Deployment Newbie questions

[jmlnet]

I'm evaluating Veeam to replace ShadowProtect and am totally new to the concepts of replication and backing up VMs "from" the host rather than backing up individual VMs. I went to install the product and realized I was quite out of my element so please forgive me in advance for the dumb/uninformed questions.

My current setup is one Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V host (full version, not free) with direct attached storage via two LSI RAID cards (one for internal, one for external). That host runs 4 Server 2012 VMs (including one running Exchange 2013 and one running SQL) and 4 Win 8.1 workstations. Backup of the servers is through Shadowprotect and Essentials for the workstations. It's (obviously) now time to add another Hyper-V host and my plan is to leave the workstations on the current host and move the servers to a new host. As my business is small (only 3 active users for now), both of these hosts's resources would be underutilized.

If Veaam is my backup and replication strategy going forward, here's what I'm trying to figure out:

1) Does Veeam require a second hyper-v host for backup? Or does it work in backup only mode without a second host? I originally found Veeam because I was looking for a way to backup my entire host machine so that I could do bare metal restore. The built in backup would have been fine for this if it allowed me to select or deselect vhds connected to some of the vms (eg don't need to backup the Shadow Protect or workstation backup vhds).

2) The simple deployment diagram shows 3 physical computers. Is that really necessary if one or both of the hosts is/are underutilized? If it is necessary, how powerful does the Veeam backup server need to be?

3) If I have two hyper-v hosts (one for servers and one for workstations), do I now need a 3rd hyper-v host for the replication function? Or can the two hosts replicate to each other? Would I then need 4 physical machines for this scenario? Am I now in an Advanced Deployment scenario?

4) Can one of the hosts be "free" hyper-v and one be full server 2012 r2? Or do they both have to be the same build?

Hoping someone can walk this noob through this. Many thanks in advance.

John

[foggy]

Hello, John! Welcome to the community.

1) Does Veeam require a second hyper-v host for backup? Or does it work in backup only mode without a second host?

Basically, everything you need to start backing up VMs running on a single host is the host itself and a target to store backups (unless you're going to store them on host's local disks, which is not considered as best practice). Second host is required for replication only.

2) The simple deployment diagram shows 3 physical computers. Is that really necessary if one or both of the hosts is/are underutilized? If it is necessary, how powerful does the Veeam backup server need to be?

Diagram may be a bit confusing. You can set up Veeam B&R as a VM running on the same host, all the processing will be performed by the proxy components installed directly on the host (on-host mode), so you do not need any additional physical servers at all. You can find all the hardware requirements in the corresponding user guide section.

3) If I have two hyper-v hosts (one for servers and one for workstations), do I now need a 3rd hyper-v host for the replication function? Or can the two hosts replicate to each other? Would I then need 4 physical machines for this scenario? Am I now in an Advanced Deployment scenario?

You can replicate hosts to each other, this is a common practice. See above for the other questions, no real need for advanced deployment in your case.

4) Can one of the hosts be "free" hyper-v and one be full server 2012 r2? Or do they both have to be the same build?

Provided that you're not replicating down to the previous Hyper-V version (e.g. from Hyper-V 2012 to 2008R2), you're good to go.

[jmlnet]

Thank you! I'll tinker some more over the next few days and will likely have some follow up questions. Cheers!

[foggy]

Sure, feel free to ask for any additional clarification.

[jmlnet]

Finally found the time to get this up and running ..

I now have two hosts, one (1) has the Server (DC, Exchange, SQL) virtual machines and the other (2) has the workstation vms. For now, I'm only going to use Veeam to backup and replicate host 1 to host 2 and to offsite storage.

I had a call with with an engineer to demo the product and he said to install Veeam on host 2 and then install a proxy on host 1. I have the product installed on a windows 8.1 vm on host 2 and have but am a bit lost on installing the proxy on host 1. Is this considered an "offhost backup proxy" and do I set it up per the manual on this topic? Or do I need to do nothing as in the "Edit Hyper-V Server" window, it says that "This Hyper-V server will act as the backup proxy for jobs running in the on-host backup mode."? In terms of computing resources, host 1 has plenty.

[foggy]

Or do I need to do nothing as in the "Edit Hyper-V Server" window, it says that "This Hyper-V server will act as the backup proxy for jobs running in the on-host backup mode."? In terms of computing resources, host 1 has plenty.

Correct, in this simple setup your host will play a proxy role.