Question for backing up DR copies

[gerdawg]

I'm using VMware ESXI in a production site that uses NetAPP for the file storage. We are replicating that production data using native SnapMirror in Netapp over a layer 2 link from Production to DR.

The DR site is basically exactly the same configuration as production but uses a different vCenter instance. When we initiate a failover test from production to DR, we basically put the production site datastores as readonly by reverse syncing the jobs from DR. We then restart all of the VM's in DR just as they would come up in production.

The challenge is we have a physical Veeam server in our production locaiton and I was wondering if we could keep the same job that it uses to backup production for the DR site data by simply choosing the new vcenter appliance. Does anyone know if this would work? Outside of putting a new Veeam instance in DR, is there any other options?

I'm only looking at this for our annual testing of the failover. I assume if we had a real disaster I would just spool up a Veeam instance at the DR site and backup to the cloud, we wouldn't be too concerned about costs at that point in time.

[foggy]

Veeam B&R will anyway consider the VMs running in DR as completely new ones as they have diffdrent VM IDs. You can add them into the same jobs and map the jobs to existing backups, but it will still need to read the entire VM data during the next job run so there's not much sense in this.

[gerdawg]

Thanks. That is what I believed would happen.

If I were to leave my primary VCSA server on, would Veeam be capable of backing up the read only datastores or would that create another issue? When we fail over to DR and create the reverse-sync job it will put the DR site into R/W and the primary into RO. I figured if I left the VCSA up and running on a non-affected R/W datastore and went to backup the VM's that are turned off and RO in production that maybe this would get me around the issue of missing a backup for the night that the DR test takes place.

Are there any other suggestions on how to get a backup on the night of failover outside of a completely separate Veeam DR enviornment?