Veeam and S3 storage with ARTESCA

Ransomware attacks have become a persistent and ever-present nuisance. Beyond securing the network, servers and clients with cyber security solutions, the backup data has to be protected from unwanted tampering as the last line of defence.

The S3 lock function

Protecting yourself against ransomware effectively means putting the backup data on offline, air-gapped or immutable storage. With the S3 lock function, object storage systems carry deletion protection, so your backup data cannot be deleted before the defined period expires. Not by a ransomware program and not by an attacker.

In the current version 11 of Veeam Backup & Replication, Cloud Move and Cloud Copy let you copy or move the backup data into object storage immediately after the backup job. The copy and move functions can be combined: the newest data is kept on disk and copied into object storage as well, while older data lives only in object storage. That way the fast disk space is used well.

Integration into Veeam

An S3 object store is integrated through a scale-out backup repository, configured with immutability in these steps.

On the capacity tier, the copy and move parameters are set as you need them.

At the object storage bucket level, immutability is switched on and the duration of the deletion protection is defined.

If anyone tries to delete the backup data from the object store, with good intentions or bad, the action cannot be carried out.

In the coming version 12 of Veeam Backup & Replication it will be possible to write the data to object storage directly from a backup job, or in a second step with a backup copy job.

ARTESCA by Scality

ARTESCA, a software-defined storage solution from Scality, lets you build and run an S3 object storage system in your own data centre.

We use the familiar HPE ProLiant or Apollo systems, fitted with the disks the capacity calls for. The servers can be extended later while running.

ARTESCA is a simple and capable storage solution, administered through a clear HTML5 interface. Monitoring and analysis tools that report on system state and performance are part of it. As a scale-out storage solution, ARTESCA object storage also grows with what you need.

We are building our own dedicated immutable object storage with ARTESCA. We will start with one or three storage nodes and 50 TB. Scaling up to 2 PB is possible today and will be extended considerably over the coming months.

Veeam certification

ARTESCA holds the “Veeam Ready – Object with Immutability” certification.

Integration with surrounding systems

Data from a local ARTESCA object store copies easily to a Scality RING or to object storage in the public cloud, using the built-in replication.

Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365

ARTESCA object storage also suits the backup data of Veeam Backup for Office 365 well.

With Microsoft 365, formerly Office 365, Microsoft offers a widely used and popular SaaS service. As is often the case with SaaS, Microsoft offers a first-class service in which the customer remains responsible for their own data. Which means Microsoft 365 data has to be backed up too.

Veeam Backup for Office 365 offers a simple and efficient way of backing up that data in your own data centre or in a public cloud. Extracting the data from the Microsoft cloud is free. ARTESCA provides scalable object storage for business-critical Microsoft 365 data. Restores take a few steps with the Veeam Explorer familiar from Veeam Backup & Replication.

Next steps

Would you like to enjoy your holidays knowing you can reach your data in immutable object storage at any time?

As a Veeam partner, soulTec has certified specialists with years of experience who are glad to help with questions about the architecture and implementation of S3 object storage and other Veeam topics.