Multi-Location Advice Needed

[emf1967]

Hello.

I am looking for some advice as to best way to setup Veeam in our environment described below (please excuse the length of the post).

Current setup

Primary Site:

Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V running Veeam B&R 7 (Enterprise Plus) on Host
VMs stored on DAS (Five production VMs: File & Print, MS SQL, MS SharePoint, Admin, Domain Controller, and One Repository VM).
Hyper-V host is part of the Domain.

Second physical server running Server 2008 R2 that is also a Domain Controller. Not part of the equation, but thought I’d mention it.

Backup Storage:

EMC VNXe 3100e on its own network connected to Windows Server 2012.
Iomega NAS connected via iSCSI in Repository VM (Repository VM is not backed up).

I currently have backup jobs that back up the five production VMs to the Iomega, as well as a backup job that backs up the File & Print, MS SQL, and MS SharePoint servers to the EMC. I plan to move all primary backups to the EMC and utilize Backup Copy Jobs to backup to the Iomega (The EMC has just been added to the backup storage mix.

I also have a second Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Host that is currently at the Primary Site that is used for replication. I am replicating the File & Print, MS SQL, MS SharePoint, and Admin servers to DAS on the server. Note: The replication jobs are running on this server not the primary server.

Hyper-V host is part of the Domain.

We are pretty much a M-F 9-6 operation, so I have a nice window for backups.

All servers mentioned have two processors, 8 cores each and at least 96gb of RAM.

Changes:

We are adding a DR location at a Co-lo. The Windows Server that is currently the replication target will be moving to this Co-Lo. We have 10mb/10mb and 50mb/5mb connectivity to the internet. The connectivity between locations will be via a SonicWall site-to-site VPN.

We also added a new office with a 3mb private connection back to the main office. New office has a Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V host running two VMs (File and Print and Domain Controller). Has 8TB of NAS storage for Backup Copy Jobs (mentioned below).

Questions:

What I would like to do is keep the current Replication server as is, other than changing the IP addressing on the host. I would then modify the replication jobs so they are optimized for WAN target, and also configure network map and re-ip. Is this ok, or should I recreate the Replication job(s) to run at the Primary location, and do seeding before I move the server to the co-lo?

For the new office I plan to create a Backup Copy job at the Primary site to send a copy of backups to that location. Will need to seed to a USB hard drive to bring to new office.

I also have questions about setting up Proxy Servers. Right now I am using on-host Proxy. I do not have any spare hardware, so the proxy servers at each site would have to be VMs. Since all the VM’s are stored on DAS, is this possible? From what I am reading, I do not think it is since there would be no way to directly reach the VMs on DAS from the proxy VM.

This would ultimately give me replication at the co-lo, two local copies of the backups, and one off-site. I also have Veeam Cloud running that is copying the day-to-day files up to Amazon every 15 minutes.

Unrelated, I also plan on running Windows Remote Desktop Services on the server at the co-lo to run about 10 Virtual Desktops (on demand, as needed) in the event our Primary location is not usable (as happened back when Sandy hit in 2012).

And suggestions / advice is appreciated.

Thanks

Ed

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Ed,

What I would like to do is keep the current Replication server as is, other than changing the IP addressing on the host. I would then modify the replication jobs so they are optimized for WAN target, and also configure network map and re-ip. Is this ok, or should I recreate the Replication job(s) to run at the Primary location, and do seeding before I move the server to the co-lo?

You can keep your current replication jobs running after moving your target host to the DR location, no issues with that. Just make sure that your backup server can still access your target location and that's it.

For the new office I plan to create a Backup Copy job at the Primary site to send a copy of backups to that location. Will need to seed to a USB hard drive to bring to new office.

It depends, you can either pre-seed your backup copy jobs or let them do the initial sync on their own. Since you're using Enterprise Plus edition, do leverage WAN Accelerators at both ends to make your backup copy jobs data transfer more efficient.

I also have questions about setting up Proxy Servers. Right now I am using on-host Proxy. I do not have any spare hardware, so the proxy servers at each site would have to be VMs. Since all the VM’s are stored on DAS, is this possible? From what I am reading, I do not think it is since there would be no way to directly reach the VMs on DAS from the proxy VM.

On-host proxy is installed on the Hyper-V host when you add it, so I'm not sure I follow you about using VMs as proxy servers. See this online web page for more info > http://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/70/h ... ub=on-host

Thank you!

[emf1967]

I also have questions about setting up Proxy Servers. Right now I am using on-host Proxy. I do not have any spare hardware, so the proxy servers at each site would have to be VMs. Since all the VM’s are stored on DAS, is this possible? From what I am reading, I do not think it is since there would be no way to directly reach the VMs on DAS from the proxy VM.

On-host proxy is installed on the Hyper-V host when you add it, so I'm not sure I follow you about using VMs as proxy servers. See this online web page for more info > http://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/70/h ... ub=on-host

I should have been more clear - creating on off-host Proxy Server on a VM but after re-reading, that does not seem to be possible.

I do plan on using the WAN Acceleration feature.

Thanks

Ed

[Vitaliy S.]

Well...I guess off-host virtual proxy might be also possible, but I don't see any benefit in using this configuration. One of the main reasons for using off-host proxy server is transferring the backup process load to a separate server. Since VMs (proxy servers) will be located on the host you're going to backup, the backup jobs will still put additional load on the Hyper-V host. If you don't have any separate physical server, then use on-host proxies to backup all VMs.