Feature Request : Proxy AutoSelection Improvement

[rurouni]

Hi all,

From what i could read from the Proxy Auto Selection Mecanisms in Veeam BR(Thanks to the FAQ), I understood that the algorithm is based on two main things:

- Access Mode to the Backed Up VM (Something I call "Distance to the Source VM") with the 3 following Modes sorted by priority:
1) Direct SAN Access
2) Hot-Add
3) Network Mode

- Actual Load on Each Proxy.

To me there is something missing in this algorithm. Something I would call "Distance to Repository". Actually the proximity ora access mode to the repository is not taken in consideration though it should be as it can have a huge impact on backups performances.

I found this out since My repository are hosted on my proxy servers. If i select a repository for one job, the proxy auto selection will select the right proxy when the job starts, but if at the same time i setup a job running on the same repository, i ll find out that proxy auto selection will probably select an other proxy since the Access mode is the same for both but load won t be. That means this second job will be running on an other proxy including a hop to write datas to the repository as it will have to send datas over the network to the first proxy to write datas on disk.
So it s common for me to manually select which proxy should perform the backup depending on the repository on which i will store my backups.

That s why i suggest that the "Access Mode" to the repository should also be taken in consideration in the Proxy Selection Algorithm.

Tell me if you agree with what i just said or not.

---
Rurouni

[Gostev]

Good idea, thanks.

[yizhar]

Hi.

I agree, and would also add the following:

protection against a remote proxy (connected over slow WAN) being selected because proxy is main site is busy.

I have had such issues in the past, and currently I'm using manual selection to protect agains it, so I'm not sure about the auto selection.

Thanks,
Yizhar

[tsightler]

This was previously a problem with 6.0, but with 6.1 and newer it should not occur except in one specific case. In 6.0 if all proxies were busy at the local site it was possible (even likely) that a proxy at a remote site would be used via Network mode since that mode can easily reach across sites. However, with 6.1 and newer, if any available proxy can reach a VM via SAN or Hotadd, Veeam will wait for that proxy to become available. If you happen to have VMs that can only be backed up via network mode, we then look for proxies that are on the same subnet with the hosts for that VM. Only if none of those options exist do we then fall back to selecting any network mode proxy, because at that point there's really no information upon which we can determine a proxies distance from the host.

[Gostev]

Yes, this specific issue Yizhar is bringing up was resolved long ago.

[yizhar]

Hi.
Thank you both for the responses. I will go back to auto selection on new configurations.