Backup and replicating my SQL and Exchange VMs - questions

[james411]

Hi,
I work with a SMB that has two ESXi 5.5 hosts - host A is the primary host all workloads run on, host B is for backup purposes. I'd like to replicate my workloads to host B but would like some input on best practices for Veeam:

1. Two VMs I would like to replicate almost continuously. Is it practical to replicate less than 15 minutes? One VM is an Exchange 2013 server the other is a SQL 2014 server. We are relatively small so the VMs themselves are not that big or transaction heavy. I currently have Veeam backup running them every night and each VM shows about 2-5GB transferred in the backup to give an idea of the amount of changes. Would it be best to start at say 15 minutes and work my way down to see the load placed on my host?

2. I've read if I am doing backup and replication jobs on VMs with transaction logs like Exchange and SQL, I should only let one job process the logs. For example, I should set the replication job to just copy the transaction logs and set the backup job to process the logs. Is this recommended practice?

3. Host B is a slightly older server than Host A. Host A has a Xeon E5-2630 CPU while Host B has a Xeon E5506 CPU. Will this cause any issues with the replicas?

4. Are there any other gotchas one should be aware of when replicating these VMs? I will make sure to have Application Aware Processing enabled which I assume is best practice for a replication job as well? Finally, I think in the past I remember issues with snapshots not being removed properly all the time (I don't remember if this was a Veeam thing or a VMware thing). Is this still something to worry about, or does Veeam take care of all this automagically now?

I am using Veeam BR 8.0.0.2030

Thanks for any feedback!

[foggy]

1. Two VMs I would like to replicate almost continuously. Is it practical to replicate less than 15 minutes? One VM is an Exchange 2013 server the other is a SQL 2014 server. We are relatively small so the VMs themselves are not that big or transaction heavy. I currently have Veeam backup running them every night and each VM shows about 2-5GB transferred in the backup to give an idea of the amount of changes. Would it be best to start at say 15 minutes and work my way down to see the load placed on my host?

Yes, that would be reasonable, you will see whether 15 minutes is enough to replicate all the changes. Alternatively, you can set the job to run continuously and it will start the next cycle right after the current one is completed.

2. I've read if I am doing backup and replication jobs on VMs with transaction logs like Exchange and SQL, I should only let one job process the logs. For example, I should set the replication job to just copy the transaction logs and set the backup job to process the logs. Is this recommended practice?

Depends on what do you mean by processing. You can truncate transaction logs in any number of jobs, however if you're talking about backing up SQL transaction logs, then this should be done within a single job only (and actually Veeam B&R prevents other jobs from touching the logs of the same VM).

3. Host B is a slightly older server than Host A. Host A has a Xeon E5-2630 CPU while Host B has a Xeon E5506 CPU. Will this cause any issues with the replicas?

No.

I will make sure to have Application Aware Processing enabled which I assume is best practice for a replication job as well?

Correct.

Finally, I think in the past I remember issues with snapshots not being removed properly all the time (I don't remember if this was a Veeam thing or a VMware thing). Is this still something to worry about, or does Veeam take care of all this automagically now?

Snapshots created during the jobs should be removed automatically. If you experience any issues with this, please open a case for investigation.

Thanks.

[james411]

Thanks for the answers!

Depends on what do you mean by processing. You can truncate transaction logs in any number of jobs, however if you're talking about backing up SQL transaction logs, then this should be done within a single job only (and actually Veeam B&R prevents other jobs from touching the logs of the same VM).

I'm referring specifically to the two options in Veeam for transaction log handling: http://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/80/v ... on_vm.html - "Process transaction logs with this job (recommended)" and "Perform copy-only"

For the replication job would it be recommended to select Perform copy only and for the backup job select Process transaction logs?

[foggy]

Yes, these are already the default settings for replication and backup jobs respectively, so are the recommended ones.

[james411]

Ah, didn't realize they were the defaults. Thanks again!