A couple question related to LUN mapping and CBT

[dsanders]

In the very near future I am going to download VEEAM and give it a shot. I just want to get everything in order before I dive in. It sounds like taking advantage of CBT in vSphere is the way to go (I guess that'll be my motivation to upgrade to 4.0).

Have I read correctly that the LUN needs to be presented as read only? I checked with my SAN vendor and they are unable to present LUNs read only. Is this a show stopper?

I also read that in the upcoming 4.1 release VEEAM will be capable of running within a virtual machine and the need for a dedicated physical backup server will not be required. What would the SAN connectivity requirements be for the virtual machine? Specifically, would it sill need the LUNs presented read only? Would you need to present the LUNs via iSCSI? Today all of our hosts are fiber connected, but iSCSI is an option. I'm just trying to wrap my head around how I would set all this up.

I guess while I am at it, I have a couple replication related questions. If I do have a disaster, and my backup server is taken out, how would I go about performing the replication failover? Would I also have a VEEAM machine at my DR site?

Is it possible to have backups and replication running at the same time? For example, I would like to backup to a local file server, which would then be backed up to tape. At the same time I would like to be replicating these virtual machines.

Thanks,
David

[Gostev]

Have I read correctly that the LUN needs to be presented as read only? I checked with my SAN vendor and they are unable to present LUNs read only. Is this a show stopper?

No, it just means you have one less pre-configuration step to worry about

I also read that in the upcoming 4.1 release VEEAM will be capable of running within a virtual machine and the need for a dedicated physical backup server will not be required. What would the SAN connectivity requirements be for the virtual machine? Specifically, would it sill need the LUNs presented read only? Would you need to present the LUNs via iSCSI? Today all of our hosts are fiber connected, but iSCSI is an option. I'm just trying to wrap my head around how I would set all this up.

This is available today, with Veeam Backup 4.0. You do not need to make any changes or extra configuration for this mode, it works out of box. More information about this mode: vStorage API in Virtual Applicance mode

I guess while I am at it, I have a couple replication related questions. If I do have a disaster, and my backup server is taken out, how would I go about performing the replication failover? Would I also have a VEEAM machine at my DR site?

You can simply start up the replica VM manually.

Is it possible to have backups and replication running at the same time? For example, I would like to backup to a local file server, which would then be backed up to tape. At the same time I would like to be replicating these virtual machines.

Yes.

[dsanders]

Just to make sure I am understanding correctly.

With virtual appliance mode, I can take advantage of CBT and there is nothing to setup for SAN connectivity (as long as my ESX host is SAN connected). Do I have that right? If so, it sounds like virtual appliance mode is the way to go.

Are there any gotchas or limitations of this mode compared to the other modes?

[Gostev]

Yes, this is correct. Just verify that your VMware license level is sufficient (see the thread referenced above for more details on that).

As for gotchas, I recommend that you obtain a hotfix for Virtual Appliance mode from our support. There is an issue when snapshots are not removed sometimes after backup.

Or you can simply wait for Veeam Backup 4.1 release later this month while testing out the mode on some test VMs, there are no other issues with this mode other than snapshot removal issue.

[dsanders]

I got virtual appliance mode working last night and it seemed great (I'll look into the hot fix). Now the problem I'm going to run into is our licenses are only for vSphere standard. Will all of our ESX hosts need an advanced license or just the host which the veeam virtual appliance is running on?

[Gostev]

Correct, just the host which the Veeam Backup VM is running on. Backed up VM disks will be hot-added to Veeam Backup VM, so only ESX host running Veeam Backup VM needs iSCSI hot-add functionality licensed.

[firedog7881]

This is some great information thanks. When you have the Veeam backup server as a virtual appliance does it have to be on a host that has ALL the LUNs presented to it that has VMs on them that you are backing up? I am currently only presenting specific LUNs to certain clusters, but Veeam will be backing up servers in multiple clusters. Will I need to present ALL the LUNs to all the hosts? (I use DRS so the VA will be moving if needed)

[Gostev]

Yes, your understanding is almost correct. You need to present ALL the LUNs, but only to the ESX host that runs Veeam Backup VM (not other ESX hosts).

[firedog7881]

You say that I am "almost" correct. I don't understand why I am "almost" correct. If I am utilizing DRS which may end up vmotioning the Veeam Backup virtual appliance\machine then I will have to have all of my LUNs presented to multiple hosts.

[Gostev]

Will I need to present ALL the LUNs to all the hosts?

Here. You do not need to present all the LUNs to all the hosts you have, you should do that just for those hosts where virtual appliance will be running. So, only for ESX hosts in the cluster that is running Veeam Backup VM. No need to do this for other hosts (those in other clusters).