Slow backups Veeam v3.1 with vSphere v4

[withanh]

I'm a Veeam newbie and am pretty much learning as I go.

From what I've been reading here, I should be able to up the throughput of my backups, but I'm a little stuck.

I saw articles about enabling write-back caching, and it is enabled as far as I can tell from this.

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      Logical Drive name:            iSCSI_NTFS                                       
                                                                                      
         Logical Drive status:       Optimal                                          
                                                                                      
         Capacity:                   5.068 TB                                         
         Logical Drive ID:           60:0a:0b:80:00:5a:db:73:00:00:05:c7:49:c1:2a:78  
         Subsystem ID (SSID):        1                                                
         Associated array:           DS3300_01_StorageArray                           
         RAID level:                 5                                                
                                                                                      
         Drive type:                 Serial ATA (SATA)                                
         Enclosure loss protection:  No                                               
                                                                                      
         Preferred owner:            Controller in slot B                             
         Current owner:              Controller in slot B                             


         Segment size:                                       128 KB    
         Capacity reserved for future segment size changes:  Yes       
         Maximum future segment size:                        2,048 KB  
         Modification priority:                              High      


         Read cache:                            Enabled   
         Write cache:                           Enabled   
            Write cache without batteries:      Disabled  
            Write cache with mirroring:         Enabled   
         Flush write cache after (in seconds):  10.00     
         Dynamic cache read prefetch:           Enabled   
                                                          
         Enable background media scan:          Enabled   
         Media scan with redundancy check:      Disabled  
                                                          
         Pre-Read redundancy check:             Disabled  

My storage is on an IBM DS3300 with dual controllers, 11 SATA drives in RAID5 with #12 as a hot swap spare. My hosts are all ESXi v4.0. I've been reading some about VCB which I am licensed for, but was told by a consultant that it wouldn't help me with Veeam v3.1 backing up ESX v4 hosts, but then also said in the next breath that he wasn't a Veeam expert. Am I better off leaving my hosts as is running ESXi v40, or would I be better off updating my hosts to ESX and installing VCB to make the backups run faster?

This is typical of my backup jobs:

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16 of 16 files processed 

Total VM size: 62.25 GB
Processed size: 62.25 GB
Avg. performance rate: 11 MB/s
Backup mode: agentless

Start time: 7/20/2009 8:30:32 PM
End time: 7/20/2009 10:09:50 PM

Thanks for taking a look!

Darhl

[Gostev]

Darhl, yes - using VCB in SAN mode (direct storage access) should improve your backup speed dramatically on vSphere. And no, you do not need to change your ESXi hosts back to ESX in order to use VCB.

Please refer to the existing thread for more information regarding non-VCB backup slowness on ESX 4.0:
Network backup slow on vSphere ESX 4.0

[withanh]

Thanks Anton!

I will look at using VCB, hopefully that helps. And that thread you linked to is the exact one I read through.

Thanks again, I appreciate the help. I'll probably post back with more questions as I go along

Darhl

[Gostev]

No problems, I am sure this will help. As you can see from that thread, the original poster has fixed the performance issue by changing backup mode to VCB SAN (as he posted on page 5).

[withanh]

I went back and reread it, and I can see where he said that. Honestly by the time I got that far into the thread, my eyes had rolled back into my head and my eyeballs said "TILT".

[stevenfoo]

Gostev,

I read in Veeam Documentation that
"VCB-enabled backup is available only if Veeam Backup and FastSCP is installed locally on a properly functioning VCB proxy server"

So before we could change the backup mode to VCB, VCB proxy server needs to be installed right ?

Does this mean we need to purchase VMware VCB proxy server and implement it ?

I have Veeam 3.1 installed on a VM-1 to backup others VMs to a iSCSi LUN assigned a drive in VM-1.
We have one ESX and 3 ESXi host.

Currently I can't see the option VCB mode enable during the "Backup Mode" selection.

So if I installed the VCB proxy on VM-1, will it make any difference in the backup and restore ?

Regards
Steven

[Gostev]

Steven, yes that is correct, this option will become available after VCB is installed.
VCB does not cost extra, it is included with any VMware license.

[withanh]

If anyone has experience with an IBM DS3300, I'd love the help.

Right now, my VCB/Veeam server is connected to our DS3300 to a big LUN for storing backups. I believe from my reading that in order to get VCB to work, I need to add my VMWare LUNs as well. I can't find where in the storage configuration or in the iSCSI initiator on the Windows side how/where to add the other LUNs. And unfortunately, this is all new enough to me I probably don't know the right questions to ask either, so I'll need help figuring out where I need help. LOL, that sounds funny.

Darhl

[Gostev]

I know very little about storage devices provisioning as well... but I'm using Windows iSCSI initiator in my lab, and if I remember correctly, all what needs to be done is specify IP address of your device in iSCSI initiator settings. After that, the volume would appear in Disk Management. But I am using very simple software iSCSI SAN - you may still need to perform additional settings on device side to make the LUN available to your computer. Best would probably be to ask IBM support to help you with this (I am sure this is FAQ, so they should have some paper for this).

By the way, I've searched my email for DS3300 and found more complains about performance from a few more customers using DS3300 and DS3400.

[withanh]

Thanks Anton. I know where to add the host on the DS3300, my problem is I have 2 LUNs, one is NTFS, one is VMFS. The NTFS one is assigned to my Backup server, but it just won't let me add the VMFS one to the Backup server. I'm sure that as soon as I can give the host permission to see the LUN on the storage array I'll be golden.

I'll check with IBM, see if they can figure it out.

Interesting to note that there are others with the same hardware and similar complaints about speed. I know that it has dual controllers, and each controller has dual NICs. So right now I have 4 1Gbps connections and I would love to have 2 2Gbps connections. I know, not your deal , just wishing. Hopefully I can get it figured out.

[withanh]

Well, found out some more good information here. My iSCSI array was set up as one big RAID5 array with 2 LUNs. I was running into some slowness because I was reading from one and writing to the other. I am now rebuilding that array into a RAID10 for my VMs and a separate RAID5 for my backups. I lose a little space, but I should bet better through put. And since I have dual controllers on this, I can put one array on one controller and the other array on the other controller. Hopefully that will help speed things up as well.

Anton, I also figured out how to get my Windows box to see the VMFS LUN. It's specific to the DS3300 so unless someone has a compelling want to know, I'll just let that part go.

I'll let you know how the backups go tonight, I'm hoping for some fast ones!