Onsite replication architecture - multiple backup proxies?

[james411]

All,

I am reading the Veeam VMware user guide relating to replication and need some clarification. I am looking at implementing onsite replication. We are a small shop with only two hosts - host A and host B. Both hosts use local storage.

On host A I have VMs like:
-VM1 = Veeam BR server (also serves as backup proxy role)
-VM2 = Line of business app

I want to replicate VM2 on host A to host B. Since both hosts use local storage, I wanted to install a backup proxy VM on host B so that the hot add method would be used when writing replica data to host B. However, reading the user guide, it describes onsite replication as: "In the onsite replication scenario, the source- side transport service and the target-side transport service are started on the same backup proxy"

If this is the case does this then mean that in the setup that I have, only the backup proxy on the source host A will be used and as a result replica data will only be written to host B using NBD?

If someone could confirm or refute this, I would greatly appreciate. Thanks!

[foggy]

What this phrase implies is that in case of on-site replication you do not generally need to compress traffic between hosts, since it should not go through the slow link and hence, do not need the proxy server on the target host (data is compressed when it is sent between two Veeam data mover agents installed on proxies). However if you want to enable hotadd for populating target datastore with replicated VMs data, you can set up a proxy server there, no issues with that.

[james411]

What this phrase implies is that in case of on-site replication you do not generally need to compress traffic between hosts, since it should not go through the slow link and hence, do not need the proxy server on the target host (data is compressed when it is sent between two Veeam data mover agents installed on proxies). However if you want to enable hotadd for populating target datastore with replicated VMs data, you can set up a proxy server there, no issues with that.

OK, so if I just setup a new proxy VM on host B, and setup a replication job, will Veeam automatically take care of the rest? The backup proxy on the source will know to talk to the backup proxy on the target and will use the hot add method when writing replica data? Also, will it automatically do the compression even though both proxies are in the same site? If so, is there a way to disable? Thanks for the info!

[foggy]

Yes, hotadd proxy will be automatically selected, if available. You can disable compression in the job settings.

[james411]

Yes, hotadd proxy will be automatically selected, if available. You can disable compression in the job settings.

OK, perfect, sounds like I should be able to setup replication between my two hosts in the most efficient manner then given the constraints of both having local storage. Thanks a lot!