Scenario.
2 x backup Exec 2014 servers storing backup data locally to disk.
10TB of data backed up.
Aim.
To duplicate backup jobs to Amazon S3 for offsite storage. This would only be accessed in a disaster scenario.
Method.
I've been playing with Amazon's Gateway VTL device and their Gateway Cached Volume. (I believe Gateway Stored option not available for BE)
As such I have implemented both a VTL device and a cached volume device and made the storage available to backup exec via Iscsi initiator.
I have performed test backup jobs of both solutions and both appear to work fine.
Considerations.
The cost of runnning a an Amazon Storage Gateway (either VTL or cached) is roughly £80 per month. Obviously with actual storage and reads etc on top of this.
If I go down the VTL route I need to provision 2 gateways as the Iscsi initiator and the virtual tape library can only be connected to one physical BE server.
My preferred method, to avoid having to use 2 gateways, is 1 Gateway cached Storage device. Within Amazon AWS I can then create 2 volumes each with a unique ID and then each BE server has it's own Iscsi volume that it can use as disk based storage. I have tested this scenario with success.
Question.
How does Backup Exec manage the expiry of data sets that are stored on an Amazon S3 device?
What I need to avoid is costly reads of the whole amazon volume as this is where extra additional costs are going to be incurred.
Does anyone have any experience of this or have any tips to share?
Thanks