Backup locally with backup and replica at remote office

[kevinnaughton]

I want to run backups locally to disk. I want a copy of those backups on disk at our remote office (also serves as our DR site). I also want to replicate (preferably from backup) to the remote site.

My original plan was to run Backup at main office, setup backup copy job to copy to remote office, and then replicate from those backup copies at the remote office to the VMware cluster at the remote site. However, it appears you cannot use a Backup Copy as the source of replication.

Choice 1: So, it seems like in addition to the backup copy, I also need to replicate from main site to remote site (using either backup or actual VM as source). But that means the data needs to go over the WAN twice. Is there some other way to do this that would allow me to keep a copy of backups locally, a copy of backups remote and replicas of same VMs at that same remote location without sending the data twice?

Choice 2: Closest I could come up with is to backup directly to remote repository, use those backups to replicate to remote site (so traffic is local to that site for replica job) and then setup backup copy job to copy the backups back to the main site. The traffic still traverses the WAN twice, but this way one time in each direction instead of twice in one direction.

To throw a wrinkle in it, I also need to put the backups on tape. Can do that at either site.

Am I missing anything? Or am I stuck with choices 1 or 2 above?

[Shestakov]

Hello Kevin

My original plan was to run Backup at main office, setup backup copy job to copy to remote office, and then replicate from those backup copies at the remote office to the VMware cluster at the remote site. However, it appears you cannot use a Backup Copy as the source of replication.

The plan is great. That`s what we recommend to do as well. Could you clarify what was the problem of using the backup copy files as a source for the replica?
Thanks!

[kevinnaughton]

Ahhh, thanks for the link! This was my issue: "Backups that you plan to use as a data source must be created with a backup job configured on the same Veeam backup server where you configure the replication job."

We have B&R servers at both sites. I was creating the initial backup and copy job from the source site and trying to then use that backup copy as the source from replica but creating that job on the B&R server at the remote site. Will just set everything up right here on the B&R server in the main site and sounds like it should work.

Thanks again!

[Shestakov]

No problem, Kevin, glad we`ve found the issue.
Indeed setting depended jobs from the single server seems wise.
Just in case, there is a workaround to rescan the repository each time there is a new restore point copied. But I would also schedule the jobs from the same server as suggested in the user guide.
Thanks!

[Mark Gallagher]

Hi Kevin, Shestakov

Sorry for jumping in on your post here but I'm in exactly the same position and would like to setup remote site replication from my backup copy's but just cannot seem to get started. We are running B&R version 8.0.0.2030 but I do not see how I pick the backup copy files as the source? I have the original backup jobs on our main site, also the backup copy jobs are configured at the main site and run over our WAN link to the DR site, should I configure the backup copy jobs from the dr site ? Thanks for any advice, greatly appreciated.

[foggy]

Mark, are you trying to set up replication jobs to use backup files created by another Veeam B&R instance?

[Shestakov]

Hi Mark,

I do not see how I pick the backup copy files as the source

Select From backup files as a data source from which VM data must be read.
If you use 2 backup servers, as Foggy assumed, you need to rescan the repository before each replication run to discover new restore points.
Thanks!

[Mark Gallagher]

Hi Foggy, at our production site we configured Veeam B&R to run the backups and also the backup copy jobs. These backup copy files are sent over our WAN link to our DR site and repository. I would like to run a replication job using thee backup copy files located in the DR site to replicated our critical servers which will also be contained at the DR site \ repository. Would I configure these replication jobs on the production site instance of Veeam B&R or the DR instance of Veeam B&R ? Thanks.

Thanks for the link Shestakov I will check it out. Cheers.

[foggy]

You can configure replication jobs on the production site instance without any issues. Though, in case of production site loss, you would need to either set up a new Veeam B&R instance and import its configuration prior to performing failover or perform failover manually from vSphere Client.

If you configure replication jobs on the DR site instance of Veeam B&R, you would need to perform repository rescan prior to each replication job run, so that DR instance could "see" new restore points created by production instance.

[Mark Gallagher]

Thanks again Foggy, starting to make sense to me. I will try setting them up at the DR site as we are trying to avoid sending the data over the WAN link twice. Ideally I would like to run these replication jobs during production hours (middle of the day), do you think this will casue any issues not just in network performance but what about if the backup copy job is still writing to the DR repository ? I guess the replication job will have to wait until the backup copy job is finished and vice versa. Thanks again.

[veremin]

I will try setting them up at the DR site as we are trying to avoid sending the data over the WAN link twice.

Even if you create replication job on production backup server and make it use files produced by backup copy job as a source, the data will be sent over the WAN only once (backup copy job).

I guess the replication job will have to wait until the backup copy job is finished and vice versa.

If you stick to DR backup server scenarios, both backup console will be unaware of each other and replication job is likely to fail if backup copy job is still performing its activity.

Thanks.