Pass the Veeam Veeam Certified Architect VMCA2022 Questions and answers with CertsForce

The additional condition of the offsite backup that is presumed by the immutability requirement is that a copy of backup data must reside in a public cloud local to each region. Immutability means that the backup data cannot be modified, deleted, or overwritten by anyone, including the backup administrator, the cloud provider, or malicious actors1. Veeam Backup & Replication v11 supports immutability for backups stored in Amazon S3 and Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, using the Object Lock feature2. Therefore, the offsite backup must use one of these cloud providers, and must be located in the same region as the source data, to comply with the data locality and privacy laws. The other options are not related to the immutability requirement, as they are either already stated in the business requirements (option A), technical requirements (option B), or not relevant for the Veeam solution (option C). References: Immutability, Object StorageImmutability.

Immutable repositories are backup storage locations that prevent unauthorized modifications or deletions of backup data, ensuring its integrity and recoverability. Immutable repositories are essential for protecting backups against ransomware attacks, accidental deletions, or malicious insiders1.

Veeam Backup & Replication supports several types of immutable repositories, such as hardened repositories, immutable object storage repositories, and immutable deduplicating storage appliances2. Among these options, the best configuration for ensuring SLA compliance and providing protection against ransomware is to leverage hardened repositories at both primary and secondary sites, and offload to object storage in a public cloud with immutability enabled.

Hardened repositories are Linux-based repositories that use XFS file system with immutability flag to protect backup files from changes or removals. Hardened repositories can be used as primary or secondary backup targets, and can be combined with Veeam Scale-out Backup Repository to simplify backup management and optimize storage utilization3.

Object storage repositories are cloud-based repositories that use object storage services, such as Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, or Google Cloud Storage, to store backup data. Object storage repositories can be used as secondary backup targets, and can leverage the immutability feature of the cloud provider to prevent backup data from being overwritten or deleted.

By using hardened repositories at both primary and secondary sites, you can achieve high availability and redundancy for your backup data, as well as fast and reliable restores. By offloading to object storage in a public cloud with immutability enabled, you can achieve long-term retention and compliance, aswell as cost savings and scalability. This configuration also follows the 3-2-1-1 backup rule, which recommends having three copies of data, on two different types of media, with one copy off-site and one copy immutable.

You can find more information about immutable repositories and how to configure them in the following resources:

Immutable Backup Solutions: Linux Hardened Repository

Unstructured Data Backups in Immutable Repositories

Hardened Repository

[Immutability for Object Storage Repositories]

[3-2-1-1 Backup Rule]

According to the Veeam Backup & Replication Best Practice Guide1, one of the possible ramifications of shortening the backup window to eight hours is that the CPU and memory requirements of the proxies will be increased. This is because:

•The proxies are responsible for retrieving data from the source and sending it to the target. They perform data compression, deduplication, encryption, and other tasks that consume CPU and memory resources.

•To shorten the backup window, the proxies need to process more data in less time, which means they need more CPU cores and memory to handle concurrent tasks and avoid bottlenecks.

•The backup window can also be affected by other factors, such as the network bandwidth, the storage throughput, the backup methods, and the backup settings. Therefore, it is important to consider all these aspects when designing a backup solution.

References: 1: Proxy - Veeam Backup & Replication Best Practice Guide

To design a solution that meets the requirements for off-site immutable backups for Veeam University Hospital, you need to consider some of the options and features that Veeam products and features offer. This will help you to ensure the security and integrity of your backup data, as well as the compatibility and supportability of the cloud provider that does not currently support immutability.

According to the Veeam Backup & Replication Best Practice Guide, immutability is a feature that prevents backup files from being deleted or modified by anyone until the specified retention period expires. Immutability can be achieved by using S3 Object Lock or Hardened Repository, which are two different solutions that Veeam Backup & Replication supports.

Based on this definition, the best option to still satisfy the requirements for off-site immutable backups is A. Backup copy to a hardened repository.

This option means that:

•The backup copy is a type of job that allows you to create and maintain copies of your backup data on a secondary backup repository. You can use backup copy jobs to send your backup data off-site, as well as to apply different retention settings and policies.

•The hardened repository is a solution that allows you to add a hardened repository based on a Linux server to your backup infrastructure. You can use hardened repository with Veeam Backup & Replication to make your backups immutable on-premises or off-site.

•The backup copy to a hardened repository can be configured and managed by Veeam Backup & Replication, regardless of the cloud provider that does not currently support immutability. You only need to deploy and connect a Linux server with a hardened repository in the cloud environment, and then use it as a target for your backup copy jobs.

The Gateway Server is a component that acts as a data mover between the backup proxy and the NFS storage. By placing the backup proxy and the Gateway Server together at the source site, you can reduce the network traffic and latency between them, and improve the data transfer speed. The Gateway Server will read data from the NFS storage and send it to the backup proxy over a local connection, and the backup proxy will process and compress the data before sending it to the target site1

•The RMAN plugin is a component that integrates Veeam Backup & Replication with Oracle RMAN, which is a native tool for Oracle backup and recovery12.

•The RMAN plugin allows you to use Oracle RMAN commands to back up and restore Oracle databases to Veeam backup repositories, as well as perform log shipping and point-in-time recovery12.

