The backup of virtual machines ( VMs ) on vSphere is only a small part of service availability . Backup is the foundation for restores , so it is essential to have backups always available at the required speed . The most important general best practice for backups is the 3-2-1 Rule .

This means having at least three copies of your data ( i . e ., production data , plus a first and second line of backup . This rule also recommends storing backup copies on at least two independent types of media . The “ independent ” part of this cannot be overemphasised . Here , independent media means that these pieces of media have no dependency from a technology perspective . Finally , another copy should be offsite and offline so it ’ s out of reach of natural disasters , malicious software and unauthorised people . As an example , Veeam added support for S3 object lock in Veeam Backup and Replication v10 and hardened / immutable Linux repositories in v11 . Of course , tape is still an option for offsite storage for backups .

Veeam Backup and Replication helps extend the 3-2-1 Rule further to the 3-2-1-0 rule , which incorporates a more modern approach . Splitting the one into two represents both offsite and offline for additional ransomware protection . The zero represents the fact that there should be no errors in recoverability , which is made possible with automated restore tests with Veeam SureBackup and SureReplica jobs . SureBackup exists primarily to identify logical issues in backups to prevent issues during standard recovery operations . An example of this is if someone installed updates but never did a reboot . After a reboot , a blue screen or kernel panic would happen .

This document describes several best practices with Veeam Backup and Replication and VMware vSphere that help eliminate data loss and ransomware . These best practices are dedicated to Veeam and VMware only ; other hypervisors are not covered in this document .

These general best practices include :

• Having a backup and restore strategy that fits your business needs

• Having proper sizing

• Making sure VSS works within Windows machines

• Having enough backup space

These apply in any case , regardless of whether the backup is a VMware , Hyper-V , Nutanix AHV , cloud provider or physical server backup . p

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Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 66 | Page 17

10 BEST PRACTICES FOR VMWARE VSPHERE BACKUPS

The backup of virtual machines ( VMs ) on vSphere is only a small part of service availability . Backup is the foundation for restores , so it is essential to have backups always available at the required speed . The most important general best practice for backups is the 3-2-1 Rule .