Best Practice for Veeam HA and 2nd Repository

[michaelyou]

Current VBR Environment :
1 Veeam B&R Server (Veeam BR+Veeam One+Backup Enterprise Manager) and Veeam Repository (Windows 2016 with REFS file system)
2.Above Servers are Physical Server and Windows Based)

Recently we will purchased a QNAP NAS with ZFS file system , I would like to used as 2nd repository.
My Questions :
1.Which protocol is recommended and best performance for 2nd Repository ? (eg. "CIFS" or "NFS' or "iSCSI" or "Direct Attached between Veeam Server & QNAP NAS")
2.Currently we have about 20 backup jobs , Should I create another 20 backup job for the 2nd Repository ? or it is recommended to modify original backup job and added 2nd backup repository into the backup job ?
3.Currently we backup Veeam B&R physical server daily , If our physical Veeam Server crashed due to any possible reasons , we unable to recover Veeam Backup Server from the backup file , What is the best solution for HIGH AVAILABILITY to prevent single point of failure for the backup server ? I preferred 2 Veeam B%R Server (one of physical and one of virtual machine)
4.Since (2018) we choose Veeam as our backup solution , in order to prevent ransomware attack , we are using standalone server (not domain joined) and standalone backup account and password for Veeam Server and Veeam Repository , and we will run the pre-script and post-script to change VBK , VIB , METADATA file extension for every backup jobs. Now (2021) is there have another solution or recommendation for this kind of topic ?

Your suggestions and advises are highly appreciated!

Michael

[Dima P.]

Hello Michael,

1.Which protocol is recommended and best performance for 2nd Repository ? (eg. "CIFS" or "NFS' or "iSCSI" or "Direct Attached between Veeam Server & QNAP NAS")

I'd go with direct connection to Veeam B&R. iSCSI is good option too, but some folks reported that the performance for Synology and QNAP is quite mediocre. NFS would be the third in the list.

2.Currently we have about 20 backup jobs , Should I create another 20 backup job for the 2nd Repository ? or it is recommended to modify original backup job and added 2nd backup repository into the backup job ?

You can create single backup copy job and use 20 primary jobs as a source.

3.Currently we backup Veeam B&R physical server daily , If our physical Veeam Server crashed due to any possible reasons , we unable to recover Veeam Backup Server from the backup file , What is the best solution for HIGH AVAILABILITY to prevent single point of failure for the backup server ? I preferred 2 Veeam B%R Server (one of physical and one of virtual machine)

Spin up the new Veeam B&R server and perform configuration restore if possible.

4.Since (2018) we choose Veeam as our backup solution , in order to prevent ransomware attack , we are using standalone server (not domain joined) and standalone backup account and password for Veeam Server and Veeam Repository , and we will run the pre-script and post-script to change VBK , VIB , METADATA file extension for every backup jobs. Now (2021) is there have another solution or recommendation for this kind of topic ?

Take a can look at new v11 Hardened (Immutable) Repository functionality, it's definitively easier to manage that you current approach since all the backup files remain fully operational in Veeam B&R. Hope that helps!

[michaelyou]

Hi Dima ,

Thank you so much for your helpful reply.
1. Yes I am preferred to uses "Direct Attached" to connect between VBR Server & QNAP NAS via 10Gbps FIber.
2. Can I create a Backup Copy Job based on "Repository" , In order to use 1 copy job and include 20 Hyper-V+VMware backup jobs ?
3. Is there are HA architecture for VBR server ?
4. It seems like need standalone Linux host with XFS file system. However we only have QNAP embedded Linux system with ZFS file system , We unable to add QNAP NAS as "Physical Linux Server" from the setup wizard.
I have an idea but not sure if it is possible or not..
If we would like to using Linux based hardened Repository..
We may need a "real Linux box" as front-end and mount QNAP file share as back-end.
And add "real Linux box" into , but I am worried the performance may slowdown , is my understanding is correct ?