Configuration database sizing. Is SQL Express enough?

[TristanTodd]

I'm a new Veeam customer (please be gentle) and I'm deploying VBR 4.1 in production.

How does one choose between full SQL (remote) and local SQL express?

• Here are some design considerations:
  I operate 20 hosts and about 400 running virtual machines
  We have a primary site and a "warm" BCDR site
  Our VBR backups will be reside on storage that is replicated between our primary and warm site
  I have access to a central, managed SQL 2008 environment
  I am comfortable with SQL Express 2005 (local daily backups to disk)
  If our primary site fails, we'll plan on turning up a new VBR instance at our remote site and restoring from backups on replicated storage

So...do I have to worry about the size of my environment when deciding between SQL express and full SQL?
Is there any way to estimate the size of the SQL express or full SQL database?
Are there any maintenance procedures that should be run on the VBR database periodically to keep the size down?

Thanks much - your advice is greatly appreciated!

[Gostev]

Hello and welcome you our community forums!

The amount of data our product keeps in the database is very minimal (job configuration, currently available restore points and historical jobs' session statistics), so there are no performance or scalability planning needed for the database. SQL Express will be able to handle almost any deployment, and it will take many years before 4GB database size limitation will be exceeded for the deployment of your size.

One thing to consider is that using remote SQL gives you ability to quickly reinstall Veeam Backup to another computer and point it to the existing database to preserve all configuration data. This may be very useful in the event of disaster taking Veeam Backup computer or VM down along with local SQL Express that contains all product's configuration.

Also, you will be able to make transaction consistent backups of this SQL in cases if it is running in VM (Veeam Backup cannot backup itself with Veeam VSS option enabled, so you would have to do crash-consistent backups of Veeam Backup VM and so the local SQL Express database).

[TristanTodd]

Thanks much for that info! Glad to hear the dB will stay relatively small in size.

I'm doing daily transaction consistent backups of my SQL Express database. I write the backups to a replicated storage array. I'm hoping that restore in the event of a disaster could be as simple as restoring the VBR server or just the dB.

Thanks again

[kassim]

[merged]

Hi All,

Is there a database sizing guide for Veeam B&R? I have checked under the resources & cannot find out. I am trying to get an idea how much DB space i would need on our SQL cluster.

Thanks
Kassim

[Alexey D.]

Kassim, Anton's explanation is applicable to B&R version 5.0 as well.

[kassim]

Thanks Alexey