Replication from a backup

[derricktye]

Hi,

Our current environment makes use of backups (backup copy and surebackup) from Veeam.

1) Source host for Veeam console with storage within that host used as target storage for on-site backup;
2) DR host where backup copy jobs are sent to that secondary repository off-site.

VMs that Veeam makes backups are hosted in another server on-site.
All of these backups (and backup copy jobs) are run daily at night.

I wanted to make use of the replication features of Veeam, but I don't understand it clearly. With replication from a backup job, what would the difference be against making backups - my point is with the backups run everynight the replication points are only going to be the same the restore points made from the backup. The RPO is not closer than the backup job.

What would the benefit be of replication then?

Replica from backup uses a backup chain in the backup repository as the only source of data. When building a new VM replica restore point, Veeam Backup & Replication always reads data from the latest restore point in the backup chain, either full or incremental. The backup chain in the backup repository may be created with a backup job or a backup copy job.

[Mildur]

The benefit would be, that you don‘t have to send the data a second time over a slow wan link to a remote site. A second benefit would be, that the source production datastore will not be used for the replication. Not everyone wants to putting more load on the production datastore every few minutes or hour. And that way, no snapshotting of the vm is needed.

If you need lower RPO, then you need to replicate from the source vm or doing more often a backup to this location.

[derricktye]

Hi Mildur,

If I send a backup copy job to remote site over a slow wan link that would be once nightly. It's not very often - and because it is once nightly, and the replication would also follow once nightly it wouldn't make a difference to either use the replication or backup in the event of a failure.

It would change if I replicate form the source VM (replica seeding) more frequently or performing a backup more frequently to target storage.

May I also ask. One use case I was thinking of using for replicas is when I want to plan for downtime to reboot server/install critical updates. I wanted to failover to secondary host using the replica and then failback when production server is up. Am not sure if it is practical. We are just an SME without a clustered environment. Is this something wise to do?

Also, is it wise to use replicate to on-site backup storage or also replicate to DR-site? I know this is a matter of policy and risk management. But what are preferences? My DR site is 30Mbps download and 15Mbps upload and hits a bottleneck when I do Veeam backups although backups only run about 30-40 minutes.

[Mildur]

I wanted to failover to secondary host using the replica and then failback when production server is up. Am not sure if it is practical. We are just an SME without a clustered environment. Is this something wise to do?

That is one benefit of veeam replica. You can use Planned Failover for that scenario and after you have finished updating the host, you can failback to the production site.

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110

Also, is it wise to use replicate to on-site backup storage or also replicate to DR-site? I know this is a matter of policy and risk management. But what are preferences? My DR site is 30Mbps download and 15Mbps upload and hits a bottleneck when I do Veeam backups although backups only run about 30-40 minutes.

If you need the replicas for doing maintenances on your Hosts, then onsite storage would be ok. If your plan is to use veeam replicas for DR purposes, then I would say, an off site storage in the DR site is a must as a target.
It depends on why you are using veeam replicas.

You can use both solutions at the same time if you want to have on site and off site replicas. I would‘t do that by myself, but it is possible.

If you want to optimize the transfer to the dr site, deploy a veeam backup proxy on the Host in the dr location. Veeam will use then compression do transfer the data.
Or you can deploy a WAN Accelerator to optimize even further.

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110