Veeam Replicate VMs as a DR solution

[stefanrade]

Hi all,

I need help with a solution a customer asks us to achieve. We have two different datacenters in two countries. Our customer has five Windows 2008R2 servers in one datacenter. They have asked us if we can create some kind of redundancy between countries.
I have been thinking about continuous Veeam B&R replication. So far so good, but four of these servers are speaking to the fifth one, a SQL server. I´m an infrastructure guy, not a SQL expert.
In case of a disaster they can stand some downtime, but not data loss.
We will manually start their replica servers in our secondary datacenter within two hours 24/7.
One of my question is, does this work with a SQL server? Anything in particular about configuration to take in mind?

Regards
Stefan
VMware Consultant Sweden

[Starman]

I have Veeam and as you may know VMware replication is also free with most versions. I use Veeam as my backups and VMware replication (in further conjunction with SRM) to replicate to another data center. I have a 30/30 meg fiber point to point and has no problems with my SQL and Exchange servers (Exchange storage server is 600 gigs) set to 4 hour windows. For example, our SQL server is a 200+ gig VM with multiple data bases on it and the last 4 hour sync was 250 megs and took 9 minutes. Veeams version of replication shouldn't be any different (if not much smarter and feature packed).

In your situation I would suggest you pay the extra bucks to VMware for SRM so that protection is also automated.

[larry]

I have been using Veeam to replicate and backup to a remote site for years. We test a lot of the Veeam backups/replicas which have always worked. We have our exchange and one Domain Controller tested daily in a remote Veeam lab. One thing real nice with Veeam is you can replicate between different vmware clouds which are not connected with a common VC. This allow for truly separated DR sites. At my DR sites I have a vnic and virtual switch servicing vlans and named the same as at my main site. This allows just turning on VMs at the DR site and hooking PCs to the DR network allowing testing in a completely sandbox environment with no config changes or IP address changes to any server. In a real DR we just move the wire from the DR switch to production, run a script on the routers at each site and we are live. We can start our Veeam lab with Exchange and a domain controller and have yesterday exchange server running in 40 minutes, the only reason for 40 minutes is because exchange takes that long to boot. With Veeam it is easy to DR test just a couple VMs which we couldn't do before as it was all or nothing. My other reason for going with Veeam is becuase my DR site is also a production site whos DR site is my other production site which is why I didnt want a common VC anywhere.

[Starman]

My other reason for going with Veeam is becuase my DR site is also a production site whos DR site is my other production site which is why I didnt want a common VC anywhere.

One thing real nice with Veeam is you can replicate between different vmware clouds which are not connected with a common VC

VMware replication and VMware SRM do not require a common VC in any way.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Stefan,

One of my question is, does this work with a SQL server? Anything in particular about configuration to take in mind?

If you're planning to run replication jobs continuously make sure your production datastores can handle the I/O load from continuously creating/removing snapshots of replicated VMs. Also make sure you have two proxy servers installed on both sites, this will allow you send compressed VM traffic over the WAN link. Finally, enable application aware image processing to replicate all VMs in the consistent state.

Larry, Todd, thank you for the input!

[veremin]

Two cents regarding AAIP:

If you have a dedicated SQL replication job that runs on short intervals, it might be worth disabling application aware image processing and sticking just with crash-consistent scenario in order to avoid problems with VSS freeze/unfreeze.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.