Veeam Replication Config and Virtual vs. Physical Server

[Treeeman]

Hello,

i dont have many experience with Veeam.
I have following Environment:
- 6x ESXi 5.5 U1 Server in a vSphere DRS/HA Cluster
- about 60 virtual Machines
- vCenter Server 5.5 U1
- HP EVA FC SAN Storage

All Servers are connected over FC (8GB/s per FC Port) with my Storage.
I have 4 Servers (SQL Server and Application Server) which are depending on each other because of some Replications between Applications and the SQL Database.
Because this 4 Servers are "the heart" of the company they should be replicated each hour to another FC Storage which can be accessed by each ESXi Server, too. So my customer has a full 1:1 copy of the 4 Server to bring them back online fast in a desaster recovery situation.

One important thing is, that the Snapshots of each Server have to be created at the same time (+/- 10 Seconds).
I think this should not be a Problem if i add all Servers to the same Replication-Job.

My question is, should my Veeam Server a physical or virtual Server?
I dont want to use Veeam for Backup - just Replication.

Many Thanks for any advice.

Best Regards
Marco

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Marco,

I would definitely go with physical backup server (proxy server) to leverage FC connection you have to the storage. Using Direct SAN Mode will allow you get best job performance possible. Please review our existing F.A.Q. topic for more details on how to configure this setup.

As regards simultaneous snapshot creation, I assume you want to have "application-aware" snapshots, is that correct? The reason why I ask this is that every application requires its own time to freeze all operations, commit/complete all transactions and then create the snapshot.

Please see this topic for more details > Simultaneous Freezing of Several VMs

What would I suggest to do is to create several jobs with VMs you need "concurrent" snapshots and schedule these jobs at the same time, might do the trick.

Thanks!

[Treeeman]

Hi Vitaly,

first, thanks for your reply.
Ok. Physical Server checked. Maybe i will try first a virtual Server and see how the Performance is.
By the way, i have a 10GB/s Ethernet Stucture, too.

The other Point:
Yes, i need "application aware" Snapshots.
I just understand your suggestion not at all. In the other Topic you linked there is written i need "Pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts". Additionally i need for my 4 Servers 4 seperate Jobs who starts at the same time. Do i understand right?

Thanks!

Best Regards
Marco

[veremin]

Do i understand right?

Yes, Vitaliy has suggested to create one job per backed up VM and run resulting jobs at the same time. However, you might want to run these jobs several times and see whether difference in start time doesn't exceed the acceptable interval (+-10 seconds).

In addition, you can create custom pre-freeze/post-thaw scripts. Pre-freeze script will run before the job and freeze activity on required VMs. Then, it will execute backup job, wait till the snapshots are created, and un-freeze the said VMs.

Thanks.

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, the topic I've referenced above just expands more details on simultaneous snapshot creation. Using application-aware image processing is a recommended option to backup your critical applications. Thanks!