Veeam B&R infrastructure design

[martinp]

Hi,

we would like to deploy Veeam B&R in our infrastructure, which consists of
- 3xESXi hosts
- 1xvCenter (Essentials Plus license) with Win2008 Server
- 1x HP P2000 SAS storage array (2 SAS sockets free) - connected to
three ESXi hosts
- 2x spare servers for free use

What should be the best practice in this case? Where we should deploy
veeam components (Backup proxy, storage). We are thinking about
inserting SAS controller to vCenter, is it possible to use "Direct
SAN Access" connection for backup proxy component?

Thanks

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi,

1. Depends on your hardware make and model, I believe it will be possible to use Direct SAN mode with SAS storage, please look at this topic.

2. Can you please tell me where you're going to store your backups? On the same SAS storage?

Thanks!

[martinp]

Hi Vitaliy,

we are not decided yet, maybe on the same sas storage or maybe on sas/sata drives connected to vCenter server. What do you recommend?

[foggy]

Just take into account, that storing backup files on the same storage as production VMs is not considered a best practice. If you lose the storage, you lose both production VMs and their backups. Consider separate storage for backups.

[Vitaliy S.]

I would suggest using any spare Windows box as a repository for your backups, and as Alexander has correctly pointed out - storing backups on the storage with production VMs as well as storing backups on the VMFS volumes cannot be considered as best practice.

if you have the budget, you may want to consider using some NAS/dedupe boxes as target storage for your backups. Please search these forums for "recommended backup storage", should help you to make a right choice.