Veeam SOBR and tape server, on same physical box

[kapple]

Hi,

I have a question. We are introducing two new components to our Veeam infrastructure, the Scale Out Backup Repository (SOBR), and the Veeam tape server. Initially, I had originally planned a physical server for the tape server, and a virtual server for the SOBR. The back end storage for the SOBR is going to be 2 iSCSI targets (two Drobo b1200i arrays). The tape library is directly connected to the tape server.

However, I want to avoid propagating the iSCSI networking to our virtual infrastructure. So I am thinking about having the tape server serve as the SOBR as well. I plan on installing two dual port 10GB NICs. I would aggregate 2 ports for the iSCSI traffic to the Drobos, and aggregate 2 ports for the backup traffic between the SOBR and Veeam proxies. This would give 20GB throughput for both front-end, and back-end storage.

Does anyone know of a reason why the tape server could not server as the SOBR? Is there any disadvantage to making the SOBR a physical box, rather than virtual? Has anyone done something similar, and be willing to share your experience?

Thanks,
Ken

[DaveWatkins]

Our repo is our tape server, it's not SOBR but it's physical because our tape library is SAS and our backup repo is a FC SAN. In our case pushing data to tape doesn't touch the network at all which is one of the reasons I did it this way. Obviously in your case there is network traffic but it's only on your iSCSI network

[Mike Resseler]

Ken,

I don't see any issues at all. Obviously you are making the bottleneck that one physical server but if it has enough resources then it should not be an issue. Another thing is of course that your two repositories (or extents) are connected to the same server so that server becomes a SPOF. But if you can live with the downsides then it will work. (I have seen many single server Veeam installations that host all of the roles at the same server...)

Hope it helps
Mike

[kapple]

Thanks for the input Mike & Dave.