Backup across WAN

[wizdude]

I have a requirement to backup VM's (running in a vSphere 4.0 environment) to storage located across a WAN link.

I have in other deployments used Veeam Replication which works fine, but in this instance I have no ESX server at the other end. I wish to just use the backup side of things this time. I plan to do the first backup with the storage locally and then use the change block tracking for continued backups.

What I wanted to validate was

(a) will this work as I expect it should?
(b) am I able to take advantage of de-dup, or will this not be possible due to large amounts of comparitive traffic going across the wan link? (ie: does veeam keep information about the remote storage blocks in its local database? or does it query the backup image when performing the de-dup during the next server backup?)

many thanks in advance

cheers, wizdude.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello David,

Basically, you can leverage all the benefits of changed block tracking feature over WAN link if your virtual infrastructure meets the following requirements: Setting Up Changed Block Tracking. If you want to perform a backup job over a WAN link, you surely can store the backups locally (as it will be your first run, you'll have only a VBK file presented), then move them to remote storage and change the destination target on existing jobs.

As for the de-duplication, as you already know it works within the job. See the Best Setup For De-Dup, and all the information on de-duplicated blocks is stored in VBK (storage format), for ex. we will require only 3 mb of traffic to be transmitted over WAN for 200 GB deduped blocks (approx.), so definitely it is worth using. Also don't forget about compression options

Also please have a look at Design Recommendations Hope it helps.

Thank you.

[wizdude]

many thanks. we'll take it for a spin and see how it all works.

cheers, wizdude.