Integrating Veeam with HPE Alletra MP B10000 and GreenLake

The integration of Veeam backups with the HPE Alletra MP B10000 block storage family is both straightforward and highly efficient, utilizing native APIs and the intuitive graphical management console.

Furthermore, the Virtual Lock capability provides advanced ransomware protection through robust, immutable snapshots, ensuring that critical data remains safeguarded against accidental deletion or Ransomware attacks.

The HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 serves as both primary production storage and the initial point of Veeam recovery integration. By creating primary storage snapshots directly at the source where data is generated, protection begins immediately, thereby reducing the risk of data loss and enabling rapid recovery through Veeam’s Instant Recovery feature.

In addition, the integration supports application-consistent snapshots, enabling either full VM recovery or granular restores, delivered at primary storage speeds without impacting the production performance of critical applications, such as datastores.

HPE Alletra MP B10000

HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 delivers mission-critical storage at mid-range economics with the industry’s first disaggregated, scale-out block and file storage with 100% data availability. 

Built on the new HPE Alletra Storage MP modular, disaggregated platform and managed via HPE GreenLake, this enhanced storage delivers a cloud-like experience with efficient scaling, extreme resilience, and top-tier performance for mission-critical applications.

It combines HPE’s best-in-class technologies:

• High-performance hardware from the Alletra Storage MP platform.
• All-flash and NVME.
• Proven enterprise SDS capabilities from the 3PAR code stream (including HPE 3PAR, Primera, and Alletra 9000).
• Built-in AI for automation and self-healing.
• Hybrid-cloud management.
• Effectively, an all-in-one resilient data solution.

Reference: https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a50006985enw

Cyber‑resilience Against Ransomware

The HPE Alletra MP B10000 integrates built‑in ransomware detection directly into its storage operating system, providing organizations with proactive defense at the data layer. By applying anomaly detection methods, the system can identify suspicious encrypted I/O operations in real time and generate immediate alerts for potential ransomware activity.

This adaptive technology can detect both traditional ransomware patterns and advanced variants that may evade conventional signature-based detection.

When ransomware detection is enabled on a source storage volume, it can also be activated on the corresponding replication target volume, ensuring that both production and backup environments benefit from continuous monitoring. This dual protection delivers critical visibility and awareness, helping organizations prevent catastrophic consequences and maintain operational continuity.

From a cyber‑resilience perspective, this capability strengthens the defense‑in‑depth model by combining prevention, detection, and recovery.

The Alletra MP B10000 not only secures primary data but also ensures replicated copies remain uncompromised, aligning with Veeam’s 3‑2‑1‑1‑0 backup strategy.

While the HPE Alletra immutable snapshots orchestrated by Veeam provide guaranteed recovery points, Alletra’s real‑time detection ensures that recovery points are free from compromise. The ransomware detection capability in the B10000 supports integration with third-party security solutions, including security information and event management (SIEM) and extended detection and response (XDR).

Exploring the HPE GreenLake

HPE GreenLake is Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s cloud platform, purposefully designed to streamline and modernize IT operations. It provides a unified framework that integrates on‑premises resources across storage, computing, networking, and public-cloud environments, enabling organizations to manage hybrid infrastructures more efficiently.

Unlike conventional cloud offerings, HPE GreenLake delivers exceptional flexibility in both management and consumption models. Customers can choose to manage the platform themselves, delegate management to HPE, or adopt a hybrid approach. Consumption options are equally versatile, supporting both OpEx and CapEx financial models to align with diverse business strategies.

Originally introduced as an as‑a‑service IT consumption model, HPE GreenLake has evolved into a comprehensive hybrid cloud platform. Today, it encompasses advanced capabilities such as multi‑vendor and multi‑cloud observability with AIOps, hybrid management and orchestration, integrated data protection and disaster recovery, cloud cost optimization, and a unified data platform.

HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000, integrated with HPE GreenLake, delivers a single platform with a unified storage management paradigm.  The focus is on orchestration and automation to streamline operations and enhance efficiency.

