Proxy Questions

[IronLogix]

We have a VMware Essentials site with 3 host machines and an external SATA storage appliance setup via iSCSI to each host (intended backup target). The VM's all run from direct attached SAS storage on each host.

We have installed Veeam B&R essentials on our vcenter server (omitting enterprise manager) which also resides as a VM on one of the hosts. Based on the admin guide and videos, veeam is recommending installation of backup proxies on the other 2 hosts to facilitate offloading the backup processing and speeding up the overall process. Unless I am misinterpreting, what that really means to me is that Veeam is using iSCSI / direct storage on host where Veeam is installed, and network transfer for the other 2 hosts where it is not - negating the purpose of having iSCSI backup storage attached to the other 2 hosts. Obviously, I would like to backup using the direct storage method as intended, so that means I need to install proxies on the other 2 host machines.

I am unsure if these proxies need to be separate dedicated VM's residing on those hosts, or if they should be installed on production VM's residing on those hosts.

Ideally, I am sure that having separate dedicated proxies for each host is best, but it is hard to justify the licensing expense of having an additional server VM per physical host just for that (we do not have deep pockets). If we do go the route of installing the proxy services on production VM's how does that work when we need to backup the actual VM with the proxy installed on it? Does that even work? We have experienced problems backing up the Veeam / Vcenter server itself, so I am assuming I will have the same issue when trying to backup a proxy which we really cannot have as it is a production server with data we need to protect.

Any guidance on this would be helpful. Also, does Veeam have a virtual appliance (linux based) to serve as a backup proxy? Any plans for that if they do not?

Thanks

[Gostev]

Direct SAN backups only really make sense if your backup proxies are physical. If you are going with virtual proxies, you should just use the virtual appliance processing mode instead. Of course, for the environment of your size, you can put backup proxies on existing VMs - no real need for dedicated ones.

We are not currently planning Linux-based backup proxies due to all the security and management issues those pre-built virtual appliances introduce, and some additional technical considerations. Again, there is no reason why you could not put all Veeam components on your existing servers so there is no OS licensing expenses.

Thanks!

[foggy]

And VMs with proxy installed can be successfully backed up using the Network mode (as the proxy cannot hotadd itself).