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Shogan

Best method for NAS Backup (plus remote copy at remote site)

Post by Shogan »

Hey all,

So I have had a thread about the best way to backup to NAS using Veeam in terms of performance, but am also trying to figure out the best way to Backup now - i.e. what backup strategy to use.

My requirements are:

1. Backup to NAS (of course) - this provides cheaper storage than backing up to SAN. Also we do not use a physical Veeam B&R server, so no possibility of using Direct SAN mode here either
2. Backups need to exist on local site and remote site in case the QNAP NAS on either side went down and we needed a backup.
3. Try and save as much storage space on NAS (i.e. use incrementals/reverse incrementals)
4. Try and save as much bandwidth as possible (i.e. replication should not have to copy the full VBKs over the 1GBit link between data centres every day, only the stuff that changes - like the VIB or VRB files).

Here is a basic diagram of my infrastructure I did using the (awesome) free Veeam stencils for Visio :)

Image

The two data centres are completely remote sites, but have a 1GBit connection via Fibre. Backups run at night (mostly) and one of the requirements listed above is to have these replicated on the other side. Basically, there will be two replication jobs configured - one on the QNAP NAS at Primary DC and one at the QNAP NAS at the Secondary DC. Here is where I have two choices:

a) Backup VMs running at Primary DC to QNAP NAS at Primary DC. Replicate these the next morning to Secondary DC using rsync job. Do the same, but in reverse for the VMs running at the Secondary DC.
b) Backup VMs running at Primary DC to QNAP NAS at Secondary DC. Replicate these back to the Primary DC QNAP NAS the next morning using rsync job. Do reverse for VMs running at the Secondary DC.

My ideas so far have been (All of these use either Network backup mode or VA backup mode) :

1. Backup VMs running at relevant Data Centre. Replicate using rsync the next morning to other data centre QNAP NAS storage (scenario (a) or (b) above). Use Reverse Incremental mode and somehow set up hardlinks so the names don't change and I don't end up with tons of full VBK files replicating across and wasting space and bandwidth.

This would be nice, but its messy - it will take a fair amount of effort to set up hard links and maintain all of this. We have a lot of jobs, so there will be a lot to configure, and even more configuration needed everytime we add a new Veeam backup job.

2. Backup VMs running at relevant Data Centre. Replicate using rsync the next morning to other data centre QNAP NAS storage (scenario (a) or (b) above). Use Normal Incremental mode with a weekly full backup scheduled in. This way full VBK will be replicated to other data centre site once a week, and incrementals will be provide quicker replication every other day.

This option would probably work fine, but has disadvantages such as jobs are incremental, and having a corrupted incremental job file (VIB) in-between could mean losing the latest backup should we need to restore.

So, what do you guys think? Any advice, improvements on the above, or better ideas? I am getting fairly desperate as currently used backup storage on each site's SANs is running low, and I would like to get existing jobs moved over to the NAS devices :) Shout if you need any more info on the above set up.

Cheers
Gostev
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Re: Best method for NAS Backup (plus remote copy at remote s

Post by Gostev »

Well, as we discussed it's always best to place backup server closer to source data, and backup to agent-enabled target (Linux server in case of v5). The design above does not provide efficient access to source data, nor the traffic between datacenters is compressed.
Shogan

Re: Best method for NAS Backup (plus remote copy at remote s

Post by Shogan »

Gostev wrote:Well, as we discussed it's always best to place backup server closer to source data, and backup to agent-enabled target (Linux server in case of v5). The design above does not provide efficient access to source data, nor the traffic between datacenters is compressed.
So in the above case, we would want to backup live VMs running at Data Centre 1 to Data Centre 2, and backup live VMs running at Data Centre 2, to Data Centre 1. In this case would you recommend having two Veeam B&R servers (VMs)? One on each side?

Also, relating to the linux server target, I tried this yesterday - created a uBuntu Linux 11.04 VM in the Target site cluster, put it on the same VLAN network that the NAS device and Veeam Server runs on, and then mounted the NAS backup volume to this linux VM using NFS. I then tried a test backup (Full) job to the NAS storage using the Linux server as target in the job properties. Interestingly, the network throughput speed was slightly slower, if not the same than just backing up directly like I had been doing initially. (direct via CIFS share). Where do the real improvements/benefits come in from using a backup target linux with backup storage mounted? Is it to do with compression if I had to use a higher (like Best) compression in the job settings? Also, how do I prove/confirm that Veeam has installed an agent on the Linux server?
Gostev
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Re: Best method for NAS Backup (plus remote copy at remote s

Post by Gostev »

Sure, one on each side is fine.

You should see the benefits when the time of synthetic full backup comes. Of course it will not be so glaring because really there is no WAN connection in play in your case (I just noted you have full blown 1Gb LAN between sites). However, as link get saturated by more data backed up by more jobs, you will see the difference in time it takes to create full backup.

If the agent would not install, the backup job would simply fail in case of Linux target.
Shogan

Re: Best method for NAS Backup (plus remote copy at remote s

Post by Shogan »

Gostev wrote:Sure, one on each side is fine.

You should see the benefits when the time of synthetic full backup comes. Of course it will not be so glaring because really there is no WAN connection in play in your case (I just noted you have full blown 1Gb LAN between sites). However, as link get saturated by more data backed up by more jobs, you will see the difference in time it takes to create full backup.

If the agent would not install, the backup job would simply fail in case of Linux target.
So it is recommended to have one each side, with the relevant jobs on each one, or would it not make too much difference in our case? Regarding the rest of the info, excellent - that makes sense to me now, thanks!
Gostev
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Re: Best method for NAS Backup (plus remote copy at remote s

Post by Gostev »

Shogan wrote:So it is recommended to have one each side, with the relevant jobs on each one, or would it not make too much difference in our case?
The honest answer is "I have no idea". Basically, you should test "your case" and see for yourself. Whether or not it will make difference depends on long list of factors, including your server hardware, storage performance, amount of protected data, amount of daily changes in protected VM's disks, required backup window, and so on. I had this question asked few months ago, and I think I came up with the list of about 15 bullets which are all variables affecting decisions like that. Among all of them, from above we know only one: 1Gb connection between sites ;)
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Re: Best method for NAS Backup (plus remote copy at remote s

Post by pcamelio »

Hello,
I am working on the same kind or architecture:
2 things :
1) About rsync, did you think about using the QNAP built-in replication (Real Time Remote Replication ) ?
2) I think you may have a look of the Veeam v6 which will feet exactly in what you are looking for (have look at http://go.veeam.com/v6-backup-replication)
Shogan

Re: Best method for NAS Backup (plus remote copy at remote s

Post by Shogan »

pcamelio wrote:Hello,
I am working on the same kind or architecture:
2 things :
1) About rsync, did you think about using the QNAP built-in replication (Real Time Remote Replication ) ?
2) I think you may have a look of the Veeam v6 which will feet exactly in what you are looking for (have look at http://go.veeam.com/v6-backup-replication)
Thanks for the heads up, I have got the webinar on features loaded up in my youtube playlist and will watch this as soon as I get home this evening - too bad there is no time at work to watch :( I've already missed the last two Veeam webinars.

Regarding rsync, I am using the QNAP RSYNC option, although I do have the RTRR option in there too - I haven't tried this yet, have you had a go using it? I have just been using the normal Rsync tab and set it to sync a few hours after the last Veeam job completes in our environment overnight (currently around 8am the next day).

I am hoping the new v6 features are going to solve a lot of the file naming issues - we'll see later!
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