Veeam on physical server - VMware Datastores?

[ChrisVH1982]

Hello,

I have been running Veeam on a virtual machine since a couple of years. This is working like a charm but for performance and other reasons, we will be replacing the virtual server by a physical server. I have a very general question to this:

The virtual machine has access to all datastores so direct SAN backup is not an issue. The physical server has no access to VMware datastores by default. Shall I map all VMware datastores directly to my physical Windows Veeam server? I assume that all datastores will appear as unallocated disk space and I know that I should not initialize that space . But is this the right procedure?

Furthermore, do you think this procedure is fine?
1. Stop Veeam services
2. Copy all backups from virtual to physical server (To same drives letters)
3. Backup config on virtual server
4. Restore config on physical server
5. Map VMware datastores to physical server but leave disk space unallocated

Thanks and best regards
Christian

[Shestakov]

Hello Christian,

Shall I map all VMware datastores directly to my physical Windows Veeam server?

Yes, you do need to map VMware datastores to the physical server in order to continue using direct SAN mode.

Furthermore, do you think this procedure is fine?

Yes, you can utilize configuration export/import functionality that will transfer entire Virtual VBR server configuration to the Physical VBR server. Or you can re-create jobs on the Physical server and then map to existing backup files.

2. Copy all backups from virtual to physical server (To same drives letters)

Where do you keep your backup files? Are you going to use same repositories after you switch to the physical server?

Thank you.

[ChrisVH1982]

Hello nshestakov,

thank you very much for your quick reply! It's a SAN I am backing up to but because this SAN is old and needs to be replaced I will replace Veeam server and SAN in one go and just copy backup files using robocopy to the new SAN.

Do you know if mapping a VMware datastore to a Windows server is a procedure that can be found somewhere in a Veeam document?

thanks
Chris

[Shestakov]

Chris,
We don`t have a special document of mapping VMware datastore to a Windows server.
However you can find valuable tips among VMware: FAQ. There is an article about Direct SAN Access Mode.
Thanks

[ChrisVH1982]

Thank you, so I can leave the datestores alone, as unallocated disk space, right?

[Shestakov]

Correct. Disks shouldn't be initialized.

[ChrisVH1982]

Hello and again thank you for your replies!

I have mapped an old VMFS datastore to Veeam backup server. It hosts my test server which I can back up using direct SAN mode without an issue. The VMFS volume is available with no drive letter, of course.

For security reason, does it make sense to flag the VMFS volume as read-only in Windows? I cannot do from Storage unfortunately.

DISKPART> attributes disk set readonly

Disk attributes set successfully.

DISKPART> attributes disk
Current Read-only State : Yes
Read-only : Yes
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

[Shestakov]

Hello Chris,
Starting from version 6.1, VB&R automatically prevents VMWare LUNs from initilialization by setting SAN Policy to Offline. This happens on all machines where you install backup proxy server.
So, you should be safe, as the mentioned action allows you to avoid accidental disk corruption.
But you can make VMFS volume as read-only if you want to.
Please, use forum`s search tool for finding similar questions.
Thank you.