Best way to setup replication

[dennes]

Hi,
We currently have a Veeam (v6.5) backup VM whichs backs up our vSphere 5.1 (3 hosts) environment to a local Synology NAS device. This NAS replicates offsite to another NAS via Rsync.
Now i have just P2Ved my last physical server which i want to repurpose as a dedicated physical backup server, thus taking the CPU load of the virtual environment.

But now i'm not really sure how to set this up. The physical server has lots of local storage, so i want to backup directly to that instead of the Synology. However i want the offsite replication to be as efficient as possible.
What would be the best setup in this case?

1. Keep virtual backup VM > backup to local Synology and put physical Windows Veeam server with agent on offsite location?
2. Use Veeam physical Windows server as backup (no VM) and backup directly to this, replicate to Synology offsite with rsync?

So basically i'm asking the following question: Are there any other options whick would be better, assuming i have the following devices/vm's ready to use:
1. Windows 2008R2 Backup VM
2. Dual Xeon 5400 processor server with 32GB RAM, 2008R2 and plenty of local SAS storage
3. Synology NAS with local SATA storage


Thanks,
Dennes

[foggy]

So basically i'm asking the following question: Are there any other options whick would be better

Dennes, better to wait for v7 that will provide the new Backup Copy Job designed with this specific scenario in mind. According to our estimation, with built-in WAN acceleration it will allow to transfer backups offsite up to 50x faster than a traditional file copy over the WAN does.

So you could setup this physical server as a Veeam backup server/backup proxy with local backup storage and use Backup Copy jobs to transfer backups offsite.

Hope this helps.

[dennes]

OK, thanks. Does anybody have an ETA on Veeam 7, or is that a matter of search the forums?

[foggy]

OK, thanks. Does anybody have an ETA on Veeam 7, or is that a matter of search the forums?

Q3.

Also, we have scheduled a series of webinars regarding Veeam B&R v7 and its new functionality, worth attending. All the new features will be covered there in more detail.

[cava83]

Good day,

Glad I came across this thread.

We are looking to do the same really, now that v7 is released too, should be easier.

We have the following;

Site A
3 x ESXi Hosts running VMware Essentials (not plus) - 2 of these are production, 1 is for testing
1 x Synology box.

Site B
1 x ESXi host

All the hosts are using local storage instead of shared storage.

There are two aspects we want to do, but not sure what is the best way about this.

1) Replicate between host 1, 2 and maybe three. To make sure all is ok.
2) Replicate between sites for DR

Not sure if it's best to back up to the Synology, then replicate to say another Synology on the other site?

If someone can guide/assist that would be superb.

We know we want Veeam, we have not bought the licenses yet.

Thank you very much,

G.

[foggy]

Gabi, just to clarify on what do you really need to do: replicate VMs between ESXi hosts (to have ready-to-start replicas of your production VMs for failover), replicate backups to another location (to have a second copy of backups), or both (which is typically a recommended approach)?

[cava83]

Foggy,

Good evening and thank you for your reply.

Both please.

We choose to use Local storage instead of a SAN due to the cost implications and due to us not having huge amounts of data yet.

Just wanted to run through things with people, I will then document all of this and whack it on my website, so hopefully it can help others out too.

My thoughts where the following;

1) Use VMware Essentials (for backup API) Don't need FT and all of that (even though it's great)
2) Replicate data to each ESXi host, so if one is to fail, the other one can manage.
3) Backup data to Synology NAS
4) Replicate data so Synology NAS on site B
5) Site B has another server, where if required, can spin up the required VM's to carry on running properly until Site A is back.

Questions;

A) If backing up from 2 ESXi hosts and backing up to multiple targets, can I presume that only 2 licenses (4 required as 2 CPU's per server) are required?
B) Management of IP addresses and testing DR, seen quite a few videos regarding DR, but regarding IP's not too sure. For instance exchange servers/domain controllers, things which could easily mess up
C) Do I really need a NAS on each site? Could I just not backup ESXi1(production) and ESXi2 (production) to ESXi3 (test) and then replicate to Site B ESXi4's local data store?

I realise a lot of these things have been covered, but wanted to follow it up on a concrete thread, then I can share my info on Spiceworks and my blog (when I finish it)

If I have not made any sense, or you just want to point me to the right direction, please do so.

Thank you very much

Many thanks,

G

[veremin]

In general, the said backup plan seems to be solid. You have a local and remote copy of backup data and replication as means that guarantee minimal RPO/RTO.

As to the specific questions:

If backing up from 2 ESXi hosts and backing up to multiple targets, can I presume that only 2 licenses (4 required as 2 CPU's per server) are required?

Yep, VB&R license concerns only with the actual “source” hosts, DR ones to where the data is copied/replicated don’t need to be covered with it.

Management of IP addresses and testing DR, seen quite a few videos regarding DR, but regarding IP's not too sure. For instance exchange servers/domain controllers, things which could easily mess up

First of all, I recommend to take a look at corresponding section in the User Guide. And, then, ask for further clarification, if something stays unclear for you.

Do I really need a NAS on each site? Could I just not backup ESXi1(production) and ESXi2 (production) to ESXi3 (test) and then replicate to Site B ESXi4's local data store?

I’d say, yes; since, in this case, required backup data redundancy will be guaranteed - local backups for quick access, file level recovery, etc., replication as another layer of protection, and, finally, remote backups for long-time archival purposes.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[Vitaliy S.]

ESXi hosts cannot be chosen as backup targets, what you could do is create VMs and store your backup files on these disks, but this is not considered to be the best practice. Please search these forums for more details on the reasons of it. Here you go the keywords for this search - "VMFS, store backup files, why not". Vladimir's recommendation is a better choice indeed.

[cava83]

You've both been extremely helpful, thank you very much.

The documentation is clear, if you use the product but when you are analysing the market, it's not always easy to tell what can and cannot be done and thus, why I am on here.

It's good to know that an ESXi host cannot be chosen as backup targets unless you are using a VM. (will search forum and thanks for the keywords)

I'll probably have more questions, will go through guide and check out some TrainSignal videos on Veeam.

We'll be using Synology boxes, probably 1513+'s, as the backup targets with WD Red's.

Need to finalise which essentials version to go for, not sure if I need the Enterprise, need to understand the feature set properly.

Splendid, thank you once again.

Any other thoughts/recommendations?

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, feel free to ask more questions if you'd like.

As to other recommendations, then in order to use traffic compression between two sites, make sure you have two proxy servers deployed (one on source site and the second one on the target location). In addition to this, if you want to sync VM backup files with the offsite location for archival purposes consider using backup copy jobs. These jobs can replicate VM backups to your DR site in a granular way.

If I were you, I would do the following:

1. do local backup pointed to the NAS boxes for FLR recovery capabilities
2. use replication jobs (pointed to the DR site) to protect mission critical VMs from your main site failure
3. use backup copy jobs to send your VM backups to the DR site for archival purposes

Hope this helps!

[cava83]

Splendid.

Trying to get this forum to email me the notifications when you are replying but it is not happening.

Basically, that is what I am thinking of doing (apart from the proxy elements)

Decided on Essentials Enterprise, due to the elevated functionality with Exchange and some other aspects.

Thank you very much, brilliant replies

G

[Vitaliy S.]

If you want to replicate locally then you will need only 1 proxy server, but if you decide to replicate VMs offsite it is strongly recommended to use 2 proxy servers.

[foggy]

Trying to get this forum to email me the notifications when you are replying but it is not happening.

Probably this is due to some performance issues our forum is experiencing today, I don't get notifications today also. I believe this will be fixed shortly.