iSCSI SAN backup method and connection

[albertwt]

Hi All,

I've got the proposed plan (see the attached) to upgrade my current iSCSI networking with the iSCSI SAN switch, does it makes any difference or not at all when I add two more connection from the VCenter/Veeam Backup server into each switch ?

at the moment it is currently running as it is (the backup data path is going through the green cable).

if i can/should connect my existing backup server into the SAN switch, i'll have to staticaly assigned IP address with the same subnet as in the blue cable.

Any suggestion or idea would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[albertwt]

here's the image file link:



which is click able for full size

[warix]

Hello,

In my mind you must connect your veeam server in the 2 MD3000i because if you want to backup in ISCSI network your veeam server must see all your lun (just see but not mount in the server)

Excuse for my english i'm french

[albertwt]

ok, how to make it "see" ?

does ping command enough ?

thanks for your reply.

[albertwt]

From my understanding now is that if i attach 2x LAN with the iSCSI subnet to my iSCSI switch, do i have the ability to backup the VM faster ?

because i don't think that i can see the VMFS content from the Windows Server 2003 ?

[Gostev]

Veeam Backup is able to see the content of VMFS LUNs mounted on Windows Server 2003...
(Sorry I am not actively participating in this discussion, I am not big networking/storage guru at all)

[albertwt]

no problem Gostev,

so do I that's why I ask into this forum if it has any positive effects (increase backup data rate / faster).

Cheers,
AWT

[albertwt]

here's what I understand so far:

within the SAN i need to make a LUN (NTFS which is read/writeable by Windows Server) so that the backup software (Veeam) can redirect the data inside the iSCSI SAN network or ven better internally without even going out to the LAN network (green cable on the diagram) ?

therefore connecting the VCenter Server (with Veeam backup and Recovery 4.1) will not making any difference since the VMFS LUN cannot be seen by Windows directly (not recognizable / useless ?)

can anyone clarify if I'm understand this SAN backup ?

cmiiw.

[Gostev]

Best performance can be achieved by reading direct from SAN from VMFS LUN, and writing backups directly to SAN (to NTFS LUN). So, to answer your questions:

within the SAN i need to make a LUN (NTFS which is read/writeable by Windows Server) so that the backup software (Veeam) can redirect the data inside the iSCSI SAN network or ven better internally without even going out to the LAN network (green cable on the diagram) ?

Absolutely correct. Usually though, you don't want to backup to the same SAN box. Because if you get SAN data corruption, it will kill your backups along with production VMs. So typically, customers backup from production SAN to backup SAN. Alternatively, you need to have a procedure in place to copy your backups to another storage occasionally (tape, NAS, external hard-drive, remote site).

therefore connecting the VCenter Server (with Veeam backup and Recovery 4.1) will not making any difference since the VMFS LUN cannot be seen by Windows directly (not recognizable / useless ?)

This is not correct. While it is true that Windows Explorer itself cannot see VMFS LUN content, Veeam Backup is able to. So, it makes great sense to mount your VMFS LUN to VCenter Server with Veeam backup and Recovery 4.1 installed for faster, LAN-free backups completely isolated to iSCSI SAN network. This will provide for best performance. Just remember to disable automount on this server before mounting production VMFS LUN.

Hope this helps.

[albertwt]

thanks Gostev for your reply, it is very clear and thourough,

at the moment I only got one SAN with 3 LUNS inside each having 1TB VMFS and 1.8 TB NTFS partition in my backup server, therefore it sounds useless if i still try to put the blue cable into my backup server since the data must reside on the 1.8 TB NTFS ?

[Gostev]

If the blue cable is your iSCSI SAN network, then you should definitely plug it into your Veeam Backup server, so that it is able to perform backups directly from SAN - without having all backup traffic go through your production LAN (green cable).

[albertwt]

Ah, thanks man.
then it is time for me to buy another PCI-X network card )

since at the moment my VCenter/Veeam backup server only has 2 NIC on board so practically I only have i port available.

hopefully the SAN based backup can be working on my vsphere essentials environment.

[Gostev]

Yes, it will work fine on vSphere Essetials.