Quickstart Guide for Veritas BackupExec and Backblaze B2

Introduction

This guide will walk you through how to set up Backblaze B2 cloud storage as a Veritas BackupExec cloud storage target.  

Note: This guide assumes that you already have a working Veritas BackupExec environment with hosts and backups and are on the latest version of Veritas BackupExec Software version 22.

Table of Contents

Get your B2 Application Key and S3 Endpoint

Configuring Cloud Storage in BackupExec

Configuring Your Backup Job

Guide

Get your B2 Application Key and S3 Endpoint

1) Log in to your account at www.Backblaze.com and click the Buckets link in the left-hand column. Once here, click the Create a Bucket button.

2) Give your Bucket a unique name and click Create a Bucket.

3) You will now see your Bucket on the Buckets page. Note the S3 Endpoint listed here for use later when setting up B2 with Veritas BackupExec.

4) Now click the App Keys link in the left-hand column to navigate to the App Keys page and click Add a New Application Key.  

5) Give your key a name and leave the other default settings. Then click Create New Key.

6) In a blue box on the App Keys page you’ll now see the keyID and applicationKey listed here, along with the S3 Endpoint we saw when making the bucket. Make sure you copy the keyID and applicationKey listed somewhere safe as the applicationKey will NOT be available again to view once you leave the page.

Configuring Cloud Storage in BackupExec

Note: Configuring Cloud Storage with Backblaze B2 was first introduced in version 22 of Veritas BackupExec. Before proceeding with the configuration, insure that you are BackupExec environment is upgraded to a minimum of version 22.

1) From the BackupExec console, choose Configure Cloud Storage from the options on the top ribbon.

2) Give the Cloud Storage a name and select appropriate options, and click Next.

3) Backblaze B2 is S3-Compatible storage, so choose, S3. Then click on the bottom information box to configure the S3 Compatible cloud storage provider as shown in the image below, and click Next.

4) In the configurator, select the default options.

1. Select Create Cloud Instance Radio Button
2. Service Host: Endpoint address of the bucket you created previously
3. URL Style: Path
4. Provider: compatible-with-s3-v4 (this is very important, without this set correctly, connectivity to Backblaze B2 will not work)

5) Now that all the parameters are entered, you can select Generate. (This generates the command needed to define the S3 Compatible Provider)

Select, Execute to create the S3 Compatible Provider to be chosen a little later in the guide when creating your backup job...

6) Now you will need to create a Region:

Choose the Manage Region Tab

7) Then Choose, Add Region 

Fill in the fields:

• Choose the Instance Name you just created
• Give it a Region Name: eg. us-west-001
• Specify the Identifier: eg. us-west-001 Note: the be pulled from the endpoint URL s3.us-west-001.backblazeb2.com

8) Enter the Service Point: This is the Endpoint URL. <s3.us-west-001.backblazeb2.com>

9) Once you have all the fields entered, select Execute Command.

NOTE: This can also be accomplished through the BEMCLI utility of BackupExec by issuing the commands in the example below.

BEMCLI Example:

New-BECloudInstance -Name backblaze -Provider compatible-with-s3-v4 -ServiceHost s3.us-west-001.backblazeb2.com -HttpPort=80 -HttpsPort=443 -SslMode Full –UrlStyle Path

New-BECloudRegion -InstanceName backblaze -IsDefaultRegion $true -Name "us-west-001”  -Identifier us-west-001 -ServiceHost s3.us-west-001.backblazeb2.com

10) You have completed creating the S3 Compatible Provider and can move forward in the Cloud Storage Configuration wizard. Choose the Cloud Storage Provider that you just defined, and click Next.

11) Click Add/Edit to enter the credentials for the Backblaze Account that you created earlier. Click Next.

12) Select Add to enter a new Login Account

13) Enter the KeyID and ApplicationKey for your Backblaze Account in the Username/Password fields as shown below. Then click Next.

14) You now have both your Cloud Storage Provider selected and your Login Account selected, click Next.

15) Choose the bucket you created earlier and wish to use for your backup target, then click Next.

16) You can adjust the number of concurrent operations. The default is 2 but this can be increased to potentially improve performance. See info note at bottom of the box.

17) Summary of your Cloud Storage Configuration. Select Finish.

Configuring Your Backup Job

Now that you have created your Cloud Storage Target, you will need to create a new Backup Job to send data to it. In this example, we are going to create a direct-to-cloud storage backup job. There is also an option to Backup to Disk and then Duplicate to Cloud. Either option can be chosen depending on which use case works best for your environment.

1) By choosing Backup and Restore, then choosing Backup, you can choose which backup job you would like to create. Choose, Back Up to Cloud

2) By default since you only have one Cloud Storage Target, it has chosen it as your default Cloud Storage Destination. If you would like to Edit the default backup job, select Edit to define the parameters of your backup job needs.

3) By clicking OK, the Backup Job will run automatically defined by the schedule that was chosen. If you would like to run the job once created, check the box, Run Now with no recurring schedule as seen in the screenshot below.

4) You have now completed your configuration of Backblaze B2 as your Cloud Storage destination. Further administration details can be found in the Veritas BackupExec documentation.