Veeam - NetApp questions for backing up SMB shares

[HenryA]

Good day all.

As I learn more about how to setup our NetApp ONTAP cluster with Veeam, I have some questions. So first of all, for now, the only thing we want to back up from the NetApp is all the SMB/CIFS shares. There are NFS mounts as well, but they are only there to host vSphere Datastores, and some Unix servers. We have no plans to back up any vSphere VM's, or anything on NFS, it's strictly just CIFS/SMB for now.

So it seems to be relatively simple to so this:

1. Add the NetApp to Storage Infrastructure
2. Select only "NAS Filer" option (do not select "Vmware access or Veeam Agent")
3. In the NAS Filer option, we can have Veeam create export rules automatically. The documentation is unclear what actually is done here. If we are only backing up SMB shares, does it make any changes on the NetApp (remap CIFS links?). I assume this option is primarily for restore (where it would be useful to automatically create the CIFS share necessary for the particular restore) but I am unclear about it.
Also, if we don't select NFS at all to back up, will it mess with NFS exports on the NetApp anyway? There should be no reason, since we won't back up NFS stuff anyway. Can someone confirm?
4. The docs state to assign a backup proxy. We are using the all-in-one solution, so the backup proxy is on the same server as the Veeam B&R server. Is that what it wants us to select? Or does it require a "NetApp" specific proxy? The docs state we should add the proxy with access to the actual physical disks, if I understood correctly.
5. Then the last step is to "Add Enterprise Storage System as a NAS Filer", which means adding the "NAS Filer (NetApp) as a data source in the Inventory section.

And bingo, we should now be able to create Backup jobs as needed. Is this mostly correct?

[david.domask]

Hi Henry,

You're pretty much correct on all fronts here, just a few comments:

Export Rules: This only affects NFS shares, and as far as I remember it doesn't try to change anything related to existing rules, it just would add new ones for the Veeam proxy(ies) that need access. If you're only going to be using SMB (CIFS), it should not affect anything with the existing rules.

Proxy: By default the Veeam Backup and Replication server (VBR) will have a few proxy roles assigned so backups are possible, but depending on the workload, I would consider an additional proxy, if not just for having a fallback in case of issues with the proxy role on the VBR server.

[rennerstefan]

Correct, even on NFS we would not change your rules but if needed create our own rule to allow the Veeam Proxy to access the data.
If you are unsure I can advise to create a small SMB SVM and test it before adding the production. That way you can see what we will do exactly in your case but as David said you should be fine with what you explained above.

[HenryA]

Ok this is perfect, thank you both for your info!