2 Server (Each are proxy AND repository) design

[ZacTech]

I understand repository and proxies, but I was curious if I should have these 2 servers setup "separately." The two servers are identical (specs at bottom), and I want to split my Veeam jobs across the two, so each one is running two at a time. I know I could add the second one as a proxy and repository and adjust my jobs accordingly, but is there any benefit to splitting them completely for any reason? My thoughts are redundancy in a disaster (faster recovery if I loose a single backup server I don't have to install the full software and re setup all jobs, only half. I feel like there may be another benefits as well but I can't think of any. Thinking that "separate approach" will create a headache for management. Thoughts?

Supermicro X9SCM
Xeon E3-1230 @3.30 4 cores (8 logical)
16 GB
Areca 1882ix-24-4Gb
24x3TB WD red drives (3 x (RAID 10s 8 drives each))
2 x Intel SSD Raid1 (boot)
BCM5709 NIC with 4 x ports
2 ports iscsi on Equallogic SAN


Thanks

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Zac,

....but is there any benefit to splitting them completely for any reason? My thoughts are redundancy in a disaster (faster recovery if I loose a single backup server I don't have to install the full software and re setup all jobs, only half. I feel like there may be another benefits as well but I can't think of any. Thinking that "separate approach" will create a headache for management.

If you combine proxy and repository servers, then you will have true "LAN-free" backup, assuming you will be using direct SAN access via iSCSI to retrieve VMs data from the ESX(i) hosts. If you can afford having two "Direct SAN access" proxy servers at a time, then it will surely make your backup jobs run faster.

faster recovery if I loose a single backup server I don't have to install the full software and re setup all jobs, only half. I feel like there may be another benefits as well but I can't think of any.

If you lose your backup management server, you will need to re-create all jobs (not half of them) unless you do not create regular backups of Veeam configuration database or dump or own exported configuration files to another location.

Thanks!