Veeam B&R data flow

[linux4guru]

Hello,

My apologies, if this is not the right place to post my question.

Can anyone tell me how Veeam B&R backup actually read and write to a network storage? My understanding are....

1st. My environment...

A. Physical hardware Veeam B&R server with 10GbE to nexus 5k
B. vcenter 5 VM
C. A bunch of ESX hosts on 1GbE and 10GbE connection to nexus 2k and nexus 5k
D. VM data stores live on a NetApp also connection to the nexus 5k on a 10GbE connection
E. Veeam backup storage are 2 exagrids also on 10GbE to the nexus 5k

I am still not exactly understanding how Veeam read and write to the exagrids. My understanding are as follow but correct me if I am wrong...

A. Veeam talks to vcenter5
B. Locate the VM that it is suppose to backup
C. Request ESX host to take a snapshot
D. Veeam then reads the vmdk file directly from the NetApp
E. Veeam proxy - data mover move the data
F. The proxy server writes the read vmdk file directly to exagrids

Data actually never move to Veeam server but it is read and directly written to exagrids From NetApp- is that correct?



Thanks,

Thomas

[foggy]

Thomas, your general understanding is correct, it is the proxy, who performs actual data processing and moving so there's no need for the data to go through the Veeam backup server in case of a dedicated proxy. However you say nothing about where your proxy server resides and which transport mode is used for data retrieval. If you're using the default proxy server installed as a part of Veeam B&R installation and it is capable of direct access to your primary storage, then the data is retrieved directly from it over SAN fabric and is written to the target through this physical server.

I would recommend to review the product architecture section in the user guide and transport modes description in the sticky FAQ topic for better understanding.

[linux4guru]

Yes, you are right... I missed that important piece. The proxy is the default install on the Veeam B&R svr and on a VM that lives on the NetApp.

Most of the backup jobs are using this remote proxy because the local one is too slow to run any backup jobs.