Calling all SAN mode users...

[Soap]

Guys,

I am thinking of experimenting with a new setup in my environment as the current one just is not cutting it. I would like to install veeam on a new IBM x3850 X5 server ( '4' 6-core processors, 64GB ram, etc) and utilize direct SAN mode to see what kind of performance I can get. I want to be able to 'pull' my backups over FC and also 'push' them to a backup target via FC as well. This is where my questions come in. What is the best way to set this up? I have multiple FC cards in the server and since we have mixed LUNS in our environment dedicate one to each as well as dedicate one for the 'push' to the backup target LUNS. (IBM XIV, 8300, 8700) I am wondering if anyone has done this?

As far as my environment we are running ESXi 4.1, about 32 ESX hosts, roughly 800VM's, and about 300TB of VM data. I am not sure how this compares to other users environments, but our is large and growing rapidly each year.

[Alexey D.]

Offtopic:

I won't answer about SAN mode, but just wanted to ask about your rapid growth. How fast is it?
How do you plan it, and handle the provisioning of new VMs/hardware?

From our side, we are releasing Veeam Reporter with new Capacity Planning pack, in a couple of weeks.
So I'm just curious about any information which would help us to improve the product which solves that problem.

[bc07]

What is your backup window for this process? I'm backing up over SAN right now (only pull, target is DAS). To get the backup perfomance you need you have to run multiple jobs at the same time but it seems that your backup system should be able to handle that (having fast enough CPUs is important).

[joergr]

Hi,

i don´t know if i just understood your question correct but there is no push perspective, at least not from the software side here. Of course you could do a asynchronous san replication if your san allows this (for example you can do that with equallogic, netapp, emc) - that would be a push scenario - but from the veeam server perspective you can only pull the data out of the san when using direct san mode with vStorage API. Or are you speaking of a scenario where the veeam server is located in the middle, the san on the left and the target on the right but somehow directly mapped to your veeam server windows diskmanager system via foreign fc connection? From that perspective, CPU Power is everything you have to be concerned off, if you are equiped with 4 or 8gb FC for both sides seperately you won´t hit any bottleneck regarding the fc capability, that would be for sure. Oh, and just for the record: Four six-cores in a single veeam machine will definitely rock, i can assure you this

Best regards,
Joerg