Veeam Virtual Appliance mode

[jclancy]

In the link below it talks about ESXI I/O Stack. I am new to veeam and VMWare and trying to learn. What is the ESXI I/O stack? I am assuming it is where the two esxi hosts are connected together some how. I have three hosts two with my vms and the other with veeam in a vm and vcentre in another vm. I want to replicate between both hosts using veeam. In the diagram are they sharing local storage? Are they connected over the lan or directly to each other through the stack? I don't see any mention of a SAN and so I am wondering if this can all be done over local storage? thanks for your time.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Jason,

ESXi I/O stack is basically how the ESXi host "talks" to its connected storage, traffic does not go over your local network. Please review this sticky topic for further reading > Virtual Appliance Mode (Hot Add)

To replicate between your hosts located in the same network (LAN) you need to have 1 proxy server (installed on your backup server by default) and that's it, it works out-of-the-box.

Thanks!

[Shestakov]

What is the ESXI I/O stack?

Software based I/O Virtualization provides I/O Sharing, Consolidation, Isolation, Mobility, Simplified management, Failover etc.
More info is here.

I have three hosts two with my vms and the other with veeam in a vm and vcentre in another vm. I want to replicate between both hosts using veeam. In the diagram are they sharing local storage?

You need create a replication job for that. Please review the hyperlink.
In the provided picture, storage is not shared.

I don't see any mention of a SAN and so I am wondering if this can all be done over local storage?

SAN and Virtual Appliance are different transport modes.
Thanks.

[jclancy]

Thanks guys, I have veeam running right now in a vm and have the proxy in the same vm as default. It works but I wanted to try this out to see if I could get a better faster back and replication. So I as long as veeam can see both local storages (which I can see in Veeam) if I put a second proxy on a vm on the host i want to replicate to and choose the transport mode as VA then t will run over my 2 hosts local storage directly giving me a better faster backup?

[Vitaliy S.]

If you want to get better performance, please tell us your current bottleneck stats for the replication job.

[jclancy]

The bottle neck is my target running at 99%. My esxi host has sata drives and 24gb of ram and 2 cpu 2.4ghz

[Vitaliy S.]

What's the processing rate? Can you deploy a proxy server to the destination host and post job performance stats?

[jclancy]

So i ran the proxy on a vm on my destination host and then started a replication job the Processing rate was 6-7 MB/s. It was the same as when the proxy was on the same server as veeam. I know veeam can run out the box with the backup server and the proxy on the same server but I want to be able to test out all the different ways of backing up for experience of using veeam. I followed your sticky link and it did shed some light on the set-up. I have read that the backup server has to be in a VM and on the host you are backing up in order to use VAM? If I was to set it up virtual appliance mode like the diagram i posted It looks like you have two esxi hosts and one veeam backup server so 3 physical machines. I place proxy servers on each esxi host (source/production server and the target/destination server) in already established VM's or build a couple of new VM's. How does the VM hosting the proxy know how to do the hot add? Is this something I have to set-up in the ISCSI? How does the two hosts know they have access to each others storage? Again is this something I have to setup? I have vcenter set up also on a another physical machine with both hosts connected up inside it.

[foggy]

I place proxy servers on each esxi host (source/production server and the target/destination server) in already established VM's or build a couple of new VM's. How does the VM hosting the proxy know how to do the hot add? Is this something I have to set-up in the ISCSI? How does the two hosts know they have access to each others storage? Again is this something I have to setup?

Basically, no additional configuration is required. If you do not see the [hotadd] tag next to the proxy server name that is selected to process VM data (in the job stats window, after selecting the particular VM to the left), then please review this KB article for some hotadd limitations. Probably one of them applies to your environment.

[jclancy]

Thank you Foggy. I will look for this hotadd tag. Both esxi hosts are using scsi connections one host is SAS the other is using sata HD. I will try again to set this up and see what I get.

[Vitaliy S.]

Once you do this, please post back the updated bottleneck stats and performance rates during full and incremental job passes. Thanks!

[jclancy]

The more I read the more I am getting confused. My Veeam server is in a VM on one of my ESXI Hosts. I have another ESXI host with 4 VM which I want to backup. Both ESXI are using Local Storage. So can I even use Hot add or virtual appliance mode?

Stats
Source:40%
Proxy:36
Network:20%
Target:70% (Bottleneck)

Getting around 15MB\S

Gigabit network is in place. Would like to speed things up? Would increasing Memory and CPU power help?

[foggy]

If you have a virtual proxy on the host where backed up VMs reside, you should be able to use hotadd (unless some of the limitations outlined in the mentioned KB apply).

I'm a bit confused by what you are actually doing - backup or replication - since you mention both in your previous posts, and to what job those bottleneck stats refer.

[jclancy]

I am doing both backup and replication. Sorry the stats are for a backup job I ran not replication. Does hot add work with backup jobs?

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, hotadd works with both backup and replication jobs.

[foggy]

Hotadd works with both job types, it is just the way to retrieve VM data from the source datastore (no matter what you're going to do with these data further). However, in your case bottleneck is the write speed to the target storage, not the data retrieval speed, so to improve overall job performance you should look at your target. What is it and how it is added to Veeam B&R console (what type of repository)?

[jclancy]

The repository is just the local storage on the veeam esxi. So i am backing up esxi1 vm's onto esxi2 where i host veeam inside a vm. So I can't use Virtual apliance mode beacuse veeam is not on the source server. So if I increase resources say more vcpu and memory to veeam proxy and the other veeam proxy I have installed on another vm on the source esxi will i see better results in speed?

[Vitaliy S.]

So I can't use Virtual apliance mode beacuse veeam is not on the source server.

Since bottleneck is target, then virtual appliance (aka hot add) mode on the source host will not increase the performance.

So if I increase resources say more vcpu and memory to veeam proxy and the other veeam proxy I have installed on another vm on the source esxi will i see better results in speed?

I doubt that, as currently write rate to the storage is the bottleneck. To increase job performance you will need give more IOPs power to your target storage.

[foggy]

Also, please note that storing backups on VMFS is not considered the best practice.

[jclancy]

After backups occur I copy them off to ext HD. Right now this is what I have. So If I replace the SAS drives say with 15K drives this will help with latency and over all performance. Just to make sure I am understanding VAM. To use VAM what is the best physical infrastructure to use when you have two exsi machines? Do I install veeam backup and default proxy on the source inside a veeam and then install a proxy on the target?

[Vitaliy S.]

To use VAM what is the best physical infrastructure to use when you have two exsi machines?

Do you mean hardware? The main bottleneck is usually storage performance, not matter what backup mode you use.

Do I install veeam backup and default proxy on the source inside a veeam and then install a proxy on the target?

For backup jobs - deploy virtual proxy server on the source host. For replication jobs - deploy proxy servers on both hosts, though even with single proxy on the source site data will be retrieved in hotadd (VAM) mode.