Advice on Replication across a 20Mbps WAN link

[msidnam]

Good Morning everyone,
We just bought VEEAM a couple months ago and we finally got our new SAN (Nexsan E18) up and running. I am currently moving the VM's from the current SAN to the Nexsan. Once we get everything situated we will have a production environment and a DR environment. The production and DR will both have their own E18's, switches optimized for iSCSI traffic and seperate from our data and VoIP traffic and. right now they are setup this way but still in our main office. I can replicate using the 1GB connections (the Nexsan is connected via 10GbE).

I'm thinking of setting up Direct Access (using windows 2008R2 connected read only to the Nexsan). My question is, once I move the DR setup (1 Nexsan E18 and probably 2-3 esxi Hosts) to our DR colo with a 20Mbps link what would be the best way to replicate? Since they will be going over a link thats not optimized for iSCSI im not sure what issues i will have if i keep the direct access enabled. Also, with direct access do i need to have the VEEAM B&R server connected to both SANS via the MS iSCSI initiator? Would I need another VEEAM server in DR?

Sorry for all the questions. VEEAM is still very new to me and they have a lot of options. I just want to make sure i do it right. Thank you.

[Gostev]

Hello, replication traffic always goes over regular network (not an iSCSI traffic). Direct SAN Access is only used for source data retrieval. In DR site, the data will be applied through ESXi host. You do not need to have another Veeam server in DR site, however, with ESXi target and v5, you will get better replication performance by putting dedicated Veeam server in DR site and use it to run replication jobs (please search this forum on ESXi replication, there are multiple existing dicussions).

Regarding configuration of direct SAN access, this is described in great details in sticky FAQ topic.

No problems with asking many questions, but please, be sure to search the forum before you ask

Thanks!

[msidnam]

Thank you for the info. I did find the Sticky FAQ earlier and thats what peaked my curiosity about the Direct SAN. I wasnt aware that with replication that it would still go through the esxi host. If thats the case I'm wondering if it would it be possible to dedicate one nic just for the replication on each esxi host for production and DR. I'm guessing that VEEAM doesnt care if the port is a vmotion port?

I'm searching now for esxi replication. Lots of stuff.

[Gostev]

I'm searching now for esxi replication. Lots of stuff.

...and everything you read up is changed in the upcoming v6 replication to ESXi today is quite painful, so we completely redesigned it. Now it is flawless, or so I like to think

[msidnam]

In version 6 do you need to upgrade esxi? Right now we are on 4.1 (havent update to U1). We were going to wait until esxi 5 came out and update it all.

[Gostev]

No, we will still support all versions of ESXi, starting from very first (which was ESXi 3.5 I believe).

[J1mbo]

Very interested in this - any info on the revised design you're able to share?

[Gostev]

At this time, unfortunately, I cannot yet share the design details. We keep implementation details secret until the product goes GA for competitive reasons.

[st0623]

msidnam: One thing we've been seeing with the deployment of HyperIP, is the ability to rate limit replication or any data movement, ie...Vmotion, FTP, Veeam BU&R, etc, through our software. This is done by time of day. We had a recent customer in the UK that uses us in a local metro ethernet config, where we did compression on the network vs. in the Veeam software and rate limited the app by time of day, to match the windows at night. HyperIP can saturate a local link up to GigE and compress up to 200Mbs, so there might be some value in letting us try to improve performance over the 20Mbs link. Might see 2:1 or 3:1 compression which could translate into 40-60Mbs. Request an eval at hyperip.com and I'll notify support of what you might want to do and they'll help out....Food for thought.