Veeam Off Site Backup/Replication

[mark_wallen]

I have question about how to implement an off site backup/replication system utilizing veeam replication.

My co-worker and i have been searching but just cant seem to come up with a solid solution for what we are trying to accomplish.

Our current solution is to take some HD's offsite each week containing the veeam backup files. not really a great solution. we would like to automate this and potentially gain the ability to have a DR site. my first thought is to use replication because not only would it provide us with an off site backup, it would also give us the bonus ability to have a disaster recovery site should out building burn down or something.

Veeam replication seems pretty straight forward except for: we cant figure out is how to implement this without using a site to site vpn. Has anyone got this to work or know of any solutions that would allow us to replicate without a vpn? Is there a better way to accomplish what we are aiming for?

we would have about 5mb between the 2 sites. Please let me know if you have any questions/need more information. I appreciate the help.

[Gostev]

Hi Mark, many of our existing customers choose to sync backups using rsync (you may search this forum for offsite or rsync for more details). Thanks!

[mark_wallen]

thanks for the reply i have read some of those posts and i dont think those are quite what i am aiming for. we tried using rsync and tools similar to rsync, but they just didn't work. They ended up being to slow and copying more changed then they needed to.

we were also trying to move away from the idea of just moving our backups files offsite, and using the replication so we could have a full working copy on the other side. i know i could restore the files that were rsynced over to have a running copy, but that is not quite as automated as i was hoping for. essentially replication is exactly what i want, i just want it to work without the vpn.

[Gostev]

Currently this is not possible unfortunately, and VPN is required. But, we are looking to enhance our offsite backup capabilities in future releases.

[Bunce]

What sort of connectivity do you have between sites?

Are you saying you're comfortable passing your organisations information unsecured across the internet?

[tsightler]

Veeam replication seems pretty straight forward except for: we cant figure out is how to implement this without using a site to site vpn. Has anyone got this to work or know of any solutions that would allow us to replicate without a vpn? Is there a better way to accomplish what we are aiming for?

So what's wrong with using a site to site VPN? If the server are ESX you can run OpenVPN right on the Console OS and either route with two subnets or bridge the ethernet segments. If you not using ESX you can run OpenVPN within any VM on either site. For the DR site you could just create a small VM to run it. It's pretty simple once you get the concept.