Always On SQL configuration two nodes

[lowlander]

Hi,

We want to stretch an AO SQL cluster over two sites. Idea is to backup SQL natively, and use Veeam just for the image level back-ups of the vms.

When defining a job I know I have to add both AO nodes in one job. Will all data disks from both nodes be backed up to the target backup repository ?

thanks !

[PetrM]

Hello,

Yes, all disks will be processed from each node. You may consider this setting with vbk-per-vm disabled to increase the dedupe ratio across all VMs in the job, thus to save some space on the target storage. But keep in mind that the disabled vbk-per-vm can affect backup performance. By the way, may I ask you to give some details regarding your native SQL backups, in particular: how do you schedule jobs on replicas and how did you configure backup preferences? Also, why image-level backup with T-logs processing is not an option?

Thanks!

[lowlander]

For database management it is only allowed to use native SQL backups. They are scheduled with maintenance plans, and dumping backups on a local disk. I don't get the point of backing up these database dump disks to Veeam, having a double management environment. However we use Veeam for DR purposes, and in that sense we make a image level backup of the OA cluster nodes. What we want to accomplish is a image level backup of node 1 and 2 to a backup target in datacenter A then copy them to the datacenter B with a copy job. On the otherhand we do the same image level backup of nodes 1 and 2 to backup target in datacenter B and then copy them to datacenter B. In this way when a site is unavailable the job will continue with its backup, without the copy to the other side. Just for recovery purposes.