Putting Veeam on our Windows Storage Server

[mrmicp]

Hi All,

So we currently have a HP Storage Works Network Storage System running Windows Storage Server 2008 which we use as our Veeam Repo and a VM for our main Veeam box which is also the proxy. Is it possible and or advisable to scrap the VM and install Veeam and all the components onto the Windows Storage Server?

Cheers

Mic P

[Dima P.]

Hello Michael,

Unfortunately Veeam B&R Server installation on the Windows Storage Server 2008 is not supported, due the limited functionality of the Storage Server itself. All the supported OS are documented in the release notes.
For the current built you described - all sounds well and I can’t find any cons of having such set up in the environment.

Cheers.

[mrmicp]

Thanks for your quick reply

It just that it took around 24 hours to replicate our recently virtualised Exchange server with a processing rate of 9MB/s. All participating servers in the replication sit on our 1 Gig distribution layer so network speed shouldn't be the issue.

I have just found this in the success statistics...

10/06/2013 16:52:41 :: Load: Source 99% > Proxy 21% > Network 0% > Target 47%

Is this referring to CPU? as I was continually monitoring the VM servers while replication was occurring and CPU utilisation never went above 9%

Thanks

Mic P

[foggy]

It is referring to the source data retrieval speed. What is the transport mode being used during backup job processing (available in the same job statistics window by selecting the VM to the left, next to the proxy server name)?

[mrmicp]

Hi,

The information next to source and target proxy is...

10/06/2013 17:02:58 :: Using source proxy VMware Backup Proxy [nbd]
10/06/2013 17:02:59 :: Using target proxy VMware Backup Proxy [nbd]

The incremental updates seem to go by pretty quickly but suppose they will....

Thanks for your help

[veremin]

You can deploy a virtual proxy server on your source host, specify it in “Hot Add” mode and see whether it increases performance rates or not.

Thanks.

[foggy]

Does the proxy VM has access to the datastore where the replicated VM resides? Something prevents it from using hotadd mode, which probably would provide faster data retrieval. Also, it worth deploying a proxy on the target host also so that it could use hotadd to populate replica disks on target.

[mrmicp]

Yes the proxy VM has access to the datastore, i'll try deploying proxies on target and source host and let you know if that helps.

Thanks for all your help so far

[mrmicp]

Hi me again

Hope you don't mind if I run this by you guys, I'm very new to Veeam and Virtualisation so I apologise if these seem like noob questions. I have read through documentation but I would just like to get your views on our setup...... OK I'll keep our setup simple here goes...

Server A is an HP server running VMware which has an Exchange VM machine on its locally attached datastore
Server B is an HP server running VMware which I'm using for my DR/Replication Box to its locally attached datastore
Server C is an HP server running VMware which has Veeam and vCenter VM's again on its locally attached datastore
Server D is an HP Storage works server running Windows Storage Server 2008 which I'm using as our NAS Veeam repo for backup and replication

All connected on our 1GIG distribution layer of our LAN.

So should I be installing the Veeam backup proxy on our Exchange VM, Veeam VM and Windows Storage Server for optimal data transfer ?

If you need any more information just let me know and thanks for your time and patience

[mrmicp]

Right then been having a look and play and correct me if I'm wrong, but should I create a new windows VM on Server A and put the backup proxy on that and not the Exchange VM (the one I'm trying to back up replicate) ?

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Michael,

Yes, that's correct. You should NOT install proxy servers on the VMs you're trying to backup. You need to deploy proxy servers on the ESX(i) servers that are hosting the VMs you want to backup/replicate.

Server D is an HP Storage works server running Windows Storage Server 2008 which I'm using as our NAS Veeam repo for backup and replication

VM replicas can only be hosted on the ESX(i) server. Since Server D is going to be your repository, then there is no need to deploy proxies, as you will already have the most optimal data transfer (assuming that this is not going to be a CIFS-type repository).

Thanks!

[mrmicp]

Hi thanks for your reply

Yes Server D will be used to store Veeam backups and the esxi host (server B) will store the replicated VM's. So will there be no benefit in installing a proxy on Server D my (Veeam repo) for VM backups?

Thanks again.

[Vitaliy S.]

Correct.

[veremin]

Hi, Mike. There are also a couple of things regarding your setup that need to be mentioned:

1) In case of replicating Exchange VM, don’t forget to utilize Application Aware Image Processing functionality, which is necessary for replicating VM running VSS-aware applications (such as Active Directory, Microsoft SQL, Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint), since this functionality guarantees backup transactional consistency of such VMs.

2) You might want to deploy an additional instance of VB&R in remote location, setting it responsible for all remote replication jobs. Therby, should any disaster situation happen, all functionality (Failover, Failback and etc.) can be performed by VB&R Server in DR itself without any issues.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[mrmicp]

Hi,

That's something I meant to mention I have made sure Enable application-aware image processing is checked but our exchange transaction logs aren't flushing out, I haven't yet got round to checking event viewer etc.... but when we were using Symantec SR transaction logs flushed at the end of every successful back up. Besides event viewer is there something else I should be looking at?

Currently we have 3 Esxi Host servers one of which is for our replicated machines (Exchange and a DC) and another runs Veeam B&R, and VCenter these servers are on the otherside of our site in a totally separate building connected to our main server room via a 40gig ether channel connection where our other Esxi Host is which has our running production Exchange server VM and our newly installed DC VM. Is this basically what you suggest having the Veeam B&R in the DR area? I'm currently installing a backup proxy on the production Esxi host.

Thanks for your help

[veremin]

Can you confirm that corresponding “Truncate logs after successful backup” option is ticked in the advanced settings of Application Aware Image Processing? Additionally, what version of Exchange is being used? Does it have any Service Pack installed?

I’ve recommended to deploy additional instance of VB&R in your DR site and make it responsible for replication jobs. Thus, should need be (your primary site goes down, for instance), special operations like Failover, Failback can be smoothly started from there. Moreover, there wouldn't be any issues with license, either, since Veaam Licensing concerns only with “source” side, not "target" one.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[mrmicp]

Hi,

Our Exchange version is 2010 SP2. The backup job it is set to truncate logs after successful job completion, but in the replication job its set to do not truncate logs which I find strange as I'm sure I selected it or made sure it was selected. Is it possible this option unchecked after I created the backup job?

I only have one instance of the Veeam B&R software installed and that's on a VM in our DR site which is connected on our LAN to our production site. My thoughts being that if the production site went down I would be able to cleanly failover using Veeam and if I had problems on my DR site, I would have time to reinstall Veeam etc... and get the DR site ready for replication again. Does this accomplish the same goals ?

Thanks

[veremin]

Is it possible this option unchecked after I created the backup job?

I doubt, since the creation of one job doesn’t affect the settings of the other one.

Does this accomplish the same goals ?

Yep, it should.

Thanks.