Newbie Question on Backup Strategies.

[jai64]

Greetings,

I just moved over from another application. I ran a few backups and not sure what the typical strategies are for this product.

I would like to utilize multiple streams because even though I received good speed I have a lot of data to move/backup.

I am interested in different strategies and how others are setting up their backup jobs.

I have 75 VMs on 2-ESX servers.

I am currently running One group (60 servers) of servers daily backup and one group (15 servers) weekly backups. I connect to my VC and set up folders to split the servers into the two groups. This made it very easy to set up the jobs, but it only runs in one stream.

I was thinking about creating a backup job for each server (how many jobs will run at one time?).

Any help would be appreciated.

~ joe

[Gostev]

Hi Joe, I assume you are using local storage, network backup mode and "full" ESX hosts (not ESXi)? In that case, creating separate job for each server and running them in parallel makes great sense. Theoretically, if needed, you can run as many parallel jobs as you like - but I would go with one job per server to avoid parallel snapshot operations on the same storage.

[dlove]

I think the biggest lesson I learned is when creating the backup job, use UNC paths with shares to give you the most flexibility as you cannot change backup locations without UNC paths (unless you create another job). You can then add storage and different drive letters to move around data then re-share out the folder and continue backing up your VM's without having to start over with a full.

I would set up folders like you did and group like machines and then create multiple jobs that backup the folders at the same time. I would break up the 60 servers into sub-folders (maybe 4-5) and do 10-15 vm's per folder for jobs. You could even break up the 15 vm's weekly into 2 folders. Just make sure to add new vm's to the folders and everything should be fine.

What kind of hardware are you using? What is the retention policy?

[jai64]

Gostev,

Currently we are sending the jobs to a NAS via a UNC path. I admit it is not the best way but for now that is the only large storage device I have available. Yes it if FULL ESX and Network backup mode.

"but I would go with one job per server " Did you mean one job per ESX server or one job per VM?

Dlove,

Thanks, that's sounds like very good advice.
I am using 2-4TB Buffalo NAS devices (Slow but cheap). The Veeam server is a VM. I started with the default 30 day retention.

The ESX servers are 128mb RAM and Quad Core.

I also want to backup the UNC path to tape once a week (if possible).

Thanks...
~ Joe

[dlove]

I meant 1 job per ESX host depending on the specs but it would depend whether or not you were using vcb or vmotion. Network backup mode obviously taxes the service console but I don't know what your utilization is on each host.

What is the total amount of data being backed up by Veeam?
How many datastores?
What version of ESX?
How do you write from NAS to tape? NDMP?
I'm guessing you are backing up to the same storage devices presented to ESX?