•The RMAN plugin supports Oracle databases running on any supported operating system or hypervisor, as well as physical servers or cloud environments12.

•The RMAN plugin leverages the features and benefits of Veeam Backup & Replication, such as compression, deduplication, encryption, scalability, and reliability12.

To design a solution that meets the immutability requirement for Veeam University Hospital, you need to consider how this constraint affects the other requirements and expectations of the customer. This will help you to avoid any conflicts or inconsistencies that may arise from applying immutability settings to the backup data.

According to the Veeam Backup & Replication Best Practice Guide, immutability is a feature that prevents backup files from being deleted or modified by anyone until the specified retention periodexpires. Immutability can be achieved by using S3 Object Lock or Hardened Repository, which are two different solutions that Veeam Backup & Replication supports.

Based on this definition, the requirement that is impacted by the immutability constraint is D. Backup must take advantage of public cloud storage for long-term retention.

This requirement is impacted by the immutability constraint because:

•Public cloud storage is a type of storage that is provided by a third-party service provider over the internet, such as Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, etc.

•Public cloud storage can be used for long-term retention, which is a policy that defines how long backup data should be kept for compliance or historical purposes, such as months, years, or decades.

•Public cloud storage can also support immutability, which is a feature that prevents backup data from being deleted or modified by anyone until the specified retention period expires, such as days, weeks, or months.

•However, not all public cloud storage providers or services support immutability, or support it in the same way. For example, Amazon S3 supports S3 Object Lock, which allows you to apply a legal hold or a retention period to individual objects or object versions. Microsoft Azure supports Immutable Blob Storage, which allows you to create time-based policies or legal holds for blob containers. Google Cloud supports Bucket Lock, which allows you to lock a bucket and prevent objects from being overwritten or deleted.

•Therefore, the choice of the public cloud storage provider or service may affect the immutability setting and requirement for the backup data. You need to verify and compare the compatibility and supportability of the public cloud storage providers or services with Veeam Backup & Replication and with the customer expectation.

Based on the requirements, one of the factors that should be considered in the physical design when implementing the virtual machine replication between sites is to ensure that the proper firewall ports are open between the proxies at each site. This is because Veeam Backup & Replication uses network ports to communicate with backup infrastructure components and transfer data during replication. You need to make sure that the required ports are not blocked by firewalls or other network devices. For a list of ports used by Veeam Backup & Replication, see this article2

To design a solution that meets the backup and replication requirements for Veeam University Hospital, you need to consider some of the components that are needed for the on-premises design. This will help you to ensure the performance and reliability of the backup and replication operations, as well as the scalability and manageability of the backup infrastructure.

According to the Veeam Backup & Replication Best Practice Guide1, some of the components that are needed for the on-premises design are:

•Backup server. This is the core component of Veeam Backup & Replication that controls and coordinates backups, replication, recovery verification, and restore tasks. It also manages backup infrastructure components, such as proxy servers, repository servers, WAN accelerators, etc. You need to have a backup server at each site, as recommended by the best practice guide2.

•Backup proxy. This is a component that retrieves data from the source host, processes it and transfers to the backup repository. It also performs data compression, deduplication, encryption, etc. You need to have at least one backup proxy at each site, as recommended by the best practice guide3.

•Backup repository. This is a server where Veeam Backup & Replication keeps backup files, backup copies and metadata of replicated VMs. It can be a Windows or Linux server, a NAS device, a deduplication appliance, etc. You need to have at least one backup repository at each site, as recommended by the best practice guide4.

•Mount server. This is a component that mounts backup files from the backup repository to the backup proxy during restore operations. It also performs data decompression, deduplication, decryption, etc. You need to have a mount server at each site where you plan to perform restores, as recommended by the best practice guide5.

•Gateway server. This is a component that acts as a data mover between the backup proxy and the backup repository when they are located in different sites or networks. It also performs data encryption and decryption for secure data transfer. You need to have a gateway server at each site where you have a backup repository that is accessed by a remote backup proxy, as recommended by the best practice guide.

Therefore, based on these components, the answer that describes which components are needed for the on-premises design is D. Backup server, backup proxy, backup repository, mount server, gateway server.

•Veeam CDP is a technology that helps you protect mission-critical VMware virtual machines when data loss for seconds or minutes is unacceptable12.

•Veeam CDP leverages vSphere APIs for I/O filtering (VAIO) to constantly replicate I/O operations performed on VMs without creating snapshots12.

•Veeam CDP allows you to configure the RPO per second and achieve near-zero RPO, which means almost no data loss12.

•Veeam CDP also provides minimum recovery time objective (RTO) in case of a disaster, as CDP replicas are in a ready-to-start state1.

Veeam image-based replication is not the best option, as it relies on snapshots and has a higher RPO than CDP3. Custom PowerShell scripting is not a reliable or scalable solution, as it requires manual coding and maintenance. Veeam Backup Copy with immediate mode is not suitable for replication, as it is designed for copying backup files, not VM replicas4.

References: 1: Continuous Data Protection (CDP) - User Guide for VMware vSphere 2: Veeam v11: Continuous Data Protection (CDP) configuration 3: Replication - User Guide for VMware vSphere 4: Backup Copy Modes - User Guide for VMware vSphere