Hardware considerations WAN backup repository

[vennerstrand]

Hi,

I have just invested in Veeam for our new IT environment, but I am having difficulties in deciding hardware for an offsite backup repository (DR).

The servers only task is to receive backup data a couple of times a week (1-5). Out total data amount is around 1TB and i assume daily change is 5% or less.
It will Windows or Linux OS and will have 4-8 7,2K SATA RAID5 2TB drives. I'm aiming at low cost to replace the weekly task of dealing with tapes.

So now to my issue, Is it better to go for more CPU frequency or to go for more cores (including HT)? Current contenders are E5-1410 (2.8GHz 4c w HT), E5-2403/07 (1.8/2.2GHz 4c w/o HT), E5-2420/30 (1.9/2.2GHz 6c w HT).

I will most likely only run 1 job at a time and the WAN connection will be 10 Mbit using IPSEC, so throughput to the server will be limited.

I would appreciate a kick in the right direction!

BR
/Anders

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Anders,

When planning backup repository hardware configuration, the first and the most important thing I would pay attention to is hard disks and the number of IOPs they can handle. Assuming that you going to have 10 Mbit pipe, then your current configuration looks fine to me.

As to your question about CPU frequency vs the number of CPU cores, then I would recommend proceeding with the proc that has more CPU cores. That would allow you to run more concurrent jobs if you decide to reconfigure your current setup and WAN backup strategy.

Thanks!

[dellock6]

Hi Anders,
given the 10 Mbit bandwidth, whatever solution you choose for the offsite storage will be ok, since all components will be limited anyway by the bandwidth.
One thing to consider, given the limited bandwidth, is the daily amount of data: per your assumptions, you are going to have 50 GB per day. This means around 11 hours to replicate. If this number is ok for you, go for it. Otherwise take a look at the upcoming Veeam Enterprise Plus license, so to use the WAN accelerator it will have.

Luca.

[vennerstrand]

Hi,

Thank you for your thoughts. Since we are runing BackupExec today on a non virtualized environment, I can only make assumptions on the amount of data that will be backed up incrementally with the new solution. We are at 740GB Full and 35 GB Incremental using BE.

Regarding the WAN connection, I was under the impression (from reading documentation and guides) that there will be some dedupe of the backup data already at host (or host proxy) before it is sent to remote proxy and repository.

Depending on the size of my incremental, I will see if doing daily offsite backups will be possible or if it will be a weekly run during the weekend.

Also, Right now, we are running more or less one job. With veeam I can choose to partition the backup to decrease the size using multiple jobs.

But I will then go for E5-2420.

BR
/Anders

[vennerstrand]

.. and judging from other threads on the forum, I will have WAN acceleration available with the license path I have chosen (Essentials Enterprise which will be upgraded etc..)

Lets hope that the current satisfaction with Veeam will persist through the implementation..

/A

[foggy]

Regarding the WAN connection, I was under the impression (from reading documentation and guides) that there will be some dedupe of the backup data already at host (or host proxy) before it is sent to remote proxy and repository.

Yes, on the source-side the content of virtual disks is consolidated and overlapping blocks, zero blocks and swap file blocks are filtered out. Besides, data is compressed before being sent.