Veeam+vCenter design

[TechCAC]

Hi,

We're a new reseller of Veeam and are working on a configuration for one of our customers with Veeam Backup & Replication.
This is what we have worked out, but are unsure if we see everything correct. I'll explain in some brief words:

HQ site
IBM Blade Center with ESXi installed blades
VM as vCenter4.1 (V-Sphere licensed Advanced Acceleration kit) and Veeam installed on same machine
VM's as AD, File, Print, Mail, .. servers
SAN (IBM DS series) for shared storage

DR site
Connected to HQ with WAN link
IBM X-series server with ESXi installed
A second VM as vCenter 4.1 (V-Sphere licensed Advanced Acceleration kit)
A second SAN (IBM) for shared storage

Purpose :
Veeam backup & replication for servers in live HQ site to backup DR site
In case of failure, restore a server with veeam from the backup in DR site to the live HQ site

Have been looking for case studies or design for a simular situation, but not able to find so far. (Do found a case study on IBM+VSphere+VMware Site Rec. Manager)

Question which we are unsure about :
- Do you have one vCenter installed in the HQ and one the DR site ? And do you connect them via Linked Mode ? This seems logical to us, although we are unsure
- A Veeam server only installed in HQ is OK ? Will this be able to restore a server from the DR site to live HQ site in case of failure? Or do you need a veeam server in DR site as well?
- Anything we forget ?

Many thanks!

[Vitaliy S.]

- Do you have one vCenter installed in the HQ and one the DR site ? And do you connect them via Linked Mode ? This seems logical to us, although we are unsure

You can install vCenter Servers in linked mode, though many customers are just replicating vCenter Server to the DR site and use failover feature in case a disaster strikes.

- A Veeam server only installed in HQ is OK ? Will this be able to restore a server from the DR site to live HQ site in case of failure? Or do you need a veeam server in DR site as well?

Are you going to do backups only? Basically our recommendation depends on that job type you're going to perform, however be aware that you can restore from any place, just make sure backup files are accessible to the backup console.

- Anything we forget ?

Take a look at this existing thread (in case you haven't seen it already), should be useful: Replicating backups

[TechCAC]

I think we prefer to have a vCenter in the HQ site, and another vCenter in the DR site. And link them to have a clear overview of both sites from one vClient. There is also a possibility that vm's will run also in the DR site in the future, another reason why we would setup 2 vCenters in linked mode.

The question is : Is a Veeam server necessary in both sites or is it OK to setup one Veeam server in the HQ and backup + replicate to remote storage in the DR ?
Both sites will be connected via a WAN link, storage from DR site will be available as share in the HQ site.
In case of disaster, we would like to recover a VM from backup in DR site to the HQ site.

We're really new to Veeam, that's why we are probably asking 'newbie' questions.

[Vitaliy S.]

Is a Veeam server necessary in both sites or is it OK to setup one Veeam server in the HQ and backup + replicate to remote storage in the DR ?

Yes, that's ok, but with the configuration setup like yours (ESXi host on the DR site), you'd better install Veeam backup server which will be running replication jobs on the DR site, for the reasons described in this discussion: replication and ESXi

If you're new to Veeam, then definitely take a look at our sticky F.A.Q. topic.

Hope this helps.