Data transfer between local backup repository and tape library

[Eye-Q]

I have a question regarding how the data is transferred between a backup repository and a tape drive/library.

We have the following environment at a new customer:

• Four VMWare ESXi hosts in a vCenter Server virtual appliance (HA licensed)

• One central FC storage connected to those ESXi hosts (only about 2.5 TB of data to be backed up)

• One physical server with internal HDDs and a directly attached tape library (24 slots, two LTO-7 drives - don't laugh, LTO-7 is for 2.5 TB of data a bit over the top, but the customer already bought it...)

Unfortunately the customer doesn't have 10 Gbit/s network, only 1 Gbit/s so the network will almost definitely be the bottleneck. For the initial backup to the local repository that's not a problem since HDDs don't care if the data stream slows down, then they will just write slower, but for copying it to tape the tape wouldn't get data fast enough to stream properly.

I'm wondering what would be the best solution/best practice:

• install VBR directly into the physical server so it has direct access to both the backup repository and the tape library or

• install VBR in a new VM within the vSphere environment and only install proxy components on the physical server

The question is: which way will the data take when VBR is installed in a VM? Would it use the backup proxy in the physical machine to copy the data directly or will the network be involved by routing it through the VM where VBR is installed?
I would rather install VBR in a virtual machine so it benefits from the high availability cluster instead of having the single point of failure the physical server.

Thanks in advance

[PetrM]

Hi Ingo,

I believe it does not matter where you install Veeam B&R because data transfer is performed between two Data Movers: source Data Mover which is running on the repository and reads data blocks from backup files and target Data Mover which is running on the tape server and creates a communication point over which the data is sent the tape device.

In your case the same physical server has roles of backup repository and tape server, therefore both Data Movers will be running on this physical server regardless of Veeam B&R location. I guess that this page of our help center might be also helpful.

Thanks!

[Eye-Q]

Hi Petr,

thanks for the clarification, that sounds good.
When I searched further in the linked documentation I found this page which explicitly states "The Veeam Data Movers communicate with each other and maintain a stable connection." - as you wrote when the same physical server has two Data Movers those will communicate directly with each other, thus transferring the data directly from the internal HDDs to the tape library.