Linux Hardened Repository with "multiple inputs"?

[TheOnlyWizard17]

Hi,

We're running a Veeam repo-server. This server has one 1Gbit NIC Hyper-V SET Team, and it has an Infiniband Mellanox 56 Gbit NIC. Our S2D Hosts also have such Mellanox NICs. We told Veeam to use that preferred network for backups and as result the Hosts directly connect to the repo over those Mellanox NICs. Backups are going with around 2GByte/s processing speed, which we need since we're talking around 90 TBs of data in the cluster that needs to be backed up. However, we're also backing up a few VMs from a standalone Hyper-V jsut using the "normal" 1Gbit NIC Team (That server doesn't have Mellanox), in which case Veeam can't use the preferred network and just falls back to using the "normal" network instead. We now want to switch to a linux hardened repository though. So, our repo-server will then get replaced with a new linux server. I know linux supports Mellanox NICs, so could we just have the same principle here, meaning backups come in over 56Gbit Mellanox unless Veeam can't use that network (something broke) and will then use the 1 GBit networking ? From my understanding the Linux-box is supposed to be completely isolated from anything else, so this would mean it would have still only one port it's listening on but is just doing that on 2 seperate networks in this case ? Would a setup like this work for both the Cluster utilizing Mellanox and the standalone host utilizing the 1Gbit NICs ?

[HannesK]

Hello,
I'm not 100% sure I understand the question (a network diagram would help), but I try to answer: Hardened Repository (and all other Veeam components) work over TCP / IP with Ethernet. I don't see how Infiniband could be used for data transfer.

Besides of that: I recommend designing everything with "regular networking / routing" instead of "preferred network" because it's easier to manage.

Best regards
Hannes

[TheOnlyWizard17]

Hi Hannesk,

Ignore the term Infiniband for now please, we're using Ethernet over IB. We have a cluster of 9 nodes and a Veeam-Server. Each of them is connected with 2 networks. A "slow" 1Gbit network, what you would consider normal LAN, and a second completely seperate network (IB) for storage (Cluster is S2D). To enable fast backups I'm "misusing that storage network by directing Veeam to use that one instead of the slow network. For backing up the cluster, this works perfectly @2GByte/s. We also have a standalone Hyper-V and we're backing that up too. This then simply employs the slow network as this server doesn't have IB, eg. the veeam-server responds on both networks. The question then becomes, if I change out our current veeam-repo-server with a linux immutable one, can that too respond on both networks ? I assume this would be no problem, but since this is a hardened repository I'm wondering if that would work the same way as a non hardened repo ?

[HannesK]

Hello,
yes, Linux can work with multiple network cards. A Hardened Repository works the same as a non-hardend Repository from a networking standpoint.

I see no problems as long as connectivity is given as described in the ports list

Best regards
Hannes