Direct SAN Access / VBR as Vmware guest

[eitc_hl]

Dear all,

Hoping you can help me, we have a NAS device which is configured into our iSCSI fabric. Our Beeam B&R server is installed inside a windows guest on an ESXi 5.5 server/host.

My question is, what is the best way to ensure that I get direct access to our SAN, where all the vm's reside on our iSCSI storage?

Do I just connect the NAS to the VM using an RDM or via a VMFS datastore and thats that, or is there something else I need to do?

The above method works however I am unsure that it is pulling the data direct from the SAN and straight to the iSCSI storage on the NAS.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[PTide]

Hi,

For better performance of Direct SAN access you need to have a dedicated physical backup proxy that has a direct access to your production storage via iSCSI. Veeam backup server can stay virtual and does not have to be connected to production storage. Please see this article for details.

Btw, why do you want to attach NAS to VBR via RDM/VMFS ? You can just add your NAS as a repository in VBR console.

Thank you.

[foggy]

With virtual Veeam B&R, however, you can utilize hotadd for fast backups.

[eitc_hl]

Thanks for replies. The NAS supported iSCSI so i wanted all of the backup data to stay within the iSCSI switch and not to come through the hypervisor stack when transferring from the SAN to the NAS if that makes sense? Maybe I am thinking about this wrong hence the post to get better ideas.

We have a spare server which we could use as a backup proxy and patch straight into the iSCSI switch potentially but was hoping for the quickest way to use the virtual guest as the mgmt console but to get the maximum possible performance as they have a lot of data.

With the latter idea (hot add) I guess I need to have a proxy installed on a server located on each ESXi host? We have 9 of them so could be an issue.

Let me know your thoughts

[PTide]

i wanted all of the backup data to stay within the iSCSI switch and not to come through the hypervisor stack when transferring from the SAN to the NAS if that makes sense?

Yes, that totally makes sense.

1. Add a dedicated physical proxy to your backup console, give it an acces to production storage via iSCSI (It is very important you do not allow Windows to initialize any VMFS volumes you are presenting to it)

2. Attach your NAS repository to your proxy via iSCSI and add that proxy as a repository, in proxy options choose direct SAN transport mode.

3. Setup your backup job, choose your physical proxy as a proxy.

use the virtual guest as the mgmt console

Your Veeam server can stay virtual and be used as a mgmt console.

I need to have a proxy installed on a server located on each ESXi host? We have 9 of them so could be an issue.

Not exactly - the Proxy being used to back up the VM must be a Virtual Machine on a host that is able to access the datastore where the source VM’s disks are stored.

[eitc_hl]

Thank you very much - things are clear now, there is a physical server being plugged in today to manage this and i think it will all work as expected!!

[PTide]

Please don't forget to check system requirements - if the same machine holds two roles (i.e. Proxy + Repo) then the requirements for proxy and repo add up.