Veeam and Dedup Appliance

[LRH]

Hi

Am looking to deploy a 2 site configuration with either Datadomain or Storeonce. Each site would backup to the local appliance and bi-directional appliance replication enabled. Would I need to install a Veeam server at both sites to do this if I wished to use DDBoost or Catalyst integration, or is it better just to use CIFS shares with a single backup server at the primary site and a proxy on the remote site? Don't want to complicate things by having multiple backup servers.

[veremin]

One backup server should be enough. It makes sense to have at each site a backup proxy as well as backup repository with either DDBoost or Catalyst integration enabled and use a remote repository as a target for a backup copy job that will take care about secondary copy of backup data.

I'd say that backup copy approach is preferable here, since with storage-based replication tour backups will remain in the same fault domain, while you want your second copy to be independent.

Thanks.

[ChrisSnell]

Lionel, is there a reason for not looking at ExaGrid as well? With this combination you will have the best performance between Veeam and and a dedupe appliance - in particular the restore performance will be what you are expecting from Veeam's great vPower technology.

https://go.veeam.com/exagrid-and-veeam.html

This link is for an ESG article which will help explain: http://tinyurl.com/j33tju6

The 2 appliances can be managed as one 'grid' - and even more appliances can be added over time to the single managed entity. Replication is, of course, included in the appliances - but I would also suggest using the Veeam Copy jobs to achieve this. An important point to note, is that when using other dedupe appliances, Veeam copy jobs will require rehydration of data to create the copy. Using ExaGrid's unique architecture, the most recent backups are stored in the landing zone in a non-deduped format - ready for the copy jobs without performance impact.

[stamm]

I concur with the Exagrid suggestion. We have two sites that each have a Veeam server and an Exagrid. The Exagrids are set up such that they replicate with each other over a dedicated point-to-point VPN to handle our DR duties. Exagrids are great devices and work exactly as advertised. Plus, you have Exagrid Data Mover at your disposal, which reduces backup times substantially.

[t481]

How do you make Veeam aware of the replicated copy though? I would have expected the ExaGrid to communicate or update the B&R server to make it aware of the replicated copy. This is what customers would expect from the partnership between Veeam and ExaGrid.

[jmmarton]

When replication is down outside of B&R, the only way to know about the restore points sitting in the target is to rescan the repo which can be scripted via PowerShell. Otherwise it may be better to use Backup Copy Jobs to do this instead of ExaGrid's replication since then B&R would be aware of everything, plus the acclerated data mover would still be leveraged. In addition that would provide more flexibility to have a different number of restore points at each site if desired, long term retention full backups at the destination, etc. Here's a KB article on this.

https://www.veeam.com/kb2056

Joe