Which Veeam Backup & Replication functionality achieves the lowest RPO?

Continuous Data Protection (CDP) is specifically designed to provide the lowest possible Recovery Point Objective (RPO) for mission-critical VMware virtual machines. It achieves this by continuously capturing and replicating I/O operations from the source VM to a target replica using VMware's vSphere APIs for I/O Filtering (VAIO). This near-synchronous process allows for an RPO of mere seconds, significantly lower than any other Veeam data protection method, which are typically measured in minutes or hours.

A. Backup Copy Job: This feature copies existing backup files to another location. Its RPO is determined by the copy interval, which is measured in hours or days, not seconds.

C. Snapshot-based Replication: This method creates replicas based on scheduled hypervisor snapshots. The RPO is limited by the frequency of snapshot creation, typically measured in minutes or hours.

D. File to Tape: This is an archiving function designed for long-term retention, not low RPO. The RPO is very high, usually corresponding to a daily or weekly schedule.

1. Veeam Backup & Replication V12 User Guide for VMware vSphere

"Continuous Data Protection (CDP)" section: "Veeam CDP provides the best recovery point objective (RPO) — as low as several seconds. This is possible because Veeam CDP uses VMware vSphere APIs for I/O Filtering (VAIO) that allows intercepting and redirecting VM I/O requests to the backup infrastructure." (Reference: Veeam Help Center

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/cdpoverview.html?ver=120)

2. Veeam Backup & Replication V12 User Guide for VMware vSphere

"Replication" section: "For standard replication jobs

Veeam Backup & Replication uses hypervisor snapshots to create replicas. The RPO for such jobs is typically 15 minutes or more." (Reference: Veeam Help Center

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/replication.html?ver=120)

3. Veeam Backup & Replication V12 User Guide

"Backup Copy" section: "The copy interval defines how often the backup copy job must copy new restore points from the source backup repository to the target backup repository... The minimum copy interval is 1 hour." (Reference: Veeam Help Center

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/hyperv/backupcopyhiw.html?ver=120)