Veeam Virtual appliance - Backups SAN to SAN?

[llarava]

We have configured Veeam v5 to run as a virtual applicance on Windows 2008R2.

Veeam Backup server is connected to our Virtual Center in order to get to the VMs.

We have created a LUN on a FC SAN

The LUN has been configured as a RAW LUN and it is connected to the Veeam VM server through a pointer.

The LUN is shown as a local storage drive G: to the Veeam VM server.

The Veeam server is backing up other VMs that run on different Datastores and the backup is being left in the G: drive at the Veeam VM server.

We have choosen the option of SAN to SAN in order to perform the backup.

Veeam runs as a virtual applicance and the backups are placed into the drive that is mapped to an RDM LUN that is configured in virtual compatibility mode and then shown as local attached storage to the server (drive G:)

The reason I went with a RAW LUN is because I wanted to use our regular Backup solution to backup the Veeam backups once they were completed into a different type of media through our regular phyisical backup server in order to be in compliance with our backup policies.

Our regular backup server is connected to the SAN so the idea is to present this LUN (the one access by the Veeam server) to our regular backup server and grab the veeam backups through the FC instead of the network.

This is the current setup:

Physical regular backup server----------------> RAW LUN <---------------(pointervirtualmode)-----------VeeamVM

The backups are working however the throughput is really low 15 to 30 MB/s.

Our goal is to perform SAN to SAN backups with Veeam configured as a virtual appliance - Is that something that can be acomplished? If so, how much is the tranfer rate going to be?

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Luis,

Could you please clarify if you've granted Veeam backup server with 4 vCPUs? What is the current CPU load on the backup server?

Besides, could you please try to backup any small VM to a local drive of the backup server or any remote share? I've seen some posts talking about poor performance rates when backup server was doing both read and write request to the same SAN at the same time.

Thank you!

[llarava]

Could you please clarify if you've granted Veeam backup server with 4 vCPUs? 4 vCPU

What is the current CPU load on the backup server? pretty much idle and sometimes in the range of 2% to 15%

could you please try to backup any small VM to a local drive? Yes however in theory this is the same since the Veeam server is on the SAN the backups will be stored on the same Datastore. In our configuration we are placing the backups on a different LUN for the reasons that I have described before.

The transfer rate on the local drive C:\ for the Veeam appliance I was able to get 60MB/s
Writig the same full backup to the G:\ drive I get a transfer rate of 54MB/s

of the backup server or any remote share? Same full Backup to a share - 69 MB/s

Is this the rate am I suppose to get running backups with Veeam configured as a Virtual Applicance?

With the configuration that I have described above I understand the backup is happening through FC?

Could the current configuration decrease the transfer rate? If so, how can we improve the transfer rate using Veeam as Virtual appliance?

Thank you.

[Vitaliy S.]

Is this the rate am I suppose to get running backups with Veeam configured as a Virtual Applicance?

I'd say it is expected for the full job run, though you can get even higher or lower rates depending on the hardware you have.

With the configuration that I have described above I understand the backup is happening through FC?

That's correct. In VA mode, VM data is retrieved directly from storage through the ESX I/O stack, which improves performance. After that, backup files are being transferred to a mounted NTFS SAN LUN via FC.

Could the current configuration decrease the transfer rate? If so, how can we improve the transfer rate using Veeam as Virtual appliance?

To get maximum performance from Virtual Appliance you simply need to grant it with 4 vCPU (you've already done that), everything else depends on the hardware make/model and configuration setup.