If I have several proxies

[verre]

I've read this statement in user guide:

A job can be explicitly mapped to a specific proxy. Alternatively, you can let
Veeam Backup & Replication choose the most suitable proxy. In this case, Veeam Backup & Replication will check
settings of available proxies and select the most appropriate one for the job.

Therefore: if I have a job containing lot of vm, the backups are taken in charge by only one proxy?

[Shestakov]

Hi Valentino,
A job can be mapped to one or several proxies. In a case your Backup Server has several Backup Proxies and your job contains a lot of VMs, Veeam B&R will distribute VMs among several Proxies.
You can specify which Backup Proxies to use for a job or let B&R decide automatically.
Thanks, Nikita

[verre]

Thank you...and if I have a vm with several vmdk (each one hosted in several different datastores), each vmdk is be taken in charge by multiple proxies?

[Shestakov]

Single Backup Proxy works with several vm disks as well as several proxies can work with different disks of one virtual machine. Veeam uses parallel VMs and virtual disks processing processing, this option is enabled by default (on new installations), thus several proxy servers can process multiple disks at a time.

Nikita

[DeXa]

I have similar issues. I have two proxy servers, one is connected to the SAN, the other is a VM and I want to use Virtual Appliance mode with it. The problem I am trying to solve is a backup job with one VM and 6 virtual disks. Five of them are on the SAN, but one is on a datastore not on the SAN. Veeam always fails over to network mode using the proxy connected to the SAN. I want to force it to use the VM proxy as Virtual Appliance for that specific disk. Can this be done? And how?

[dellock6]

First of all, have you enabled parallel processing? Its algorythm could be able to process the different disks assigning them to the different proxies, instead of assigining them to only one proxy. Worth a try.

Or, the quickest solution is to create a new job with only that vm in it, and use the specific virtual proxy instead of automatic assignement.

[Vitaliy S.]

As far as I remember you cannot process part of the VM via HotAdd backup mode (VMware limitation), this is why you see a failover to a network mode.

[DeXa]

First of all, have you enabled parallel processing? Its algorythm could be able to process the different disks assigning them to the different proxies, instead of assigining them to only one proxy. Worth a try.

Or, the quickest solution is to create a new job with only that vm in it, and use the specific virtual proxy instead of automatic assignement.

It is a single job with a single VM inside.

As far as I remember you cannot process part of the VM via HotAdd backup mode (VMware limitation), this is why you see a failover to a network mode.

Actually I can process part of the VM via HotAdd and part of the VM via SAN mode. The problem I am facing is that there is no control over it. Veaam decides on itself which virtual disk is processed by which proxy. I need control over this process.

[Shestakov]

Hello Ivo,

It is a single job with a single VM inside.

Despite it`s a one VM, parallel processing still will be useful since it can simultaneously work with VM disks, and you have 6 of them.
You can create a backup job to backup only one disk of your VM. To do that go to Exclusions->Disks->Edit in a wizard of a new backup job.

[DeXa]

I am fully aware of parallel processing and it is being utilized. I also know how to backup a single virtual disk and that is not what I want. It will make the VM inconsistent.

[Gostev]

The problem I am facing is that there is no control over it. Veaam decides on itself which virtual disk is processed by which proxy. I need control over this process.

You can explicitly define which proxies should be used by the given job, in the job settings.
So what you can do is move that VM into a separate job, and lock the job on certain proxy.

[DeXa]

The VM is into a separate job. I know I can define proxies to be used by the job itself. I want the VM to be processed by 2 proxies and one of them should only process one of its virtual disks (which is not on the SAN network). The other 5 disks are on the SAN and should be processed by the proxy that has Direct SAN connection. This has become a problem because the VM is huge (~20TB) and the disk, that resides on LUN, that is not visible on the SAN, is 6TB. In NBD mode, it takes ages to complete. I want to avoid that, by being able to use one proxy in Appliance Mode, for that specific virtual disk/LUN. The other disks should be processed in Direct SAN mode, because it is faster.

[dellock6]

As others have explained before, it's not possible to have a VM being processed in mixed modes like DirectSAN+hotadd, a method needs to be chosen and it should be able to process all the vmdks.
Put in in another way: VMware libraries do not allow DirectSAN on local disks. So, if you want to leverage the best processing mode for this large VM, you should first design your storage to have all the disks of this VM into a shared storage able to be protected via DirectSAN.


Luca.

[veremin]

You can try to assign two proxies (SAN, Hot-Add) to the given job. After that, go to the settings of proxy servers and explicitly set transport modes for them (SAN, Virtual Appliance), prohibiting failover to network mode. This way, network mode shouldn't be involved.

Thanks.

[DeXa]

As others have explained before, it's not possible to have a VM being processed in mixed modes like DirectSAN+hotadd, a method needs to be chosen and it should be able to process all the vmdks.
Put in in another way: VMware libraries do not allow DirectSAN on local disks. So, if you want to leverage the best processing mode for this large VM, you should first design your storage to have all the disks of this VM into a shared storage able to be protected via DirectSAN.

