To design a solution that meets the needs and requirements of Veeam University Hospital, you need to conduct a thorough analysis on the areas mentioned in the case study. This will help you to understand the current state of the environment, the goals and expectations of the stakeholders, and the constraints and challenges of the project.

According to the case study, some of the areas that would benefit from additional analysis are:

* NAS. This area would benefit from additional analysis because NAS systems are used to store confidential patient data as unstructured data, which need to be backed up consistently and securely. You need to collect more information about the characteristics and performance of the NAS systems, such as the size and type of data, the number and distribution of files, the largest file size, the version of SMB protocol, the deduplication and compression ratios, etc. This will help you to design a solution that can meet the backup and recovery objectives, as well as the regulatory and security requirements, for the NAS data.

* PostgreSQL. This area would benefit from additional analysis because PostgreSQL databases are used by some of the departments, with a mix of virtual and physical deployments. You need to collect more information about the configuration and performance of the PostgreSQL databases, such as the version and edition, the operating system and platform, the backup and restore methods and tools, the consistency and integrity requirements, etc. This will help you to design a solution that can support and integrate with PostgreSQL databases, as well as provide consistent and reliable backups and restores.

* OneDrive. This area would benefit from additional analysis because OneDrive is used by all doctor and lab staff to store their user data on their laptops, which also need to be backed up. You need to collect more information about the usage and performance of OneDrive, such as the number and size of files, the synchronization frequency and settings, the authentication and authorization methods, etc. This will help you to design a solution that can protect and recover OneDrive data, as well as exclude any operating system or personal files from backup.

The tiers of Veeam Financial Services' backups that will require SureBackup jobs are the silver and gold tiers.SureBackup jobs are used to verify the recoverability of backup files by running virtual machines from backups in an isolated environment and performing tests against live applications1. This feature is suitable for the silver and gold tiers, which have recovery time objectives of six hours and 30 minutes, respectively, and require backups to be verified. The bronze tier, which consists of development machines and field portables, has a recovery point target of seven days, with no recovery time target set, and does not require backup verification. Therefore, SureBackup jobs are not necessary for the bronze tier.Laptop backups are performed by Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows, which does not support SureBackup jobs2.Reference:SureBackup,Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows.

If you separated the large VMDKs into their own backup jobs, you would be creating more manual work for the backup administrator, who would have to configure and maintain multiple jobs for the same group of VMs. This would go against the requirement of reducing administrative overhead by using dynamic scoping.

Dynamic scoping is a feature of Veeam Backup & Replication that allows you to automatically include or exclude VMs from backup jobs based on tags, attributes, or policies1. For example, you can use VMware tags to assign a backup policy to a VM, and then use the tag as a filter in the backup job. This way, any VM with that tag will be automatically added to the backup job, and any VM without that tag will be automatically excluded. This simplifies the backup management and ensures that all VMs are protected according to their assigned policy.

For large VMDKs with high I/O, you can use alternative backup methods to avoid performance impact and stuns, such as storage snapshots, direct SAN access, or hot-add2.You can also use different storage optimization options to balance the deduplication ratio and the backup file size3. These options can be configured within the same backup job, without the need to separate the large VMDKs.

You can find more information about dynamic scoping and backup methods for large VMDKs in the following resources:

How to Use Dynamic Scoping in Veeam Backup & Replication

Backing up large vmdks (~12 TB)

Backup strategies for a large VM

The information that is still needed for a complete architectural design is how often backups are required for silver machines. This is not stated in the technical requirements, where only the recovery time objective and recovery point objective are given for the silver tier. The backup frequency affects the backup storage consumption, the backup window, and the restore point granularity. The other options are either already provided in the technical requirements (daily backup retention, amount of time required for a successful restore for gold machine) or not relevant for the architectural design (RMAN configuration guidelines).Reference:Veeam Certified Architect 2022 Exam Guide, page 10;Veeam Backup & Replication v11: Architecture and Design course, module 4.

The best way to accomplish the recoverability testing of backup files for gold tier virtual machines to meet the customer's requirements is to create a virtual lab in the customer's environment, and then use SureBackup jobs to verify backups. A virtual lab is an isolated environment where you can run your backups or replicas without affecting the production environment. A SureBackup job is a process that allows you to automatically verify the recoverability of your backups by running them in a virtual lab. By using these features, you can ensure that your backups are consistent, functional, and compliant with SLAs and regulations.