Recommended (vCenter) specs

[howartp]

Hi,

Firstly, our scenario:

I've just bought a brand new HP Proliant DL380e server with 24GB RAM and 14 SATA 400GB disks. Configured 2 disks as RAID1 with 200GB C: and 3.4TB D: drive, 11 disks RAID5 with one 38TB E: drive, and one hot-spare. Purchased Veeam B&R to go on it as we've fallen out with BE2012 (!). Backup Repository, NFSStore and VBRCatalog are all on Drive E. We have an IBM Tape Drive which is currently on the old backup server, but this will ultimately be connected to B&R v7 when it's released.

VM estate is on IBM DS3500 SAN (3212 and 3524). Fast VMs (SQL etc) are on 15k SAS drives, slow VMs are on 7.2k NL-SAS drives. All RAID5 I think. Hosts are all 100GB RAM, 2x 6-core CPUs.

Currently vCenter VM has a dual-core CPU and 4GB RAM allocated to it, as vCenter wasn't doing any work on a day to day basis other than the obvious; we're licensed for vMotion but not HA, and I manually load balance the hosts periodically.

Now that vCenter is responsible for Veeam, do we need to give vCenter any more CPU or RAM? Does the data that Veeam is backing up (LAN method) physically go through vCenter, or does vCenter just tell it where to get the data from etc?

I'm getting 54MB/s processing rate (which at first alarmed me, cos I'm used to seeing speeds in BE of over 1200MB, not 54Mb - then I realised that BE is per Minute, not per Second!). But it still says the bottleneck is 'Source' - hence why I wondered if vCenter needs more spec.

If anyone wants to tell me my RAID configs or other setup on the HP are inappropriate, feel free - given it's brand new, I'll consider wiping it if I've done something completely counter-productive.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Peter

[yizhar]

Hi,

I've just bought a brand new HP Proliant DL380e server with 24GB RAM and 14 SATA 400GB disks. Configured 2 disks as RAID1 with 200GB C: and 3.4TB D: drive, 11 disks RAID5 with one 38TB E: drive, and one hot-spare. Purchased Veeam B&R to go on it as we've fallen out with BE2012 (!). Backup Repository, NFSStore and VBRCatalog are all on Drive E. We have an IBM Tape Drive which is currently on the old backup server, but this will ultimately be connected to B&R v7 when it's released.

Hardware specs looks excellent to me.
What is your backup source size?

Regarding the disks raid setup, I would consider an alternate option:
Keep 2 disks as RAID1 for system + additional 3.4tb.
Configure RAID5 with 6 disks (usable space about 19tb).
Configure another RAID 5 with 5 disks (usable space about 15tb).
One disk as global spare.

That way you get less space, but more safety.
In case you have double disk failure or disk fails during rebuild, you do not lose the whole store.
Also the chances of having double disk failure are better (smaller risk) with such config.

You can then divide VBR jobs between the 2 datastores (repositories), examples:
Daily backups on 1st repo (keep 10 copies), and weekly backups to the other (keep 5 copies).
Or:
Some jobs to 1st repo, other to 2nd - this can also provide better performance if you run 2 jobs in the same time but to different target repositories.

Yizhar

[yizhar]

Currently vCenter VM has a dual-core CPU and 4GB RAM allocated to it, as vCenter wasn't doing any work on a day to day basis other than the obvious; we're licensed for vMotion but not HA, and I manually load balance the hosts periodically.

I think that vcenter specs are not directly related to Veeam.
I mean that if the server handles it jobs fine and you don't notice high cpu usage, or memory demand it's ok.

However I would grant 8gb to it because:
VMware vcenter itself (regardless of veeam) needs more resources in latest version 5.1.x, compared to what we have used to know in previous versions 4.x .
You will probably want to install VCenter Web client on the VC server, and you will need more RAM for this (at least 8gb instead of 4).

Yizhar

[yizhar]

I'm getting 54MB/s processing rate (which at first alarmed me, cos I'm used to seeing speeds in BE of over 1200MB, not 54Mb - then I realised that BE is per Minute, not per Second!). But it still says the bottleneck is 'Source' - hence why I wondered if vCenter needs more spec.

54 MB/s is good, but you can and should try to get higher rates, at least for full backups.
This can be done by using "SAN mode" - connecting the backup server directly to SAN using ISCSI/FC depending on your config.

Do you know about SAN mode? Have you tried it?

Yizhar

[howartp]

Hi Yazhir,

I replied last night to this thread - not sure where my reply has gone to!

I think that vcenter specs are not directly related to Veeam.
I mean that if the server handles it jobs fine and you don't notice high cpu usage, or memory demand it's ok.

However I would grant 8gb to it because:
VMware vcenter itself (regardless of veeam) needs more resources in latest version 5.1.x, compared to what we have used to know in previous versions 4.x .
You will probably want to install VCenter Web client on the VC server, and you will need more RAM for this (at least 8gb instead of 4).

Yizhar

Thanks, I'll do that. I came across the Web Client recently but haven't got it installed yet.

54 MB/s is good, but you can and should try to get higher rates, at least for full backups.
This can be done by using "SAN mode" - connecting the backup server directly to SAN using ISCSI/FC depending on your config.

Do you know about SAN mode? Have you tried it?

Yizhar

I knew of SAN mode in Veeam but our SAN is in a different building to Veeam so at first I avoided it. However I've spent the last couple of weekends doing a lot of technical reading / research into our IT infrastructure - I know what devices we have, but not great knowledge of how they do what they do.

I now know that with the simple purchase of a £1200 HBA for the new server, I can connect it to the SAN via our existing spare Fibre cables which run directly between the two cabs in the respective buildings. I'll be doing this in a couple of months or so, but 54 Mb/s full is fine for now. Our VMs are reported as being 7TB, but I know the data is only 3.5TB.

I'm going to rebuild the large array today - by cutting and pasting the Veeam backup repository onto the existing d: I can delete and recreate the large array without having to reinstall the server, then cut/paste it back when the servers back up.

Peter

[veremin]

Assuming that you haven’t done it already, you might want to deploy a virtual proxy server on your host specifying it in “Hot Add” mode and see whether this type of setup increases performance rates or not.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[yizhar]

Hi.

I agree with latest post, and also can add:

install a proxy server "near" the SAN (this can be physical or virtual server).
Then you can either use SAN or HOTADD mode, depending on type of proxy server and connection to SAN.

The "big" new Veeam machine will act as repository for storing the backup, but the proxy server near the SAN will do the job of reading data (local SAN speed using SAN or HOTADD mode), compressing, deduping and then transfer data to the repository server.

Yizhar

[howartp]

I've ordered a HBA to connect the new server directly to the SAN across our onsite fibre link (say 200m), so the SAN will be local.

I'm getting 60Mb/s on the LAN now, until new card arrives.

Thanks for all your help.

Peter

[veremin]

Kindly keep us updated about the results you get. Should any other question arise, don’t hesitate to let us know.

Thanks.