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TimLawhead
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Feature Requests: Allow HPE Catalyst Copy of Backup Copy jobs and prevent looping between StoreOnces

Post by TimLawhead »

Veeam Support - Case # 04406186

I have 2 sites. Each with a StoreOnce 4500 and a Disk Repository Servers (Landing Zone - LZ). I have only 1 Tape Library. I am trying to utilize the HPE Catalyst Copy function to limit the amount of bandwidth used to send data between my 2 sites and trying to reduce my overall source copies to 1 per a source.

I am looking to create duplicates of both sites across my StoreOnces, as well as on my Site A Landing Zone to allow for faster Backup to Tapes. Ideally I'd only have one backup per a source and then let immediate backup copy jobs push the source data around from the LZs to the StoreOnces for deduplication and then the HPE Catalyst job would take that data and push it to the other StoreOnce and then also from LZ2 to LZ1 to allow for the un-deduped data to be picked up by the tape job.

Since the HPE Catalyst Copy job only works from a Backup Job, I attempted that, but having the Source/Targets set to a single Catalyst Store on each StoreOnce caused a looping of the backup and I'd end up with over 1000 backup copy jobs where it was trying to push the backups back and forth between the 2 StoreOnces. Not ideal.

I opened a ticket with support and worked through several strategies with them.

Currently the Strategy I'm testing:
Pros: It gets me replication of all my data across my StoreOnces. It should reduce my overall bandwidth used between sites since the StoreOnce to StoreOnce traffic will be leveraging the HPE Catalyst Copy
Cons: I am having to create 2 source backup jobs which will tax my schedule/resource availability and my data will be spread across multiple Catalyst Stores and thus not getting the best possible dedupe rate than if it was all shared in a single Catalyst Store in each StoreOnce.
Image

My Feature Requests:
Allow for the HPE Catalyst Copy job to recognize Backup Copy Jobs that hit a StoreOnce Catalyst Store and allow for the HPE Catalyst Copy jobs to be shared within a Single Catalyst Store (stop the looping) so that the deduplication values stay higher than having multiple stores with similar data.
How I'd like it to work:
Image

Originally how I was getting things done, but was running across scheduling/resource conflicts whenever Full jobs would run a job was sure to fail due to waiting for resources.
Image

Another Strategy - using a Single Store and treating the StoreOnces as a the Original and the other as the Replicated Copy - this prevents looping but requires 2 backups jobs for every source. Also, in the event of a connection drop between sites, it will reduce my redundancy of backups because the StoreOnce copy job will fail and all I will have it the local LZ backup job.
Image

If anyone has a different strategy to suggest, It'd be most appreciated.
foggy
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Re: Feature Requests: Allow HPE Catalyst Copy of Backup Copy jobs and prevent looping between StoreOnces

Post by foggy » 1 person likes this post

Hi Tim, backup copy jobs will be supported as a source for Catalyst Copy starting the upcoming Veeam B&R v11. As to your second concern, you can try to address it with the help of the following workaround to enable multiple backup repositories pointing to a single Catalyst Store. Thanks!
TimLawhead
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Re: Feature Requests: Allow HPE Catalyst Copy of Backup Copy jobs and prevent looping between StoreOnces

Post by TimLawhead »

I forgot to include that the Site A is leveraging the Fiber Channel connection to the StoreOnce and Site B is using the IP connection. The connection between sites is IP.

If I use the workaround in https://www.veeam.com/kb2987 can I create a FC and IP backup repo pointed to the same Catalyst Store without issue?

For the HPE Catalyst Copy Jobs I am testing right now, I am doing the following for the Source and Target Backup Repositories:
Site A FC (Local Store) to Site B IP (Offsite Site A) - this FC to IP works.
Site B IP (Local Store) to Site A IP (Offsite Site B) - IP to IP works.

But if I try to do Site B IP (Local Store) to Site A FC (Offsite Site B) then the I get a "failed to process" in the job.
TimLawhead
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Re: Feature Requests: Allow HPE Catalyst Copy of Backup Copy jobs and prevent looping between StoreOnces

Post by TimLawhead »

Ok... tested adding the Backup Repos to the StoreOnce via PowerShell and that resolves the looping issue.

Adding the Backup Repos with IP according to the KB went fine, but when I tried the Fiber Channel I got an error: "Add-VBRBackupRepository : Failed to connect to HPE StoreOnce server COFC-####."

I found I had to add the -Server parameter with the Gateway Server that is connected to it over FC to get the Backup Repo to work.

Add-VBRBackupRepository -Name StoreOnce_SiteA_Local_FC -Folder storeonce://COFC-####:Veeam@/SiteA_Local -Type HPStoreOnceIntegration -StoreOnceServerName COFC-#### -Server GatewayServerFQDN -UserName Admin -Password ####

I was able to test with a single HPE Catalyst Copy job using the new Backup Repos and found that the looping issue was no longer present.
Catalyst Copy Job Storage Mappings:
SiteA_Local_FC to SiteB_Offsite_SiteA_IP
SiteB_Local_IP to SiteA_Offsite_SiteB_IP

Now I guess it's hurry up and wait for Veeam 11 so I can then use the HPE Catalyst Copy with Backup Copy Jobs.
foggy
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Re: Feature Requests: Allow HPE Catalyst Copy of Backup Copy jobs and prevent looping between StoreOnces

Post by foggy »

TimLawhead wrote: Nov 10, 2020 3:46 pm But if I try to do Site B IP (Local Store) to Site A FC (Offsite Site B) then the I get a "failed to process" in the job.
I'd expect this as Catalyst Copy gets from Veeam B&R the target StoreOnce address that was used to add it to the Veeam B&R console.
Steve-nIP
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Re: Feature Requests: Allow HPE Catalyst Copy of Backup Copy jobs and prevent looping between StoreOnces

Post by Steve-nIP »

foggy wrote: Nov 10, 2020 2:50 pm backup copy jobs will be supported as a source for Catalyst Copy starting the upcoming Veeam B&R v11.
Nice. Thanks for that news!
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