Select network(card)

[wobs]

Hi,

We use a seperate network for our backups.
This network is seperated by seperate network cards and a vlan.

Our backup server has 2 nic's. One is connected to our production LAN and one to our backup LAN.
Is there a way to select which nic should be used for the backup Jobs or is there a workaround of some sort?

I've already tried to connect to VC using it's backup lan IP adress and connecting to the vbk destination in a similar way.

[Gostev]

Hello, could you please clarify how would you like your 2 NICs used in ideal world?

[buchca01]

Hi,

I have the same challenge (ESXi, no SAN)

We have a lot of data to backup and we want to prevent that the production environment getting saturated during working hours (24 hrs. business)
In the ideal world you have a production LAN and a backup LAN separated from each other. This can be arranged by separate NIC's connected to separate switches or VLAN's. (yes, a SAN can solve some issues)

What you want is that a virtual sever gets a dedicated NIC for backup on the ESXi and that VEEAM is using only this NIC during backup.
How to configure ?

[Gostev]

It is not possible to configure right now, but I would like to better understand how would you like this to work. VM data is pulled through one NIC, backup file data is written through another NIC?

[wobs]

Hi Gustav,

First of all, thanks for the quick reply.

In an ideal world we would like to backup using one nic and use the other for production.
This way, a backup (or restore) can be performed without clogging the production network (we are talking a fysical network, not a virtual)

In the past we used alternative DNS names to force the backup program (ie netbackup) to use the alternative network (nic).
Veaam doesn't seem to notice this and backups using the poduction network.

It would be helpfull if you could select a nic which veaam should use for the backup in the backup wizard.

[vbussiro]

Seems it's again a vmware configuration issue. If I understand well, with network backup, data is pulled from the service console vswitch, so you just need to to put it on a separate network card (on the backup lan/vlan). That's it for the esx side. Virtual machines vswitch(es) stay on production lan/vlan.
From backup server side, if one nic is on the production lan/vlan and the other on the backup lan/vlan, there should'nt be any issue ?

[Gostev]

vbussiro, you are absolutely correct.

[buchca01]

Hi vbussito,

with your explanation it is becoming clearer to me, still I have some questions

-Do I have to add a new network using <add networking> and connection type <vMkernel> in ESXi ?
(now the vMware kernel is using the physical adapters assigned to the virtual machines)

-Do I have to change settings in Veeam ?

May be someone has implemented it , I'll appreciate your help.

[wobs]

Hi Gostev,

We already have the configuration vbussiro describes.
The backup lan has an seperate vswitch with a single physical adapter.
This vswitch is also used for vmotion.

We created a second SC port on this vswitch for backup purposes.

This works when you add the ESX servers indiviually using the backup SC ip adress.
However, when you add a VC to veeam, the second SC port is ignored.

[Gostev]

Hi - yes, this is expected behaviour with the current code.

[shamus]

Hello,


Have two vSphere servers each has 2 network cards

H vSphere host - one NIC for production
one NIC for backup connects to J server

J vSphere host - one NIC for production
one NIC for backup connects to H server.

Have a windows server on H vSphere host that runs Veeam Backup 3.1.1 and backs up H VMWare servers to a windows server on J vSphere host, though not very efficient but gives 24MB/S

Thinking of running the backups from the windows server on the H vSphere host to the file system directly on J vSphere host?
Hope this makes sense so far, do I need to or can I install a second service console on the J vSphere host to enable backup traffic to route through the backup LAN network cards. So really want backup traffic to go from the Windows server on H to the file system on J.

Any recommendations more than welcome!

[Gostev]

If you want to backup directly to VMFS on host J, assuming your hosts are full ESX (not ESXi) - yes, you will need to create service console on backup LAN on hosts H and J, and add both hosts to the Veeam Backup tree using the service console IP address from backup LAN. You also want to put both Windows servers on backup LAN.

Then you have 2 options.

Option 1 is to choose "Network" backup mode. This will give you direct-to-target backups from host H to host J over backup LAN, and Windows server on H will not be involved. Doing this however will not improve the speed for you, since 25MB/s is ESX4 service console disk read speed limitation.

Option 2 is "vStorage API" backup mode that will be available with 4.0 release. Since you have ESX4, this backup mode will leverage ESX4 changed block tracking, so your incremental backup speed will increase about 10x times. With this mode however, data will go through your Windows server VM on H (so through ESX H network stack, but still over backup LAN only assuming Windows server VM on H sits on backup LAN).

Hope this helps!

[shamus]

Ok thanks Gostev for your swift response and too quick for me moving my posting to the relevant topic.

For option1 where will the Veeam backup software reside on which server, still on the windows server on H?

For option 2 I have to put the service console on the backup VLAN switch on both vSphere ESX 4.0 hosts, should of mentioned that each host H and J has a backup vLAN switch that connects to its own physical network connection on each H and J server.

Would be good to see this in a drawing, do you have a visual of this you could send me?

[Gostev]

Option 1. Veeam Backup software still resides on your Windows Server VM on H, but it will automatically put temporary agent on ESX host each time when the job starts, so the actual transfer is direct from host to host.

Option 2. You are correct, you should put service console on the backup vLAN switch, and add the host using service console IP. This is my theoretical understanding based on the agent code, it would use the IP address the server was added with if host has multiple physical NIC. I did not actually test this myself - I don't have a host with 2 NICs. So cannot give you precise instructions unfortuntately.

[omitv]

I basically have the same question:
VMware environment with vCenter 6.7 and few hosts. I have an external server (Win 2016 server) for Veeam 9.5 U4 (9.5.4.2866) that has a 1gb network card and also a 10gb FC connection. Server was setup with only the 1gb nic and the FC connection was added later on. Both nics in the same vlan (we don't have a separate backup lan). Is there a way to force backup traffic via the faster FC connection?

[Gostev]

Check if your FC adapter's interface metric value is lower than the one of 1Gb adapter.