Speed without SAN?

[gploosley]

Hello,

Currently trialing Veeam

Scenario:
1 Production ESXi 4, 4 NICs teamed, hosting 6 VMs, Dell 2900 two QC Xeons, 32 GB, Raid 1 SATA 1TB, Raid 5 650GB SAS
1 Backup Server - Dell 2900 two DC Xeons, 2 NICs teamed, only 7 GB, Raid 0 SATA 2TB, Win 2008 x64 with Veeam - 1Gbit LAN to production ESXi 4
1 Disaster recovery ESXi on LAN, 4 NICs teamed, Dell 2900 two QC Xeons, 30 GB, Raid 1 SATA 1TB, Raid 5 650GB SAS
1 Disaster recovery ESXi, Dell 2950, 30 GB, Raid 10 SATA 2TB 1 NIC, two DC Xeons, will be at remote location on 2 Mbit VPN WAN
All storage is local - mixture of SAS, SATA

Experiences:
Veeam set to use vStorage API/Network, VSS enabled

Full Backup and Full Replication on LAN took about 24 hours - 1.36 TB - 16MB/s
I was hoping this would be faster but doesn't matter so much as we can run this at weekend

Incremental backup on LAN - 108 MB/s 3:40hrs - started immediately full backup completed - disappointing speed
Incremental replication on LAN - started immediately incremental backup completed - still running - 1:45hr elapsed, 4:06hr remaning
Disappointing speed - couldn't run this over the WAN

Questions:
One VM is on 2MB block size, other VMs are on 4MB block size - will smaller block size improve incremental speed?
I was hoping to do near CDP replication across WAN - are high speeds in Veeam not possible without SAN?
Would it go faster with Veeam on a VM and vStorage API/Virtual Applicance?

Thanks

[TrevorBell]

Network Backup Mode is the slowest mode in VB, this is because it has been crippled by Vmware not a limitation of VB. Virtual Appliance mode is currently the fastest mode, give it a try and see

[Gostev]

I concur with Trevor. Install Veeam Backup in VM on your production ESXi, give it 4 vCPU and it will fly.

[gploosley]

Thank you both for taking the trouble to help.

Here's what I've done so far:
Cloned a Windows 2008 x64 VM
Installed Veeam
Installed SQL Server Management Studio Express on physical Veeam server and vm veeam servert
Created a backup of veeam database on physical, restored on vm overwriting the veeam db
Started up Veeam on vm, jobs are there as before, changed backup and replica jobs to use Virtual Appliance
Shared backups folder on Physical Vm server and changed Backup job on vm Veeam server to save backups to the folder share

Lucky it had 4 vCPU anyway - I didn't see Gotev's post until later

Started Replication job
Errors about soap authentication - in Veeam right-clicked Vmware servers, properties, soap tab, re-entered password
Seemed to fix that issue

Started Replication job again
Error:
Creating snapshot
VssGAConn: Failed to connect. Errors:
"Cannot connect to the host's administrative share. Host: [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx1]. Account: [xxxxxxx\administrator].
Win32 error:Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password.
Code: 1326
"
Got this on all the vms processed so far.
Don't know how to fix this?
I suppose my VSS snapshots are failing?

Speed nearly doubled - thanks again for the advice.
Currently 164 MB/s, last incremental run with Veeam on the physical server was 93 MB/s

Will reducing the block size on my Vmware file systems reduce the size of the delta when running incremental replications?
I'm concerned about the amount of data I have to push over a 2 Mbps WAn link.

Thanks

[Gostev]

Graham, see here for troubleshooting path for the VSS error:
http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2887

No, reducing VMFS block size will have no effect on delta size, as our software does deltas on 1MB disk image block level no matter of VMFS block size.

[gploosley]

Thanks for the reply Gostev

You've saved me the task I thought I had to do of getting my VMs onto smaller block sizes

I followed the link you gave re VSS - I can connect to \\IP\admin$ from the Veeam server

My replication went much faster with Virtual Appliance - 180 MB/s

But I had another problem on the vm that runs Exchange server - perhaps connected with the VSS issue - and this caused replication of this vm to fail:

Creating snapshot VssGAConn: Failed to connect. Errors: "Cannot connect to the host's administrative share. Host: [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]. Account: [xxxxxx\administrator]. Win32 error:Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password. Code: 1326 " CreateSnapshot failed, vmRef "224", timeout "1800000", snName "VEEAM BACKUP TEMPORARY SNAPSHOT", snDescription "Please do not delete this snapshot. It is being used by Veeam Backup.", memory "False", quiesce "True" Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine.

Any advice gratefully received.

[Gostev]

Graham, you need to actually logon to Veeam Backup server with this account specified above [xxxxxx\administrator], and then try to open \\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\admin$ in Windows Explorer. Are you sure you did exactly what I am describing, and this test was successful?

If yes, try to re-typing VSS credentials in the Backup Job wizard, because from the error it looks like they could be typed in incorrectly.

If this still does not resolve the issue for you, then please contact our support directly for further troubleshooting.

Thank you.

[gploosley]

Thanks again Gostev

I re-typed the VSS credentials and that fixed the VSS issue

Perhaps Soap and VSS credentials need re-typing if you do Veeam install on a new machine and backup/restore the Veeam SQL database.

Tonight's incremental backup took 55 minutes - 1.36 TB, 6 VMs, 429 MB/s - excellent performance, thank you.

[Gostev]

Perhaps Soap and VSS credentials need re-typing if you do Veeam install on a new machine and backup/restore the Veeam SQL database.

That's right, as they are encrypted with machine-specific private key.

Glad everything works well for you now!