protect veeam backup proxy

[Ronald]

Hi there,

Consider the following setup. I have a 3 node vmware cluster, on which I have several VMs and among them 3 Windows clusters (FS, SQL, Exchange, the usual suspects), which are excluded from Veeam and those are backed up with DPM, in a DR location. I also run the Veeam backup server on my DR site, backing up all other VMs to this DR location as well, so backup and production data is seperated. So far so good. However, DPM is really a PITA to maintain, wasting tons of storage, anyway, it does not fit me anymore. So I deployed a Veeam backup proxy on my primary site, and I am planning to backup the 3 Windows clusters with it. But now of course I want to protect this backup proxy data as well, and have it backed up or replicated to the DR site as well.

Is it good practise to backup (replicate) this Veeam backup proxy to the DR site and run/schedule the job from the primary Veeam backup server (which is at my DR site)? I am focusing on safeguarding my data, not necessairly the most effective way to spin up my whole environment from there..

All ideas are welcome...

BR,
Ronald

[foggy]

Hi Ronald, backing up Veeam B&R proxies is not necessary as they do not contain any critical data (unless you're using some existing servers as proxies or combining several Veeam B&R server roles there). Even in case of losing the proxy, you can assign its role to any other existing server or quickly fire up a new one. Although if you still want, you can back up/replicate proxy server just like any other server in your environment. Just keep in mind that if the proxy is used to backup VMs via hotadd, it cannot be backed up using CBT and cannot hotadd itself. Thanks!

[Ronald]

Hi, well, it not the config I need to backup, but the backup data. This proxy also backs up my file servers to its local storage, so the question is how can I replicate that data to another remote DR site, so I have the data in my prod DC and DR DC.. Maybe there is a feature somewhere I 've missed ..
Thanks,
Ronald

[soncscy]

Hey Ronald,

If the backup is via Veeam, then you'd just Backup Copy the fileserver backup to the remote site also. No need to protect the proxy/repository itself, just use Backup Copy to off-site the data.

[foggy]

Ok, you didn't mention you're going to backup to that proxy locally, so it would be effectively a repository server. In this case, you should indeed utilize backup copy jobs.