Resiliency is a key differentiator for NetApp’s Intelligent Data Infrastructure solutions. NetApp’s native data protection features provide optimized data management and protection functionality, making ONTAP a unified data management platform suitable for any workload.
NetApp and Veeam have a long-standing partnership focused on data protection innovation, and Veeam Backup & Replication (VBR) – part of Veeam’s Data Platform (VDP) – is a leading solution for enterprise data resilience.
The integration between NetApp and Veeam provides faster, more efficient data resilience with almost no impact on your production environment. This allows you to dramatically improve the RPO and RTO for your applications and more effectively protect them against evolving threats.
Now, NetApp and Veeam are taking things to the next level with a new NetApp plug-in developed using Veeam’s Universal Storage API framework.
Figure 1) NetApp USAPI plug-in for Veeam
New and improved integration
The NetApp USAPI plug-in with Veeam delivers more efficient and advanced ONTAP integration. The plug-in improves on Veeam’s native ONTAP integration by enabling more streamlined and efficient data protection workflows. The plug-in also delivers new features, functionality and platform support to help make backup and recovery more secure and resilient. The plug-in allows both NetApp and Veeam to innovate faster, and it reduces the time to value for new feature releases in both ONTAP and VBR. Here are some key benefits that the NetApp USAPI plug-in delivers:
- Storage Snapshot Backups – create and manage ONTAP snapshots directly in the VBR console and use ONTAP snapshots to drastically reduce system overhead when protecting VM workloads
- Resiliency and DR – take advantage of ONTAP’s SnapMirror optimized replication feature that can be managed directly in VBR to replicate snapshots between clusters for maximum resiliency, security and recoverability
- Data Immutability – Veeam protects VMs using NetApp tamperproof snapshots that help keep data safe against malware and unauthorized deletion
How it works
Configuring VBR to use the NetApp USAPI plug-in is done via the same simple and user-friendly process you’ve come to expect from Veeam. You can download and install the plug-in directly from the VBR user interface. Then, you can easily connect your NetApp storage to VBR using the Add Storage wizard.
Figure 2) Add NetApp storage in VBR with the NetApp USAPI plug-in
Once your NetApp ONTAP storage systems are connected to VBR, you can browse the storage in the VBR storage explorer. You can rescan a storage system or specific volume, and you can create storage snapshots directly in VBR without the need to switch interfaces.
Figure 3) Browse the connected NetApp storage directly in VBR
You can create new VMware backup jobs that use ONTAP snapshots and snapshot replication (SnapMirror) the same way you’ve always done it with VBR. Simply create a backup job and select the appropriate NetApp plug-in workflow in the job creation wizard, fill in the details, and you’re all set.
Figure 4) VBR backup for VMware vSphere using the NetApp USAPI plug-in
Functionality
Veeam backup from ONTAP snapshots (BfSS) significantly improves system performance by offloading backup processing from production systems, which nearly eliminates the performance degradation (known as VM stun) that can happen with VMware backups.
Figure 5) Improve VM performance with VBR backup from ONTAP snapshots
VBR can create additional backup copies to off-cluster targets – including NetApp StorageGRID – which can be made immutable for additional protection against malware and accidental or malicious deletion. This provides a robust 3-2-1-1 backup strategy.
VBR can orchestrate snapshot replication in ONTAP, with new functionality delivered by the plug-in:
- VBR automatically detects SnapMirror asynchronous and synchronous relationships in ONTAP and coordinates updates
- Use SnapMirror async or sync replication targets as the source for Veeam BfSS jobs
The plug-in also delivers new snapshot immutability functionality that is key for building the most secure data protection solution possible:
- Make snapshots immutable in VBR using ONTAP’s tamperproof snapshot feature
- Use ONTAP tamperproof snapshots in a VBR data lab environment
With ONTAP tamperproof snapshots, VBR’s anomaly detection and threat hunter security features, you can create a unique cyber vault backup solution that will keep your data protected against ransomware and other malware threats.
Figure 6) Protect data against ransomware using ONTAP tamperproof snapshots
Feature and Platform Support
The NetApp plug-in for VBR is supported with VBR 13.1 and beyond, and it supports a broad range of ONTAP platforms: FAS, AFF, ASA and ASA r2.
The plug-in will support the following Veeam workflows:
- Snapshot management
- Snapshot replication
- Snapshot immutability
- Snapshot archiving will be available soon in a future VBR release
The existing Veeam native ONTAP integration delivers efficient data protection for VMware, with support for:
- ONTAP snapshots
- SnapVault
- SnapMirror asynchronous
The NetApp plug-in for VBR supports all the above features available in the Veeam native ONTAP integration. In addition, the plug-in adds support for several new ONTAP features and configurations:
- Tamperproof snapshots
- SnapMirror synchronous
- MetroCluster
- SVM-DR
- SnapMirror active sync
The plug-in is supported with all currently supported versions of ONTAP. It can be downloaded here. The release notes can be seen here.
Summary
NetApp and Veeam continue to jointly innovate to improve and simplify the data protection experience. The NetApp plug-in for VBR enables faster innovation and time to value for new features and NetApp storage platforms. This makes data resilience more efficient and more secure.
Stay tuned for upcoming announcements about how NetApp and Veeam are working together to deliver the most advanced solutions for on premises, cloud, and Kubernetes data protection and resilience.
