Backup to tape from Storeonce

[Hirosh]

Hi guys,

i have few question about how data are fetched from storeonce and archived to tape through backup copy job. first i would like to confirm that the below sentence from Veeam B&R Helpcenter:

"Veeam Backup & Replication connects to Veeam Data Movers and starts the data transfer process. The source Veeam Data Mover retrieves data from the backup repository and target Veeam Data Mover sends data to tape"

means :
1.1 that backup data are retrieved from Storeonce sent to tape server which also has a data-mover installed on and then the data is directed to tape library(Data cartridges). is that right?

1.2 Assuming we have All-in-one installation(Veeam BR+Proxy Serever+GW servers+Tape Server all being installed on a single physical server), all the backup to tape traffic runs through the backup server?

1.3 if the storeonce is connected to backup server over 10/25Gb Ethernet and the tape library with FC drives communicate with tape server over FC, would that cause any issue or any extra overhead for our backup to tape jobs?

2. if we want use a VM(vmware) as a tape server is it possible to use passthrough(to connect the Tape to tape server) or its not recommended, is there a workaround for this?

best regards

[HannesK]

Hello,

1.1: yes, correct
1.2: yes, correct
1.3. As you have an all-in-one installation, all traffic goes through this machine. It's regular traffic and no "overhead". The main question probably is, how fast you can read from StoreOnce. In general, inline deduplication appliances are not very fast when you try to read data from them.
2: VMware does not support passthrough / NPIV fibre channel for tapes since many years as far as I know

Best regards,
Hannes

[Hirosh]

@hannesK

thank you for 1.1-1.3
back in the vmware vsphere 5.5,6 they announce that they would not support it ,however it was more of not recommended rather than the alternative being removed. im not fund of going for passthrough neither, i just wanted to know whats the alternative when the tape server is a VM and tape drives has FC connectivity?

best regards

[HannesK]

Hello,
if you can get it working in VMware, that's your decision. I would not do it (I could not find a reason to do it ).

I heard about FC-to-ethernet converters, but I would also not do that (same thing: I could not find a reason to do it)

Best regards,
Hannes

[Hirosh]

@HannesK

i don't want to use passthrough setup at all, i just want to know if there is a way to have virtual machine Tape Server which connects to a tape library which its drives have FC-Connectivity. from your last comment i can not find out ,you dont recommend using a virtual machine Tape server or just against using passthrough setup!?

Best regards

[david.domask]

@Hirosh, there are many issues introduced with passthrough and Vmware will not support it: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2007904

This is very unambiguous in my opinion, and passthrough for tape devices historically has introduced many very hard to troubleshoot errors as a result of the passthrough; some bus-reset or the controller on the ESXi host just cannot handle it, etc. Your Tape vendor and Veeam Support won't be able to fix these issues, and VMware has stated they do not support it. It is a bad design choice and should not be done.

Either set up a physical tape server as per our user guide or use iscsi -- iscsi is supported for tape hardware => Virtual Machine, but keep in mind you need to have a decent and stable network to utilize the tape drives efficiently. 1 Gbit NIC will NOT saturate the tape drives.

See Tom's and Rob's posts here for more descriptions of what you _might_ see with passthrough, and remember VMware will not provide support for these issues:
post368489.html?hilit=PSOD#p368489
post368392.html#p368392

We can't stop you from doing passthrough, but I highly advise against it, and please note if there are hardware issues interrupting the tape operations, you will not get support: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... imitations

[Hirosh]

@david.domask

thanks for your comment and the links which were very helpful.

[david.domask]

Glad that they were useful for you and please excuse if my brevity sounded too direct, just fast thoughts/typing But hope it helps with your design plans.