Veeam VMCA2022 - Veeam Certified Architect 2022

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.

The recommended step that Veeam Life and Indemnity can take to improve the latency encountered during backup of the virtualized MSSQL Server database running on vSAN is to implement Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows on the virtualized MSSQL Server database servers. Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows is a data protection solution that allows you to back up physical or virtual Windows machines at the guest OS level. Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows can provide application-aware processing and transaction log backup for MSSQL servers, as well as support for vSAN storage snapshots. Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows can also reduce the latency by performing backups without using VMware snapshots, which can cause stun issues on vSAN.

The areas that would benefit from additional analysis on areas mentioned in the case study are MSSQL, NAS, and PostgreSQL. These areas have specific backup and restore requirements that need to be considered and addressed in the design and sizing of the Veeam backup infrastructure. For example, MSSQL requires transaction log backup and application-aware processing to ensure consistent backups and point-in-time recovery. NAS requires file-level backup and storage integration to optimize backup performance and storage efficiency. PostgreSQL requires pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts to quiesce the database before backup and resume it after backup.

References: [MSSQL Server Backup], [NAS Backup], [PostgreSQL Backup]

The method that can be used to validate that the design meets target SLAs and does not exceed repository growth projections is to ensure job throughput matches extensions and cross-compare with available network throughput, disk speed and initial sizing calculations. Job throughput is the measure of how much data is processed and transferred by a backup job per unit of time. Job throughput can be affected by various factors such as network bandwidth, disk performance, compression, deduplication, encryption, etc. By ensuring job throughput matches extensions, you can verify that your backup jobs are running as expected and meeting the SLAs. By cross-comparing job throughput with available network throughput, disk speed and initial sizing calculations, you can identify any bottlenecks or discrepancies that might affect your backup performance or storage consumption.

The information that is missing from discovery is what the available bandwidth is between Fresno and Carson City. This information is important for designing and sizing the backup copy jobs that need to run daily between the two sites. The available bandwidth can affect the backup copy performance, duration, and size. For example, you can use the available bandwidth to estimate how much data can be transferred between the sites within the backup copy window. You can also use theavailable bandwidth to determine whether you need to use compression, deduplication, or WAN acceleration to optimize the backup copy traffic.

The direct risk of having Veeam Backup & Replication on the production domain is that a compromised Domain Admin could gain access to the backup server and its data. This could pose a serious security threat to the backup infrastructure and the customer data, as a malicious Domain Admin could delete, modify, or encrypt the backups, or restore them to a compromised environment. Therefore, it is recommended to isolate the backup server from the production domain and use a separate local administrator account for managing it.

The preferred method to achieve the requirement of excluding the H: drive on MSSQL server virtual machines is to set up VMDK exclusion for the disk on which the H: resides in the Virtual Machines > Exclusions page for each virtual machine. This method allows you to exclude specific virtual disks from being processed by backup jobs based on their SCSI IDs or disk labels. This can save backup time and storage space by skipping unnecessary data. This method also works reliably regardless of whether the MSSQL servers are built on demand or from virtual machine templates.

The configuration that would verify the SLA compliance during audits and protection against exposure to personally identifiable information in the event of exposure is to create a virtual lab environment and periodically perform staged restores with custom scripts. A virtual lab is an isolated environment where you can run your backups or replicas without affecting the production environment. A staged restore is a process that allows you to run custom scripts on the restored data before publishing it to the production environment. By using these features, you can demonstrate that your backups are recoverable and compliant with legal regulations, as well as remove or mask any sensitive data before restoring it.

The component that will help the customer meet their stated objectives of role-based access control (RBAC) and alternative decryption capabilities is Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager. Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager is a web-based interface that allows centralized management of multiple Veeam backup servers. It also provides RBAC policies that enable granular control over user permissions and access to backup data. For example, you can assign different roles to different users or groups based on their responsibilities and needs, such as backup administrator, restore operator, securityofficer, etc. Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager also provides password loss protection feature that enables authorized users to restore encrypted backups without entering passwords if they forget or lose them.