Like other cloud platforms, HPE GreenLake is delivered through a unified interface, the HPE GreenLake Central, which provides streamlined access to a broad portfolio of services consoles.

In this context, the Data Services Cloud Console (DSCC) serves as a cloud‑based control plane for managing the entire storage lifecycle. Customers can shift from LUN-centric to AI-driven, app-centric storage provisioning. No storage domain expertise is required, and no more guesswork.

With DSCC, storage provisioning time is reduced from days or weeks to minutes, enabling line-of-business owners and app admins to self-provision storage to accelerate app deployment, freeing up IT resources to focus on strategic, higher-value initiatives.

It enables agile provisioning of volumes and pools, storage fleet management, simplifies performance and monitoring, protects workloads with integrated backup and recovery, optimizes resources with intelligent insights, automates operations through policies and APIs, and provides centralized storage management across hybrid environments.

Among the options available in the Data Services Cloud Console (DSCC), the HPE GreenLake for Block Storage service focuses on storage lifecycle management, including block provisioning, native replication, and snapshot‑based data protection and recovery. Block Storage service enables fast and efficient provisioning, security, and management of application volume sets.

The intended users for the Block Storage are application administrators and users who need to provision and expose storage to their application hosts, but who do not necessarily require access to or knowledge of the underlying storage arrays.

In HPE GreenLake Block Storage, creating new volumes is intuitive and efficient. For the Veeam configuration procedure outlined below, a dedicated volume has already been provisioned on the HPE Alletra MP B10000 system: V035‑veeam‑vol.

Ransomware detection can be enabled on a per‑volume basis. When an attack is detected, the system automatically generates a read‑only alert snapshot of the affected volume.

Administrators can then compare this alert snapshot with an existing immutable snapshot already stored in the system. This comparison confirms whether an attack occurred and helps identify the specific data that was affected.

The alert snapshot serves as a valuable resource for forensic investigation and validation, while data recovery is performed from the immutable snapshot. This ensures both the integrity of information and the continuity of services, even in the event of a ransomware incident.

Reference: https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a00146263enw.pdf

The Data Ops Manager service is HPE’s central management hub for storage arrays. It enables system administration, replication configuration, performance monitoring, and host management from a single console.

At the same time, storage provisioning and protection are managed separately through dedicated applications, such as Block, File, and Object Storage services.

The intended users of Data Ops Manager are cloud operators and anyone responsible for managing the organization’s infrastructure and storage fleet.

A host group in the Data Ops Manager service is a logical collection of hosts (servers or nodes) that enables collective management of storage access. This configuration allows simultaneous presentation of storage volumes to multiple hosts, such as those in VMware clusters.

In the environment used to demonstrate the integration of the HPE Alletra MP B10000 with Veeam Backup & Replication, a host group has been created and associated with the dedicated volume V035‑veeam‑vol.

Similarly, three virtual servers have been configured on this host to access the V035‑veeam‑vol volume on the HPE Alletra MP B10000.

The connection between the host and the Alletra is established through the iSCSI protocol.

Adding HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 to Veeam Storage Infrastructure

Reference: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbr/userguide/hp_3par_add.html?ver=13

Before adding HPE Alletra to the Veeam Backup & Replication Storage Infrastructure, the HPE Web Services API (WSAPI) server must be enabled. Veeam Backup & Replication relies on the WSAPI server to communicate with HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 systems. Therefore, ensure that the WSAPI server is active before use, and enable it if necessary:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbr/userguide/storage_configure_enable_web.html?ver=13

In the VBR console, open the Storage Infrastructure view. In the working area, click Add Storage.

In the displayed window, click Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

In the Add HPE Storage window, select HPE Alletra/Primera.

Specify HPE Web Services API Address and Storage Role.

In the DNS name or IP address field, enter a full DNS name, or IPv4 or IPv6 address of the server.  In the Web Services API server URL field, enter a URL of the HPE Web Services API Server. For Alletra Storage MP B10000, use https://< websapiserver>:443.

