Configuring virtual network - backup VM using separate netwo

[devbuzz]

I'm a little out of my depth and would like some advice on vCenter switch and NIC architecture.

My goal is to backup my virtual machines on Host 1 to Host 2 using a different network to my public facing network.

On Host 1 I have 3 VMs on the vSwitch network which use a 100mb card.
I also have a separate gigabit NIC on Host 1 which is connected via a physical switch to Host 2.

This is how I configured the networking on Host 1.



On Host 2 I have the following config; one of the VM's is running vcenter and VEEAM.



I can't seem to find a way to have Host 2 backup VM's from Host 1 using the 1000 mb/s network.

I understand that only part of this question is VEEAM related; however I also want some confirmation that I have configured my networking correctly within vSphere.

What am I missing?

[dellock6]

From the design I don't see any VM having a network connected to the gigabit portgroup, or did you cut the screenshot too much?
If it is, simply you cannot use that portgroup if you do not add a second network to the vcenter/veeam VM and connect it to that network. then you can use "preferred network" setup available in V8.

[devbuzz]

Hi Luca,

Many thanks for your reply!

I only have two NICs on the host, 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps.

Are you saying that the VM that I need to backup must be connected to the 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps NICS?

Say this is HOST 1 and I have it configured like this:



Is there a way to restrict which Virtual Machine Port Group uses which NIC?

So that in VBR I can ensure that the backups ONLY go over the 1000 Mbps NIC?

[devbuzz]

Sorry for all the questions...

What I'm confused about too is this....

vmnic0 has IP addresses assigned by ESXi.

but vmnic1 is not used by any virtual machines - and I only want to use this NIC to route traffic between my VMs can I configure this to use a private IP address like 192.168.x.x?

[dellock6]

This is totally a VMware related question, anyway you need to edit the "Veeam Network Backup" portgroup and override failover order. You then configure the 1000mb network as active, and the 100mb as unused. In this way, if a VM has a network connection into that portgroup, will surely use only the 1000mb nic.

[devbuzz]

Thanks Luca, I appreciate the reply.

I understand it's a VMWare question however it's somewhat pertinent to Veeam since we only needed to do this to get Veeam working on a separate NIC.

Backup using the 100 Mbps NIC are too slow to even be considered viable.

I wish there was a Quick Start that bridged the gap between VMWare and Veeam showing me what best practices I needed to set up from a network point of view.

We are an Essentials client - so we are small fry but we still need to know how to architect this.

Thanks for your help. I will have another go at backups with the 1000 Mbps NIC in place.

[devbuzz]

Hi Luca,

When you talk about the "preferred network" setup available in V8 - what do you mean?

Is this an option when creating the backup job?

[foggy]

There is an option in the Global Network Traffic Rules dialog.

[devbuzz]

I'm still battling to get my backups running in virtual appliance mode on a separate private network.

I am trying to backup a VM called test which is on a host called ESX3.
VBR is installed on host ESX2 (in the vcenter VM) and the backup repository is a local

Here is the network config of my two hosts:

ESX2 - the host with the vcenter VM with VBR installed.



and ESX3 the host with the target VM I want to backup called test.



Is it a requirement to have a backup proxy setup on Host ESX3 for virtual appliance mode to work?
If so how does that backup proxy see the local storage on the vcenter VM on Host ESX2?

I can get the backup to run over vmnic0 which is the default management network.

I cannot get it to run on vmnic1 which is the private backlink.

I have set up the network traffic rules in Veeam too:

[dellock6]

Hi Derek,
to leverage virtual appliance mode, a Veeam proxy should be able to mount the disk of the running VM. To do so, it must run on an ESXi server that is able to connect to the same datastore where the VM is stored. If the ESXi has only local storage, the only way to do so is to have a Veeam proxy running locally on that ESXi.
So yes, you need to deploy an additional proxy on ESX3.

[devbuzz]

Thanks Luca.

I deployed a proxy on the ESX3 host.

I also tested that the hot add worked from this proxy to the test VM I want to backup using the KB article:
How to test hotadd manually
http://www.veeam.com/kb1184

When I run the backup job I'm getting this error: NFC Storage connection is unavailable?

[veremin]

Hi, Derek, have already checked the corresponding KB article discussing typical NFС connectivity troubleshooting steps? Thanks.