New V11a environment - Looking for thoughts on storage and performance

[Larry s]

Hello,

I’m looking for some thoughts and comments on a new Veeam V11a environment that I am setting up.

8 ESXi hosts running V6.7 with vCenter.
~500 VMs
25 7 TB datastores – all 100% 16 GB Fiber Channel connected via FC switches to a few SANs.
Pretty equal distribution of all VMs across those 25 datastores.

Planning on going with a Windows 2019 or 2022 server using ReFS as the repository – question on ReFS – I know from prior reading that the performance issues appear to have been resolved, at least with Windows 2019 – how is Windows 2022 and ReFS going – and is it supported with 11a? If 2022 is not yet supported, are there thoughts on when it will be?

Here’s where I’m a little stuck on deciding on two paths. The Windows server with the ReFS repository could be setup with a Fiber Channel connections to the FC switches and I could run Veeam B&R only on that server since it would be able to use direct FC 16 GB connections to the datastores. Are folks still doing this? I had done it years ago under ESXi V4 & V5 and it worked very well and had great performance.

I see in other threads that sometimes a recommendation is to just run Veeam B&R on a VM and then have proxy’s running on each ESXi host, thereby leveraging that ESXi hosts storage mechanism.

So – in today’s world, which option does everyone think will have the best performance?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts, ideas, and especially shooting down my proposed configuration for better options I don’t know of

[rennerstefan]

Hi Larry,

thanks for reaching out.
Yes, with 11a also Windows Server 2022 is supported as a Repo server (https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ory-server).

What i would check if it may be useful to use some kind of crypto protection by using our hardened repository on linux (https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ed&ver=110), at least as a secondary copy of your data. Or using S3 with immutability here.

Regarding the overall Design you may want to have Veeam running as a VM and only have your Repositories and/or Proxy server being physical.
As for physical proxy servers it is all about what you want to achieve.
If you have a good SAN environment you may want to use DirectSAN or even better our Storage Integration to backup the VMs directly from storage Snapshots (https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110).
With regards to sizing I can recommend to have a look here: https://vse.veeambp.com/

As said it is all about your needs in terms of RTO and RPO as well as the level of protection against e.g. Ransomware when it comes to a design. With that said there is not "the" best practise.

Let us know some more details on your needs and we may be able to get you some more ideas.

Hope that already helps.

[Larry s]

Stefan - I appreciate your response. It was exactly what I was looking for and helps me on the path forward. Thanks so much.

[rennerstefan]

thanks for the quick response. happy to hear that helped already. feel free to reach out on further questions.