a question regarding Vlan and Veeam traffic

[Tommi]

hi everyone

i have a question regarding Veeam traffic when using Vlan.
first my setup

Storage
HP AIO600 with 8 SAS disks
2 nic cards
1 nic 192.168.200.239 Normal lan
1 nic, is a Dual nic teamed to 192.168.210.239 Vlan ALL iscsi traffic runs through this nic

Backup server ( where veeam is installed )
2 nic cards
1 nic 192.168.200.4 Normal lan
1 nic, is a dual nic teamed to 192.168.210.4 Vlan ALL ISCSI traffic runs through this nic

ESX server
2 nic cards
1 nic runs all my VMS and have a service konsole with IP 192.168.200.222 normal lan
1 nic setup to run ISCSI and Vmotion on IP 192.168.210.232 Vlan and have a service konsole on ip 192.168.210.236 Vlan.

so all Vlan is on the same NIC and normal Lan is on second nic.

when i make a veeam backup now... my backupserver use Normal Lan nic to send data and the ISCSI Vlan to recive Data..
i would like to make veeam use only the ISCSI VLAN for all the backup operations so my normal Lan is not affedted my my backups.
how can i make this happen ???

regards
Tommi
PS yea yea i know i got alot of spelling errors,,,

[Alexey D.]

Hello Tommi,

As for now, route selection is completely up to Windows OS. B&R does not manage this.
As a workaround, why don't you just disable "Normal lan" NIC on your backup server?

Anyway, thanks for your suggestion, we have added it to our list and if we get more feedback, manual selection of NIC for backup traffic may be implemented in future releases.

[Tommi]

hi alexey.

thanks for your reply,, i cannot disable my "normal nic" bcos my backupserver allso is WSUS and antivirus server.. and those funktions runs on normal nic.
i hope to see Nic selection in upcomming versions though,, as this is a problem for me.

cheers
Tommi

[Alexey D.]

Ok, now I see... Please also keep in mind that it's better to use a dedicated VM for backup server, because its CPUs get saturated during compression, deduplication. Normally, 4 vCPUs are recommended. I say this, because this configuration may affect your WSUS and antivirus services.

[Tommi]

hi again Alexey

thanks for your warning.
i have ben studying my backupserver during backup operations, but i have never seen my processor usage more then 64% so i dont think i have a problem tbere
this is on a "real" server not a VM
but thanks for the warning though

cheers
Tommi

[Gostev]

i hope to see Nic selection in upcomming versions though... as this is a problem for me.

I recommend looking at changing how your network and subnets are setup. Network traffic segregation should be handled on your network infrastructure layer exclusively, and not by individual applications. Your iSCSI network should not be directly accessible through production network adaptor...

Handling this issue on application level does not make much sense... it is like requiring every restraurant customer to bring own silverware, because restaurant does not have one.

[Tommi]

hi Gostev

so you would suggest i place my backupserver ONLY on my ISCSI VLAN,..in stead of both ?
i didnt think it would be a problem when i have seperate Nics for the 2 Lans..

right now my Vlan is seperated my physical means..
my Vlan have it own switch and every computer that can access it does so by physical cables....
so i thought Network traffic segregation was handled on my network infrastructure layer exclusively ??

cheers
Tommi

[Gostev]

No, I did not suggest placing backup server on your iSCSI VLAN exclusively. Your backup server can have 2 NICs, one in iSCSI network, and one in production network.This is arguably most common scenario among our customers. With proper networking setup (subnets and IP settings on your NICs), iSCSI traffic will automatically go exclusively through iSCSI NIC, and production traffic will go through production NIC.

