Veeam, VSphere, QNAP, Local Storage

[dangergreen]

Hi all,

I'm building up a small server, and am seeking advise on the best way to configure up storage to accommodate 2 x Windows Server 2012 VMs and allow backup via Veeam to QNAP NAS / Backup disk cartridges.

The hardware/software I have to play with is as follows:
1 x HP ML350p Server with RAID5 local storage (4 x 300GB SAS),
1 x QNAP TurboNAS RAID1 - (2 x 1TB disks)
1 x USB3 RDX Drive with 1TB Cartridges for offsite backup
1 x VMWare vSphere 5 Essentials
1 x Veaam Backup Essentials

Veeam (and VSphere for that matter) are fairly new to me, but my thinking was to run Veeam Backup & Replication on one of the two VMs, and use the QNAP to store VM backups generated by Veeam, with the RDX cartridges as secondary (offsite) backup. Does this sound like the correct approach, based on the limited resources I have here, and can anyone provide advice on how I should allocate space on the local RAID5 volume, if I'm wanting both VMs to have roughly equal space available? Is there a certain amount I need to be reserving to allow Veeam to function?

Background: I configured up a test server a while ago in a similar configuration, and one of the VMs paused one day, reporting that it was out of disk space... This seemed to happen after Veeam had been running, so I'm guessing I configured something wrong and it swallowed up disk space on the Hypervisor.

I've tried researching this, but have come away more confused, so am hoping the experts here can point me in the right direction!
Appreciate your advice.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello,

Veeam (and VSphere for that matter) are fairly new to me, but my thinking was to run Veeam Backup & Replication on one of the two VMs, and use the QNAP to store VM backups generated by Veeam, with the RDX cartridges as secondary (offsite) backup. Does this sound like the correct approach, based on the limited resources I have here

Yes, having local and offsite copy of your backups is considered as best practice. In order to send backup files to the offsite location, consider using backup copy jobs. Another point to keep in mind - since your target device for backup copy jobs will be RDX drive, then make sure you're on the latest patch level of Veeam B&R, most likely you will need these registry keys (check out patch 3 release notes -> rotated drives section) to apply on the backup server.

and can anyone provide advice on how I should allocate space on the local RAID5 volume, if I'm wanting both VMs to have roughly equal space available? Is there a certain amount I need to be reserving to allow Veeam to function?

Veeam B&R will not require much space, as your local repository will be a QNAP device. Just follow our system requirements and you should be fine.

Background: I configured up a test server a while ago in a similar configuration, and one of the VMs paused one day, reporting that it was out of disk space... This seemed to happen after Veeam had been running, so I'm guessing I configured something wrong and it swallowed up disk space on the Hypervisor.

If you're referring to disk space usage on the repository, then it depends on the retention policy you define, and backup mode you choose (forward or reversed incremental). If you're referring to space usage on the VMFS datastore, then you should have enough free space for growth of virtual disks (assuming you're using thin provisioned disks).

Let me know if that helps!

[veremin]

I configured up a test server a while ago in a similar configuration, and one of the VMs paused one day, reporting that it was out of disk space... This seemed to happen after Veeam had been running, so I'm guessing I configured something wrong and it swallowed up disk space on the Hypervisor.

Chances are, the snapshot has grown during backup operation and overfilled datastore. In order to avoid such situations you should have some headroom on production datastore. Thanks.