Specific deployment scenario recommendation

[tamirm]

Hi,

I'm trying to get some recommendations to the optimal Veeam deployment in our environment.

We have 2 x ESX 5.1 servers (Enterprise Plus) connected to NetApp LUNs by FC.
We have a physical management server which is running Windows Server 2008 R2.
This server contains:
* Hyper-V
* vCenter (for the 2 ESX servers)
* SQL server
* The local SATA storage which is meant for the Veeam backups

I tried to install Veeam on the physical server, and it worked fine for a few days (not sure about how optimized its backup performance was). Then we had a long power outage and all servers crashed (it's a new deployment and we didn't get to configure the UPS shutdown script).
When the management server started again, vCenter won't start. It started only after we disabled the Veeam services and reinstalled it.
I was told by our VMware consultant that he think that Veeam was conflicting with vCenter, and the source of the vCenter DB corruption was Veeam. I know that this is out of the thread's topic, but maybe you'd have some insights into this too...
He recommends to either understand how to prevent these conflicts (if the cause of the corruption was indeed Veeam), or install Veeam in a VM (either VMware or Hyper-V).

Now I need to decide between 3 possible alternatives:
1. Keep running Veeam on the physical server - That is "there's no way Veeam could be the cause of the vCenter problems".
2. Install Veeam as a Hyper-V VM - this would simplify the Veeam access to the management server's local SATA storage for the Veeam backups.
3. Install Veeam as a VMware VM (Virtual Appliance mode) - I read that this could allow for SAN backups. But is this relevant when I intend to write the backups to the Management server's SATA storage? If it is relevant, how would it be best to map this storage to Veeam?

Thanks for any input regarding every point I've mentioned!

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello,

I was told by our VMware consultant that he think that Veeam was conflicting with vCenter, and the source of the vCenter DB corruption was Veeam. I know that this is out of the thread's topic, but maybe you'd have some insights into this too...

Do you have Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager installed? Do you have IIS installed on this machine as well?

3. Install Veeam as a VMware VM (Virtual Appliance mode) - I read that this could allow for SAN backups. But is this relevant when I intend to write the backups to the Management server's SATA storage? If it is relevant, how would it be best to map this storage to Veeam?

Yes, this would allow you to run your backup jobs in Virtual Appliance (HotAdd) backup mode. To map your Management Server SATA storage to Veeam backup server, just add this server as a Windows repository via "add repository" wizard.

Thanks!