Proxies and Direct SAN access

[borgiaj]

Hi all.

I'm looking for a little clarification/reassurance.

I've built two physical Windows 2016 proxy servers and allocated 2 LUNs per server. Those LUNs I've built into a SOBR. From all I have read today, to get this working, I need to export the virtual volumes from my 3PAR that make up the data stores in our VMware environment to these proxies via our FC SAN, but NOT initialize the drives which would destroy VMFS on those volumes.

If I understand correctly, the Veeam proxy software on the backup proxies can actually read these uninitialized drives on the proxies (3PAR volumes that are data stores) for backup, even write to them for restores? The arrays are already zoned with proxy servers, so all I would need to do is export those volumes from the array for them to see them in the OS.

Am I understanding this correctly, or is there something else that needs to be done?

Thanks.
Joe

[PetrM]

Hi Joe!

Your understanding seems to be correct. The volumes must be visible in Disk Management but must not be initialized by the OS.
I'd recommend to double check these requirements for Direct SAN access to make sure that you didn't miss something.

If you're going to use storage snapshots as a data source for backups you may want to take a look at this article which describes the requirements for proxy server configuration.

Thanks!