Veeam Backup and Replication – Migrate Repositories

Migrating Repositories is not a day 2 day job. Sometimes it must be done when replacing Backup2Disk devices and sometimes when you’re running out of space. Migrations in general could be very challenging but not so with Veeam. There are two ways to migrate repositories and it depends on the Veeam license which one you can use. I tested both with my Synology NAS box. In theory it should be the same with any Enterprise Backup Storage System.

General

On my Synology I have two shared folders, VeeamBackup02 and VeeamBackup03. I also created a backup job that points to VeeamBackup02. Now I need to migrate repository VeeamBackup02 to VeeamBackup03. I also created under Backup Infrastructure – Backup Repositories 2 repositories pointing to the respective shared folders.

1. Migrate data on the Synology NAS

This method can be used with every paid Veeam Backup & Replication license. Before I started with the migration, I checked that no backup is currently running and that the backup job is disabled. The following steps describe the migration process.

• Copy all data from VeeamBackup02 to VeeamBackup03 on the Synology NAS.
• Open Backup and Replication console, select the new Backup Repository and do a “Rescan Repository”.
• When the rescan is completed you will find under Backup & Replication – Backups – Disk (imported) the moved backups.

• Edit the Backup Job and select the migrated Repository as new backup target.
• The backups will be moved from Disk (imported) to Disk.

2. Migrate data through a Scale-Out Repository

This method can only be done if you’re using an Enterprise or Enterprise Plus license because you need Scale-Out Repository functionality. The Enterprise license has also the limitation that the Scale-Out Repository can only consists of 3 extends.

• Create a Scale-Out Repository with the two repositories you want to migrate between.

• Add the two repositories as extents. In my case VeeamBackup02 and VeeamBackup03.

• You will get an message that all backup jobs which are using any of the extents will be pointing to the new Scale-Out Repository.

• Depending on which storage you are using select the policy that is the most appropriate.

• After the Scale-Out Repository was created you can place the old extent (VeeamBackup02) in “Maintenance mode” and “Evacuate backups” to the new extent (VeeamBackup03).

• When the migration is finished you select Properties on the Scale-Out Repository.

• You can now remove the new extent (VeeamBackup03) from the Scale-Out Repository. The extent should be in Maintenance Mode before the removal. When you try to remove it you will be asked if you want to evacuate backups. In this case we DON’T want this. If you try to remove the Scale-Out Repository first you will also remove all linked backups.

• After you removed the extent (VeeamBackup03) you need to rescan the removed repository (VeeamBackup03) to ensure Backup & Replication can see the data in it. If everything works fine you can change the backup job to the new repository (VeeamBackup03) and remove the Scale-Out Repository.