[Tommi]

this is what i have,,, and tried to describe in my initial post


"Backup server ( where veeam is installed )
2 nic cards
1 nic 192.168.200.4 Normal lan
1 nic, is a dual nic teamed to 192.168.210.4 Vlan ALL ISCSI traffic runs through this nic"

"Storage
HP AIO600 with 8 SAS disks
2 nic cards
1 nic 192.168.200.239 Normal lan
1 nic, is a Dual nic teamed to 192.168.210.239 Vlan ALL iscsi traffic runs through this nic"

so my ISCSI traffic does not reach my production net,,, and ISCSI is isolated,, but as my initial question was..
VEEAM is selecting to use my production lan's service konsole,,, and not my ISCSI VLAN service konsole.. and that is what i want to to.

my esx server does have a service konsole on both lans.,, so it should be able to use the one on the ISCSI VLAN.,

cheers
Tommi

[Gostev]

Hi Tommi, based on how you provide your configuration information, it looks like you do not have good experience with VMware networking, iSCSI or subnets, so explanation here would be very long, going into the networking basics. Plus, this discussion is definitely out of scope of our product, and so this forum. I recommend that you seek assistance from certified networking professional, or on corresponding networking forums. Thank you for understanding.

[Tommi]

hi Gostev.

i am sorry to hear this,,, my network setup HAVE ben designed by a network professionel konsulent...
i thank you for your time though,,,
still hope the funktion to choose the NIC veeam should use would someday be implemented..

cheers
Tommi

[Bunce]

when i make a veeam backup now... my backupserver use Normal Lan nic to send data and the ISCSI Vlan to recive Data..
i would like to make veeam use only the ISCSI VLAN for all the backup operations so my normal Lan is not affedted my my backups.
how can i make this happen ???

How do you *know* its using the Normal LAN nic to send data? If your backup target is on the iSCSI vlan then how is the traffic even getting there?

The backup job would fail indicating it can't find the backup target. What are you backng up to?

We use Virtual Appliance mode with 2 nics - where the 2nd nic is on our iSCSI vlan connecting to a NAS using SMB, and it works OK.

[tsightler]

What traffic to you think Veeam is sending over the "normal" NIC? Veeam does not talk iSCSI, the Windows iSCSI initiator talks iSCSI. In the Windows iSCSI initiator you can select your source NIC.

The setup you describe should work great if properly configured and Veeam is not the issue. We use exactly this setup with no problems.

[Tommi]

hi Buncs and tsightler.

thanks for your reply.

How do you *know* its using the Normal LAN nic to send data? If your backup target is on the iSCSI vlan then how is the traffic even getting there?

i can see that when i run a backup job, i get alot of "bytes sent" on my Lan port and alot of "bytes received" on my ISCSI lan.
the ISCSI lan is the lan getting by far the most data.
i thought that the normal Lan data might have ben the "changed block info" since my backup server have "access" to both Lans and my ESX have a service konsole on both lan's.

The backup job would fail indicating it can't find the backup target. What are you backng up to?

in this case i am backing up to the backupservers's own harddisk (5 disk raid 5), "remember the backupserver is a phsycial server"

We use Virtual Appliance mode with 2 nics - where the 2nd nic is on our iSCSI vlan connecting to a NAS using SMB, and it works OK

.
thanks for that info,, i belive it should work too thats why i made it this way.

What traffic to you think Veeam is sending over the "normal" NIC? Veeam does not talk iSCSI, the Windows iSCSI initiator talks iSCSI. In the Windows iSCSI initiator you can select your source NIC.´

i have ben checking the ISCSI initiators and they are all set on the 192.168.210xx lan "VLAN" so that looks ok.
and again
i thought that the normal Lan data might have ben the "changed block info" since my backup server have "access" to both Lans and my ESX have a service konsole on both lan's.

i thank you for your time,, im sure its just me that made somekind of mistake,, but thats why i am trying to "fix this" and i apriciate your help guys.

cheers
Tommi

[tsightler]

i can see that when i run a backup job, i get alot of "bytes sent" on my Lan port and alot of "bytes received" on my ISCSI lan.
the ISCSI lan is the lan getting by far the most data.
i thought that the normal Lan data might have ben the "changed block info" since my backup server have "access" to both Lans and my ESX have a service konsole on both lan's.

So it sounds like everything is working perfectly. There's going to be some traffic on the normal LAN because it communicates with vCenter, but if the bulk of your traffic is on the iSCSI LAN then it seems you are good. The other possibility is that you are sending your backups to a share rather than local disk, then of course the VBK file would be written via the LAN.