Preferred Networks

[sixarm]

Hi,

I have my main VBR server at my DR site with a Windows server as my main backup repository at Production. Backups are taken daily and also sent off-site via a Copy Job. I have two WAN providers and both servers have NICs within the LANs of each provider. The NICs are configured as follows:

Production Site
NIC1 - 10.100.x.x/21 - Main Production VLAN - Provider A - Default gateway configured.
NIC2 - 172.30.100.x/24 - Backup VLAN - Provider A - No default gateway. Static route configured to 172.30.99.x/24 via VLAN gateway.
NIC3 - 10.1.x.x/16 - Main VLAN - Provider B - No default gateway. Static route configured to 10.2.0.0/16 via VLAN gateway.

DR Site
NIC1 - 10.99.x.x/16 - Main Production VLAN - Provider A - Default gateway configured.
NIC2 - 172.30.99.x/24 - Backup VLAN - Provider A - No default gateway. Static route configured to 172.30.100.x/24 via VLAN gateway.
NIC3 - 10.2.x.x/16 - Main VLAN - Provider B - No default gateway. Static route configured to 10.1.0.0/16 via VLAN gateway.

What I'd like to be able to do is choose whether Veeam uses either the Backup VLAN (Provider A) or Provider B for Copy Job and Replication traffic between Production and DR.

Q1) How do I achieve the above? Is this using the Preferred Network settings? i.e. an entry for 10.1.0.0/16 & 10.2.0.0/16 OR an entry for 172.30.100/24 & 172.30.99.0/24 and never both subnets?

In addition, at my Production site I have a Veeam Windows Agent server that backs up to the Production repository. The server has the following network configuration:

NIC1 - 10.100.x.x/21 - Main Production VLAN
NIC2 - 172.30.100.x/24 - Backup VLAN

Q2) How do I ensure that backup traffic ALWAYS uses the backup VLAN on NIC2, whilst maintaining the above chosen provider in Q1?

If any of the other above doesn't make sense I will be happy to confirm.

Thanks in advance.

[HannesK]

Hello,
Q1: That should work without using preferred networks. just put the repository server in 172.30.100.x/24 and 172.30.99.x/24 and the backup copy job will use the routes that are available to the operating system (same for proxies doing the replication)

Q2: the Veeam agent is using the routing table from the operating system. a static route has higher priority than the default gateway. So if your repository is in 172.30.99.x/24 it will always use the backup VLAN

Best regards,
Hannes