restore to a new location or with different settings. 

Select the ESXi host that you wish to deploy these VMs on. If you followed this guide, you should see the ESXi host that you added early on in the list. 

Select the right Target network you wish to deploy on

If you wish to power on the target VMs after restoring, check the "Power on target VM after Restoring" checkbox.

Hitting Finish will start the restore process

You can view the details as it progresses

Once the VM finishes deploying, you should see success

On the PhoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud, you can launch the Web UI of ESXi and see the VMs deployed which you can then start. 

For more complex restoration scenarios, please refer to Veeam documentation and support for assistance.

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