Migrate to new hardware

[steenwolfsberg]

Hi

We are in the process of replacing hosts and storage on a number of decentral sites. On all sites we uses B&R to backup to a local NAS server, then a daily backup copy job, to copy the data to our central archive server over MPLS and VPN.

The sites are scattered all over the world, meaning that we have limited bandwidth available, to copy the data from the local sites to the central one. The amount of data in a full backup copy, be copied over the WAN lines, and we want to avoid using a USB drive to SEED the data, as this is time consuming and expensive.

Large sites
On the large sites we have 2 servers with shared storage, vMotion licenses are available. It is possible to connect one of the new servers to both the existing and new SAN, and then use vMotion and Storage vMotion to move the VMs
They are connected to the central site using MPLS

Small sites
Small sites are single server sites with local storage only. vMotion licenses are installed.
They are connected to the central site using VPN

How do we migrate the VMs to avoid the backup copy, to do a full copy of all data to our central archive server, if we do a restore from local backup, or use Quick migration in Veeam, wont that create a new VM ID, and force backup copy to copy all data.
How about VMware vMotion and storage vMotion, will that be better, or am I missing an option ?

Thanks.
Steen

[HannesK]

Hello,
and welcome to the forums.

As long as you have one VCenter managing everything and you back up everything via that VCenter, the MoRefID stays the same. You can (storage)VMotion to different hosts and for Veeam it's still the same VM.

Best regards,
Hannes

[steenwolfsberg]

Thank you

I should have added that my main concern here is that when you do storage migration of a VM, will that affect the backup copy, as it is a block level backup, will the file be copied as is, and can the Backup pick up where it left when the VM was on the previous storage.
Will we avoid Veeam creating new large backup files that needs to be copied by the backup copy job. I do have the space locally for that, but as mentioned, the WAN lines are not big enough for a full copy all data.

Thanks Steen

[HannesK]

Hello,
I'm not sure I can follow, but (storage)VMotion has zero impact on backup / backup copy size.

Best regards,
Hannes

[steenwolfsberg]

Hi

Sorry for not being clear enough.

I was afraid that the VMDK files would be reorganized on a block level when doing a storage VMotion, making the backup se lots of block changes and causing a large backup file, and therefore also a large amount of data for the backup copy to move over the WAN line.

But if storage VMotion creates an identical file on the block level, and the VM ID doesn't change, then it should be fine, and you also answered that Storage VMotion doesnt affect the backup size, so I think I'm good.

Thank you very much.