diff --git a/swh/vault/backend.py b/swh/vault/backend.py
--- a/swh/vault/backend.py
+++ b/swh/vault/backend.py
@@ -6,10 +6,11 @@
 import collections
 from email.mime.text import MIMEText
 import smtplib
-from typing import Any, Dict, List, Optional, Tuple
+from typing import Any, Dict, Iterable, List, Optional, Tuple
 
 import psycopg2.extras
 import psycopg2.pool
+from tenacity import retry, stop_after_attempt, wait_random_exponential
 
 from swh.core.db import BaseDb
 from swh.core.db.common import db_transaction
@@ -64,6 +65,44 @@
 """
 
 
+def retry_io_methods(obj: Any, method_names: Iterable[str] = None):
+    def should_retry(retry_state) -> bool:
+        """Retry if the exception is (probably) not about a caller error
+
+        """
+        try:
+            attempt = retry_state.outcome
+        except AttributeError:
+            # tenacity < 5.0
+            attempt = retry_state
+
+        if attempt.failed:
+            exc = attempt.exception()
+            if isinstance(exc, IOError):
+                return True
+            else:
+                return False
+        else:
+            # No exception
+            return False
+
+    retry(
+        retry=should_retry,
+        wait=wait_random_exponential(multiplier=1),
+        stop=stop_after_attempt(3),
+    )
+
+    if method_names is None:
+        # Defaults to all public members of object
+        method_names = [mname for mname in dir(obj) if not mname.startswith("_")]
+
+    for meth_name in method_names:
+        meth = getattr(obj, meth_name)
+        setattr(obj, meth_name, retry(meth))
+
+    return obj
+
+
 def batch_to_bytes(batch: List[Tuple[str, str]]) -> List[Tuple[str, bytes]]:
     return [(obj_type, hashutil.hash_to_bytes(hex_id)) for obj_type, hex_id in batch]
 
@@ -76,8 +115,8 @@
     def __init__(self, db, **config):
         self.config = config
         self.cache = VaultCache(**config["cache"])
-        self.scheduler = get_scheduler(**config["scheduler"])
-        self.storage = get_storage(**config["storage"])
+        self.scheduler = retry_io_methods(get_scheduler(**config["scheduler"]))
+        self.storage = retry_io_methods(get_storage(**config["storage"]))
         self.smtp_server = smtplib.SMTP()
 
         self._pool = psycopg2.pool.ThreadedConnectionPool(