Performing an off-site backup with AWS using Veeam Backup and Replication

It is now possible to backup from Veeam to AWS through the use of the AWS Storage Gateway service.

To explain how it works: AWS Storage Gateway allows you to create a Virutal Tape Library Gateway - than simply speaking is a way of creating a virtual tape drive in the cloud that can hook upto other AWS services such as S3 and Glacier.

You are required to download the AWS Storage Gateway virtual appliance to act as an intermetriaty to effectively proxy the data between the Veeam server and AWS. Although in order to hook Veeam upto the virtual appliance you are required to install specific tape drive drivers that emulate a physical tape drive - but actually hook into the AWS storage gateway appliance.

Please refer to the below article for help deploying / provisioing the Storage Gateway appliance:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/latest/userguide/GettingStartedSetupVMware-common.html

and the following article on how to install the appropraite drivers for your backup solution:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/latest/userguide/resource_vtl-devices.html#update-vtl-device-driver

Create the relevent tape drives and select your cache and upload buffers disks:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/latest/userguide/GettingStartedCreateTapes.html

Configure the Veeam server's drivers / iSCSI settings:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/latest/userguide/GettingStartedAccessTapesVTL.html

Veeam makes use of the STK-L700 device - of which I had issues getting to work under Server 2008 - the medium changer showed up as 'Unknown Medium Changer' - so I ended up downloading the xxxxxxx driver from the Microsoft Update Catalog via IE:

http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Home.aspx

The driver is called: StorageTek - Storage - Sun/StorageTek Library

I then re-scanned the tape server and only then I was able to right-hand click on the medium changer (now called STK L700 0103) and click 'Import Tapes'.

For convienicne you can download the x64 version of the driver here (labelled as support server 2003 and 2008 R2)

and finally on how to configure Veeam:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/latest/userguide/backup-Veeam.html#veeam-configure-software