Backup Repository Questions

[chewie71]

Hi,

I'm new to VEEAM so I'm not quite sure the best way to do this.

I've got a new BackBlaze pod (http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/07/20/pe ... e-secrets/) that I've just built to store our VEEAM backups. It runs Debian Linux and has over 100TB of storage available on it. I'm trying to decide the best way to make this server a VEEAM Backup Repository.

At the moment I've started creating 16TB NFS shares on the BackBlaze and importing them into VMware. From there I was thinking I would mount those on some Windows VMs (VEEAM Proxys?) through VMware. I think though that maybe there's a better way to do this? Instead of importing these NFS shares into VMware I could make the BackBlaze itself (running Debian) a repository couldn't I? Or I could import the NFS shares directly onto some Windows VMs without going through VMware first I think.

I would like multiple VEEAM Proxies to be able to talk to any of the LUNs I've created on the BackBlaze pod so I think that means I don't want to make a Proxy also be a Repository, but have the Repositories be separate systems. So either the Debian install (on the BackBlaze) becomes the repository and it uses the storage locally (no NFS), or I create one or more new Windows VMs to mount the NFS shares on (either directly or through VMware).

There will eventually be 6x16TB LUNs available that I could potentially send backups to through the VEEAM server or one of the Proxies.

The other question I'm running into is I think if I want to use the vPower NFS service the repository has to be on Windows right? Or I lose the ability to run VMs directly from backup
files for advanced backup verification and recovery functionality.....have I read the manual correctly about that?

I think any of the methods would work but which one is best? That's where I'm having trouble. Any help or clarification is welcome.

Thanks,
Matt

[foggy]

Matt, the most straightforward way is to make the pod itself a Linux-type repository. In this case Veeam agent will be installed directly on it, enabling efficient data transfer. The other option is to mount the NFS share to some other Linux server and add this server as a backup repository to Veeam console (Veeam agent will be deployed on that server). Mounting NFS shares to Windows servers is not considered a good practice.

Regarding the vPower service, it does not need to run on the repository server itself. You simply select any Windows server (typically the Veeam server or a Windows proxy server) to act as the vPower NFS frontend for the Linux repository.