Comprehensive data protection for all workloads
Post Reply
sconley
Enthusiast
Posts: 48
Liked: 3 times
Joined: Mar 18, 2011 7:36 pm
Full Name: Sean Conley

VBR Upgrade Question

Post by sconley »

Currently our environment consists of a single VBR VM with an iSCSI attached NTFS volume acting as the repository and a single proxy server each running on Windows Server 2012 R2. I would like to upgrade to 9.5 to be able to take advantage of the REFS integrations, which means running server 2016 on the repository server. What is the easiest/best way to accomplish this?
Gostev
Chief Product Officer
Posts: 31455
Liked: 6646 times
Joined: Jan 01, 2006 1:01 am
Location: Baar, Switzerland
Contact:

Re: VBR Upgrade Question

Post by Gostev »

Install Windows Server 2016, format the required volume with ReFS, and create NEW repository on this ReFS volume.
sconley
Enthusiast
Posts: 48
Liked: 3 times
Joined: Mar 18, 2011 7:36 pm
Full Name: Sean Conley

Re: VBR Upgrade Question

Post by sconley »

Do I need to trigger a synthetic full on our existing jobs to actually make use of the fast clone technology, or just copy files? I thought I had read that a synthetic full would be necessary in another thread that I can't locate now. Also, wouldn't this mean that the connection to the new repository server would be limited to the network between the VBR VM and the repository?

I am trying to figure out if it wold be better to spin up a new instance of VBR and migrate everything, or just add a new Server 2016 VM as an REFS repository after upgrading our existing server to 9.5.
ashleyw
Service Provider
Posts: 181
Liked: 30 times
Joined: Oct 28, 2010 10:55 pm
Full Name: Ashley Watson
Contact:

Re: VBR Upgrade Question

Post by ashleyw »

We are running a REFS repository on a Windows 2016 VM (4 GB ram ,2xCPU). If the VBR VM and REFS repository are on the same physical hypervisor, then the network traffic will stay local so shouldn't be a bottleneck (at least its not in our environment). You really want to run an active full on the new target and the strategy to move will be determined by how much spare space there is on your SAN.
sconley
Enthusiast
Posts: 48
Liked: 3 times
Joined: Mar 18, 2011 7:36 pm
Full Name: Sean Conley

Re: VBR Upgrade Question

Post by sconley »

Good point about keeping everything on the same underlying physical host. Storage should not be an issue, but how would the active full effect our backup chain? I have never quite sorted this part out. We keep 30 restore points for all of our VMs. If I do an active full, how long would it take before the previous full and all existing incremental backups rolls off? Would a synthetic full achieve the same thing?
Gostev
Chief Product Officer
Posts: 31455
Liked: 6646 times
Joined: Jan 01, 2006 1:01 am
Location: Baar, Switzerland
Contact:

Re: VBR Upgrade Question

Post by Gostev »

Fast cloning only works for backup files newly created in ReFS repository by the backup job, but how they are created does not matter.
foggy
Veeam Software
Posts: 21069
Liked: 2115 times
Joined: Jul 11, 2011 10:22 am
Full Name: Alexander Fogelson
Contact:

Re: VBR Upgrade Question

Post by foggy »

If you're using forward incremental, old full with the corresponding increments will be subjected to the specified retention, so will be deleted once the new chain reaches 30 restore points.
sconley
Enthusiast
Posts: 48
Liked: 3 times
Joined: Mar 18, 2011 7:36 pm
Full Name: Sean Conley

Re: VBR Upgrade Question

Post by sconley »

We are doing forever incremental The only reason for the active/synthetic full is to be able to take advantage of fast cloning. So, the incrementals would not be cleaned up per the retention? If I am understanding this we would effectively need double the amount of space because of the active full (the entire chain becomes effectively a restore point in itself). Is this right?
foggy
Veeam Software
Posts: 21069
Liked: 2115 times
Joined: Jul 11, 2011 10:22 am
Full Name: Alexander Fogelson
Contact:

Re: VBR Upgrade Question

Post by foggy »

Yes, you would need additional space for the full and subsequent increments. Probably not double, since active full will not be fragmented as the existing one, so will likely take less space.
sconley
Enthusiast
Posts: 48
Liked: 3 times
Joined: Mar 18, 2011 7:36 pm
Full Name: Sean Conley

Re: VBR Upgrade Question

Post by sconley »

I think I have a solid handle on everything now, and we have formulated a plan to move forward. Thanks for all the input.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot], legil.miguel and 172 guests