In the Role section, select the Block or file storage for VMware vSphere checkbox to enable VMware backup.

At the Credentials step of the wizard, specify credentials for a user account with administrator privileges on the HPE Web Services API Server.

At the VMware vSphere step of the wizard, select the iSCSI option to access the storage system. In the Volume to Scan section, select the Choose option.

Select the volumes using the wildcard option.

Search for the volume you created in the GreenLake console. In this example, V035*.

Click on OK.

Back in the VMware vSphere configuration, keep the automatic selection for the backup proxies to use and click on Apply.

The verifications will be performed. After concluding, click on “Next”.

Review the summary information, then click Finish.

Backup job using Alletra MP B10000 snapshots and immutability

In the VBR console, create a new VM backup job.

Enter a name for the job.

Select the VM you want to protect.

In the Backup Repository field, select the option HPE Alletra/Primera Snapshot (Primary storage snapshot only).

Make the snapshot immutable for the desired time. In this example, 03 days. HPE Alletra will use the Virtual Lock feature to keep this snapshot immutable.

If desired, you can enable a secondary destination for this jo – backup copy job.

If necessary, Veeam supports Application‑Aware Processing (AAP) in backups created from HPE Alletra MP snapshots, generating transactionally consistent restore points for applications.

Select the desired schedule for the backup job.

Review the configuration, select the option Run the job when I click Finish and click on Finish.

The job will be executed. Note that the immutable storage snapshot is created on the HPE Alletra MP B10000, and the backup job completes successfully.

Go to the Storage Infrastructure option in the VBR menu and select HPE Alletra/Primera. Expand the folder until you see V035-veeam-vol, then locate the snapshot.

Select the snapshot and choose the Delete Snapshot option. The operation will fail, the snapshot will not be removed, and a message will be displayed: Storage snapshot is protected (immutable). The snapshot can be deleted only after the retention period defined in the backup job (three days) has expired.

By accessing the HPE GreenLake console and navigating to Data Services > Block Storage > Configured Volume, we can confirm that the snapshot is set to read‑only and that Virtual Lock (immutability) is enabled for three days, as specified in the backup job configuration.

Veeam Instant Recovery from HPE Alletra MP B10000 snapshot

Go to Storage Infrastructure and select HPE Alletra/Primera. Expand the folder until you see V035-veeam-vol, then click on the snapshot.

Locate the protected VM, right‑click on it, and select Instant recovery.

Confirm the selected VM.

Let’s restore to the original location.

Let´s inform the restore reason.

Verify the summary, select the connect VM to the network, and Power on the target VM after restoring options. Click on Finish.

A warning message will be presented. Click on Yes.

The instant restore procedure is performed.

Now, select the Instant recovery job and click on Migrate to Production.

Confirm or adjust the destination configurations.

Keep the automatic proxy selection.

Review the summary and select the option to delete the source VM file after a successful quick migration. Click on Finish.

Conclusion

Integrating the HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 with Veeam Backup & Replication empowers organizations to achieve faster, more reliable, and more secure data protection. Through efficient storage snapshot orchestration, backup windows are significantly reduced, and production impact is minimized, enabling rapid, consistent backups.

The HPE Alletra MP B10000 further strengthens ransomware resilience with native immutability features, including HPE Virtual Lock and integrated ransomware detection within its storage operating system. These capabilities align seamlessly with Veeam’s 3‑2‑1‑1‑0 best‑practice rule, ensuring that immutable snapshots orchestrated by Veeam remain uncompromised.

This integration establishes a cyber-resilient foundation at the data source, providing rapid data access (1+ million IOPS and sub-1ms latency), 100% guaranteed availability, high‑speed data recovery, low RPO, simplified management, and the ability to consume on-demand resources through the HPE GreenLake offering.

Additional References

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/greenlake.html

Click to access a50006985enw.pdf

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbr/userguide/transport_modes.html?ver=13