Create Veeam replicas from Nimble snapshot at secondary site

[ian0x0r]

Hi,

I have seen similar questions on the forums but not my exact one. I would like to know if the following is possible.

leveraging Nimble integration with 9.5, is it possible to have a replication job that will initiate snapshot on the source SAN, replicate it to the target SAN and then present a replica from the snapshot. I realise generational recovery would result in multiple SAN based snapshots in this scenario and probably multiple SAN snapshots mounted as data stores. Just wondering if its possible? Its the same mechanism offsite backup job uses.

If that's not possible, can this mechanism be leveraged to create a copy of the VM from the SAN snapshot at the target site into an existing datastore (like traditional Veeam replication job) and keep generational recovery points?

Thanks,

Ian

[foggy]

Hi Ian, you're correct, this is not possible. As an alternative, you can do backup from the target SAN and use this backup as source for replication job.

[ian0x0r]

Thanks Alex,

Can you use SAN snapshot at target side that has been created by Veeam as the source for the replication job?

Cheers

[foggy]

Replication is only possible from the primary storage snapshot.

[Isaac Rainsford]

Hi

I have Veeam controlling Nimble snapshot replication to secondary location Nimble storage device using secondary target in the backup job.
(This works)

I would then like to create VM replicas using a Veeam Replication job and I would like the source for the data to the be _replicated snapshots on the secondary location's Nimble storage device_.

I can't seem to get this to work.
It looks like a replication job can only source data from the _primary snapshot_.

But a BACKUP job can successfully source data from the secondary snapshot. (This proves my proxies are correct).

It took a couple of hours to get Veeam support on phone to properly understand what we are trying to achieve and for them to confidentally suggest that sourcing data for VM replicas from secondary snapshots is not currently supported.

Can anyone (dev or similar) chime in and suggest a timeline for if/when we will be able to source VM replica data from secondary snapshot?

Thanks in advance!

Isaac

[HannesK]

Hello,
we currently don not plan that.

As far as I remember this is one of the first requests ever for that

Best regards,
Hannes

[Andreas Neufert]

Hannes is right this is not possible currently and it is not in v10. For later versions we do not general speak about upcoming features.

But let me please ask you one thing. When you have the data already on the second site in a snapshot and you can do instant restore from those snapshots, why do you need to waste space and create another copy there. Instant VM Recovery is similar fast as VM Replicat failover.

As you said you have backups there as well, you have the option to create replicas out of those backups by using the "source" button within the replication job.

[foggy]

Not the first request ever, so merging into an existing thread.

[Isaac Rainsford]

Thank you all for the responses! I now understand that this feature is confirmed not possible, not supported and not planned for inclusion.

Andreas - that is a fair question - however Nimble deduplication is ROCK SOLID. Storing a live VM replica on the same storage will not waste space because deduplication works so well.

(Backups were only created to test the proxy - I am planning to only keep production side snapshots, replicated snapshots, and VM replicas.)

I hadn't considered Instant VM Recovery.

That is because I am planning for complete site DR/ failover for about 70 VMs.
My plan is to use VM replicas (as above) and a set of VBR Failover Plans and re-IP to assist with networking.

Question: Is it possible to leverage re-IP and failover plans when using Instant VM Recovery? I have done a quick test and it doesn't look like it. It would be a painful manual process if I have to use Instant VM Recovery 70 times.

In my current scenario it looks like all my delta changes are going to go across private link twice - once for the Nimble-to-Nimble snapshot replication, and again for the VM replicas that I must source from production location storage. It would have been nice to source data for those replicas from secondary location to prevent this!

Thanks again

Isaac

[foggy]

Hi Isaac, in v10 you will be able to perform Instant Recovery of multiple VMs residing on the same snapshot simultaneously. Re-IP will stay a manual task though.

[Grebzy]

Hi all,

Continuing on from Isaac Rainsford (a colleague of mine) i have been assigned this project VMWARE-VEEAM-NIMBLE integration — Disaster recovery solution.

As Isaac said “ I hadn't considered Instant VM Recovery.

That is because I am planning for complete site DR/ failover for about 70 VMs.
My plan is to use VM replicas (as above) and a set of VBR Failover Plans and re-IP to assist with networking.”

So what would be the recommended setup for a DR solution as follows;

Prod site - VMware Cluster with primary HPE Nimble
DR site - VMware cluster with secondary HPE Nimble
Veeam orchestrating Nimble snapshots in production and secondary (replicated)
Veeam proxy at both sites, VBR server at secondary site
RPO of 15 minutes (70 VMs)

1. Instant VM Recovery does not allow us to utilise VBR failover plans (as well as re-ip) when can we expect v10 to perform Instant Recovery of multiple VMs residing on the same snapshot simultaneously..?

2. VBR Replication jobs of VMs will waste space and create another copy on the secondary/DR Nimble, we wont be able to achieve 15 min RPO’s through this method anyway....


Should we have opted for VMware licensing that would provide us vSphere Replication for this scenario?

Thanks in advance, look forward to responses.

Grebzy

[Andreas Neufert]

1. this is correct.
2. You can use Veeam Replication in addition to the Nimble Snapshot replication.

[Grebzy]

Hi Andreas

1. when can we expect v10 to perform Instant Recovery of multiple VMs residing on the same snapshot simultaneously

2. Ofcourse but what are the use of the nimble snapshots on secondary Nimble?

[Andreas Neufert]

Release date for v10 can be found here: https://go.veeam.com/v10

I just wanted to highlight that you can use replication and/or Nimble Snapshot Replication.

[Grebzy]

Understand, but this will not meet our RPO and defeats the purpose of the Nimble Snapshot to Secondary Nimble.

Pity, Nimble snapshots and replication are lightning quick.

I hope someone can offer some further advice for my first post

[Alec King]

Have you considered Veeam Availability Orchestrator (VAO)? This is our DR orchestration tool.
Of course, VAO supporting Nimble directly is exactly what you need. However I can't give any timeline for Nimble support in VAO - we have only just added NetApp support (currently in beta)

However VAO does allow orchestrated restores-from-backup in a DR plan. This can use both IVMR and Re-IP. The failover plans in VAO are very much more flexible and configurable than those in VBR, and include application checks, parallel processing of VMs, detailed reports, etc.

You could implement this way -
1. Use VBR to to perform backup from secondary storage snapshot (this offloads your primary storage) to a Veeam repository.
2. Use VAO Restore Plan to recover all VMs using IVMR, Re-IP and other verification steps back to the Nimble (or other location)

You can also include custom scripts in VAO plans that could allow manipulation of Nimble volumes, for example.
Need to investigate if this method can meet your desired RPO, however the recovery would be completely automated - and it's during the disaster recovery that you really need the automation!

[ChrisGundry]

I would like to add a vote/+1 for several of these comments:
1. Ability to have a replica from secondary/replicated Nimble snapshots - For us this is better than instant recovery because the replica is already setup and ready to go. Instant recovery requires mounting the snapshot etc, whilst this is very quick it is not instantly ready. Additionally there might be issues with doing those steps in a certain scenario, so if they are already done then it is more 'fool proof'.

2. Ability to do instant recovery from secondary/replicated snapshots and re-ip as per replicas would be REALLY great. I could have used this functionality yesterday, but re-iping the VMs would have been a lot of work. In the end I used PowerShell to re-ip them all, but Veeam already has this setup in replicas, so would be great to see it as an option in IR & storage replicas.

We are looking at VAO next year, but as above it doesn't do Nimble yet.

Thanks!