As I already told you and the others ... it is possible to process a VM in mixed mode (DirectSAN+HotAdd), the problem is, that you don't have control over the process. The reason local disks cannot be processed in DirectSAN mode has nothing to do with VMware libraries, but with the proxy not being able to "see" the disks directly. I have designed my storage as I need it to be designed and I will not change it, because of this.

You can try to assign two proxies (SAN, Hot-Add) to the given job. After that, go to the settings of proxy servers and explicitly set transport modes for them (SAN, Virtual Appliance), prohibiting failover to network mode. This way, network mode shouldn't be involved.

Already tried that. If I remove the checkbox for failover to network mode, Veeam uses only the proxy that has Virtual Appliance mode selected explicitly (have no idea why). The proxy that has SAN access is not used at all. If I add the checkbox on the SAN enabled proxy, it uses Appliance Mode for VM Disk 1 and SAN mode for the other disks (no idea why it selects the 1st disk, when disk 1 is on the SAN) and Network Mode for the disk that it has no access via SAN mode (VM Disk 4).

That's what I wanted to know - is there a way to specify lets say - for VM Disk 1,2,3,5,6 use proxy A (has SAN access) and for VM Disk 4 use proxy B (is Virtual Appliance).

[dellock6]

If I remove the checkbox for failover to network mode, Veeam uses only the proxy that has Virtual Appliance mode selected explicitly (have no idea why). The proxy that has SAN access is not used at all.

From what I've understood from your design, it's because the DirectSAN proxy cannot see the local vmdk, so the hotadd proxy is picked by our engine to process the entire VM.

is there a way to specify lets say - for VM Disk 1,2,3,5,6 use proxy A (has SAN access) and for VM Disk 4 use proxy B (is Virtual Appliance)

Not directly configurable in the job, proxy selection is per job; one workaround said before is to backup the same VM twice, with different proxies, and excluding the different disk types in each job. Then obviously instant vm recovery cannot be done for the whole vm.

[Gostev]

I want to force it to use the VM proxy as Virtual Appliance for that specific disk. Can this be done?

it is possible to process a VM in mixed mode (DirectSAN+HotAdd)

No. This is the limitation of VMware API for Hot Add processing mode. Hot Add processing is only possible when ALL virtual disks of the given VM can be hot added to the backup proxy VM. Thanks!

[DeXa]

I think you are wrong.

[Gostev]

OK, this gets very confusing, because you have just stated earlier that VM Disk 4 has no access via SAN mode. Honestly, it is extremely inefficient to try to understand some behavior without the debug logs, by just guessing (which we've been doing for 2 pages now). Can you please open a support case, attach the support log package including the job name and time of this run from the screenshot above, and post a support case ID here.

And no, I am not wrong in my earlier statement if SF1-vPROX-CLU01 has Hot Add access to all virtual disks of the given VM.

Thanks!

[DeXa]

The rest of the log says it is failing over to network mode I didn't included it in the screenshot. I am doing this for fun now, I have managed to resolve the issues by other means. I was just curious is it possible or not, to specify proxy for VM disk in the job itself. The answer is obviously no. So thanks all for the help.

[Gostev]

I was curios to see the debug log because if Disk 4 is indeed not accessible via Direct SAN access from SF1-vBACK01, this would mean (at least) a UI bug on the screenshot in your previous post, something that we would want to research and fix. But this would also explain the proxy selection behavior in your case. Anyway, glad to hear you have resolved this. Thanks!

[Stokkolm]

Background:
My storage environment consists of several Nimble arrays and a Datrium array. Nimble supports Direct SAN, while Datrium does not. I have a couple of VM's that have mixed datastores on each array. For instance, my file server volumes are configured on Nimble for the most part, however I have a snapshot volume that is configured on Datrium for performance reasons. I have a physical Veeam B&R server that is configured for Direct SAN transport mode, but I would like to allow myself the option of using the Virtual Appliance (Hot-Add) Transport mode. To do this, I setup a proxy server that is a VM.

Question:
Is it possible to configure my backup jobs to select the proxy server depending on the transport mode? If not, could I just restrict the physical server to only allow Direct SAN, thereby forcing backup jobs to use the virtual proxy server when Direct SAN isn't available for a given VM?

Additional Info:
My physical server is configured with dual 10GB NIC's bonded in Windows and configured for LACP on the network side (over iSCSI, not FC). Is it even worth worrying about Virtual Appliance mode vs. Network mode with that type of connectivity?

[PTide]

Hi,

Is it possible to configure my backup jobs to select the proxy server depending on the transport mode? If not, could I just restrict the physical server to only allow Direct SAN, thereby forcing backup jobs to use the virtual proxy server when Direct SAN isn't available for a given VM?

No, unfortunately it is not possible. What you can try is let the job to choose proxies automatically and use proxy affinity rules to restrict particular proxies from accessing the job's target repository so the job won't use them.

My physical server is configured with dual 10GB NIC's bonded in Windows and configured for LACP on the network side (over iSCSI, not FC). Is it even worth worrying about Virtual Appliance mode vs. Network mode with that type of connectivity?

Network mode over 10Gbit works pretty fast and it has no overhead on attaching/detaching disks like hotadd mode does. So, no, not really, however it doesn't hurt to compare.

Thanks