Help with new DR site

[PaulNSW]

We have been using Veeam as our backup system for the last few years, and now we finally have the go ahead for a DR site, so we will be using Replication as well!
I have a few questions about planning, and whether the requirements we hope for are possible.
At the primary site, we have around 20TB of data on an EqualLogic PS6100. This is connected to 2 VMware 5.5 Enterprise hosts. This is being backed up daily to an old 20TB MD3000i. This is where Veeam is currently installed.

At the DR site, we will have around 136TB on two EqualLogics, connected to 1 VMware 5.5 Enterprise host.

The sites will be connected via a 300mbit link

Looking at the data transferred locally, it’s around 100-140GB per day

Ideally, we would like to retain some backups at the primary site.

This means

• replication to DR site (daily/every few hours/not sure yet) (EQL)
• long term backups, at DR site (EQL)
• last 30 days backup, at primary site (MD300i)

I read that Veeam can use the replicated data and make backups from that, is this correct? If so, is it possible to backup to two different locations, with different retention policies?

Should I move the Veeam server to the DR site, and then have a proxy at each site?

What effect will replication have on the primary site? I assume snapshots are taken, so the storage LUNS would need to be large enough to retain a day’s worth of changes (or whatever replication frequency is set)?

[foggy]

• replication to DR site (daily/every few hours/not sure yet) (EQL)
• long term backups, at DR site (EQL)
• last 30 days backup, at primary site (MD300i)

What Veeam B&R version are you currently at? Optimally, if you're on v8, you can use backup copy jobs to copy backups offsite and then replica from backup using these copied backups as a source. This will allow to send data over WAN only once and touch your production VMs just once. However, if you need more frequent replicas, then direct remote replication is also the way to go.

Should I move the Veeam server to the DR site, and then have a proxy at each site?

A good practice is to make Veeam B&R server at DR site responsible for replication jobs (to enable automated failover/failback tasks), however this complicates the scenario I've described above, as backup and replication jobs are managed by different Veeam B&R instances.

What effect will replication have on the primary site? I assume snapshots are taken, so the storage LUNS would need to be large enough to retain a day’s worth of changes (or whatever replication frequency is set)?

If you mean temporary snapshots, then they are removed at the end each job cycle.

[PaulNSW]

Thanks for the clarification Foggy.

We do have v8, and I reckon we want maybe 2 or 3 replications per day, so as to not loose full day's work.
The the primary and DR site would have just the one backup, taken out of office hours.

So that sounds like direct remote replication? Could you point me to some documentation on that? I didn't see that mentioned here

[foggy]

Offsite replication is covered in one of the subsections. Feel free to ask any additional questions, if something is not clear enough.