How does file copy work?

[stephaneb]

My apology if this has been asked before but a quick search did not return any hits.

How does file copy work exactly? I'm especially interested in understanding what path the data takes between the source and the target. Is it direct (the source host pushes to the target host) or does it go thru the Veeam B&R server?
From quick testing, it seems that it is the latter as a quick monitoring of the Veeam B&R VM network bandwidth utilization shows it matches the job displayed transfer rate...

This is copying a vmdk file from one ESXi cluster to another, using different source and target datastores as well.

[foggy]

Stephane, in case of files transfer between Windows servers, traffic goes directly between them. In case of ESXi hosts, data is sent through the backup server (default proxy server). Thanks.

[stephaneb]

Thank you foggy.