New Install / Kaseya Plugin

[josephos]

Hi there,

i've got two quick unrelated questions.

1. I've been tasked to perform a new veeam install for a hyper-v cluster (Equallogic SAN). What's the best approach as far as where to install, and what are the pros and cons?
a) Install on one of the hyper-v cluster nodes?
b) Install on a HA VM inside the cluster
c) Install on a VM/Physical box completely outside the cluster (and off the clustered nodes)

My basic thinking is that i dont want my recovery point to be on the actual product im protecting. But on the other hand, can i snapshot the Equallogic direct without running Veeam on the node with the ISCSI connection to the SAN? Or can i simply install the SANs snapshot provider on any other machine?

[veremin]

The backup server can be either physical or virtual and can be installed on any Windows-based machine you have in your environment. You're right, though, it's not recommended to store backups on production storage. Because by doing that you impose yourself to one point of failure - should production fail, you would lose both VMs and their backups.

Also, depending on the size of your environment and workload put by backup activity on the underlying host, you might consider using offhost backup proxy.

Thanks.

[josephos]

Vladimir,

Thanks for your reply. Just to clarify, i wasn't referring to the storage of the actual backups, those im obviously storing outside the production storage. I'm just trying to understanding the pros and cons of the various different options on how to run the backup. Let me ask you this, are there any advantages running veeam directly on the cluster node? My thinking is as follows: I wish to utilize the hardware VSS provider, as i assume its faster than using Microsofts provider, but then the server running Veeam would need access to the isolated ISCSI network to grab the snapshot. As such, it might be best to just run Veeam directly on the hyper-v node attaching to the SAN (CSV Volume). The option to use an offhost backup proxy (to offload the processing away from the production node), is available regardless of where Veeam is run from. Right? On the other hand, what if i lose the node on which Veeam is installed and in the same time lose a VM (due to corruption caused by the failing node). The VMs will failover to the surviving nodes, but i now need to reinstall Veeam from scratch on another box to pull the corrupted VM from backup.

Sorry about posting two question in the same post. So since Vitaliy already responded here, ill reply here. If it gets more involved, ill move it.

[veremin]

I wish to utilize the hardware VSS provider, as i assume its faster than using Microsofts provider, but then the server running Veeam would need access to the isolated ISCSI network to grab the snapshot.

It's not backup server needs to access a snapshot, but rather a source side transport service that in case of onhost deployment will be running directly on the underlying host. So, it's up to you to where install backup server.

The option to use an offhost backup proxy (to offload the processing away from the production node), is available regardless of where Veeam is run from. Right?

Correct.

The VMs will failover to the surviving nodes, but i now need to reinstall Veeam from scratch on another box to pull the corrupted VM from backup.

Yep, but either replicating backup server or at least backing up its configuration should make your life easier in cases like that.

Thanks.

[josephos]

Ok, i just want to make sure i understand this properly. Lets assume my environment looks like the image below. I do not have the Hardware VSS provider installed on neither the Veeam server nor the offhost proxy. When i look at the available VSS providers, i do see the HW provider (see screenshot below). This of course means that the Veeam server queries the hyper-v host for its available VSS providers. That said, in the environment below, who is going to (or needs to) make contact with the SAN to grab the snapshot? In other words, do i need to install the HW VSS provider on the transport server and connect it to the ISCSI network, or, is that the job of the VMhost (yet it wont affect performance given the transport server)?

Available snapshot providers:


Sample environment:

[veremin]

What backup mode you're willing to utilize? Off-host or on-host one? In the former case, VSS hardware provide must be installed on the off-host proxy and Hyper-V host. In the latter case, only on Hyper-V host. Thanks.