VBR Proxy and Repository Server Sizing Calculations

[Marcus1414]

I'm calculating the sizing requirements for physical Backup proxy server and a virtual machine of repository server. I've tried to use the sizing calculator in propartner portal but the result showing that repository server requires more CPU and RAM compared to backup proxy server. I thought both will be roughly using the same resources or proxy will be using more resources than repository?

Meanwhile, I also tried with manual calculations for proxy sizing by using the following calculation methods:

Method 1:
90 VMs
30 VMs per job
90/30=3 cores required
3 cores * 2 GB RAM for each = 6 GB RAM

Method 2:
90 VMs
10TB of storage used
8 Hours backup window
Change rate 5% daily

10TB/8 hours backup windows = 347 MB/s
347/100 = 3 cores required
3 cores * 2GB RAM = 6GB

May I know is the above correct and good to proceed? How about the repository sizing? Is it based on 4GB RAM per cores and 1 core per job?

[HannesK]

Hello,
I built that propartner sizing tool for at least hundreds of VMs. Not that small amount of VMs / data. You can see that the tool requires at least 12 spindles because it's impossible to do serious "average based" sizing on small environments.

For small environments, I suggest a much simpler way for an all in-one backup server (physical that is independent from anything to avoid chicken-egg issues):

- 8 cores / 32 GB Memory for less than 100 VMs
- 16 cores / 64 GB Memory for 100-300 VMs
- 32 cores / 128 GB Memory for 300-500 VMs

Which fits pretty good to what the sizing tool says about your environment

Keep in mind that you have to also plan RAM & CPU for the operating system.

To answer your question.
- I never heard of method 1 and cannot recommend it.
- Method 2: not sure which tool you used to calculate that. As I said before: for such small environments, the best practices formulas can hardly applied.

Best regards,
Hannes

[Marcus1414]

Hi Hannes,

The method 1 I found from internet article which is not from Veeam. For method 2 I found it from the Veeam best practice guides. As we would like to use a separate Linux VM as repository for better security and the physical Windows will act as VBR server + proxy + tape server. So in this case, I am going to perform the following and is it good to proceed?

Physical server is single CPU 8 cores + 32 GB RAM
Linux VM temporary assign 8 vCPU + 32 GB RAM, can scale down time to time

[HannesK]

Hello,
yes, that's enough.

I would probably just secure the the physical server and use it also as repository (with REFS).

I'm not sure how much security the VM with Hardened Repository adds... Anyone with VCenter access can just delete the VM. Also, if an attacker has access to the VBR server, then he can dump the credentials of VCenter (I described it in a blog post). So you have to make sure that the backup server credentials to VCenter don't allow any deletion of VMs (which limits functionality).

Best regards,
Hannes