Remote office, 2 VM host with Veeam. Try to achieve near HA

[foh]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to come up with a strategy in our remote offices (5) to have near HA functionality without a shared storage and all the expensive licenses from VMWare. We currently have a main Data Center where all the remote sites are connected to.

Here are my thoughts.

In each remote office, we have the basic domain services (Domain Controller, DHCP, DNS, File Server, Print Server, etc). Currently these services are running on physical servers that need to be decommissioned. The idea is to migrate all these services into two VMWare ESXi hosts (for failover purposes) in the remote office. And from what I am reading.. i can use Veeam Replication to keep a secondary copy of each VMs on each of the servers.

IE: Host A = Domain Controller, DHCP, DNS VM
Veeam Replicated Fileserver from Host B
Host B = Fileserver VM
Veeam Replicated Domain Contoller, DHCP, DNS VM

Again from what I am reading, in an event of Host A crashing (for whatever reason) and the DC, DHCP, DNS server is down.. I can login to Veeam and tell it to start up on Host B. Once I fix the issue on Host A, I can then use Veeam to move the VM back to Host A.

In order to achieve this, how would I setup the whole Veeam infrastructure? Do i build a primary Veeam server in our Data Center and Proxies in the remote offices? In the example above, do I install Veeam Proxy on both of the Hosts (Host A and host B)? Since I can't predict which host will crash, how can i be sure Veeam will work without the local proxy? We already have a VM Backup Strategy, so don't really want to push these Replication Images to the Data Center, i'd actually prefer not in order to save on bandwidth. I just need a plan in case one of the ESXi hosts die and I need to get our remote office operational within our SLA (4 hrs). And finally, any idea what kind of Veeam/VMware license I will need for this?

Thanks!

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello,

Again from what I am reading, in an event of Host A crashing (for whatever reason) and the DC, DHCP, DNS server is down.. I can login to Veeam and tell it to start up on Host B. Once I fix the issue on Host A, I can then use Veeam to move the VM back to Host A.

Yes, that's correct.

In order to achieve this, how would I setup the whole Veeam infrastructure? Do i build a primary Veeam server in our Data Center and Proxies in the remote offices?

Yes, you can do that, however please keep in mind that if the connection between your data center and remote site fails, you will need to power on replicated VMs manually.

As an alternative you can deploy Veeam backup server at each site and install Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager at the data center site to manage these backup servers remotely and have visibility into all backup job states.

In the example above, do I install Veeam Proxy on both of the Hosts (Host A and host B)? Since I can't predict which host will crash, how can i be sure Veeam will work without the local proxy?

Not sure I'm following you here. If one of the hosts fails, then you just need to power on VM replicas on the second host, right? Why do you need another proxy server? Once your original host is up and running again, then you will need to deploy/restore proxy server to failback and continue running replication jobs.

We already have a VM Backup Strategy, so don't really want to push these Replication Images to the Data Center, i'd actually prefer not in order to save on bandwidth. I just need a plan in case one of the ESXi hosts die and I need to get our remote office operational within our SLA (4 hrs).

In this case running replication jobs between two hosts in each remote site looks like a good strategy. Also be aware that you can leverage WAN Accelerators and replication jobs if you want to minimize the amount of transferred data.

And finally, any idea what kind of Veeam/VMware license I will need for this?

Cannot comment on VMware licensing part, but for Veeam you will need to have licenses for all source hosts. I would suggest taking a look at Veeam Backup Essentials for each remote site.

Let me know if that helps!

[foh]

Thanks for your response Vitaliy S.. More questions in return.

As an alternative you can deploy Veeam backup server at each site and install Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager at the data center site to manage these backup servers remotely and have visibility into all backup job states.

Hmm I like the idea of managing all the backup servers from one Enterprise Manager.. does this require the Enterprise license?

Not sure I'm following you here. If one of the hosts fails, then you just need to power on VM replicas on the second host, right? Why do you need another proxy server? Once your original host is up and running again, then you will need to deploy/restore proxy server to failback and continue running replication jobs.

Ah OK. I was under the impression that you HAD to use a Veeam product to failover from one host to another. Just to make sure I understand the product.. Veeam does not house the image in any way.. it is simply a tool that keeps VM images in sync between VM hosts. Correct? And in the event of a hardware disaster, the "replicated" VM is already on the secondary host, but powered off in the last state when Veeam Replication job ran.

Cannot comment on VMware licensing part, but for Veeam you will need to have licenses for all source hosts. I would suggest taking a look at Veeam Backup Essentials for each remote site.

What is the backup Essentials? This only price sheet and feature comparisons i could find about Veeam Backup & Replication:
http://www.veeam.com/backup-version-sta ... rison.html
I'm assuming I'll need the Standard Edition license for the replication feature? Question.. you said I need a license for all source hosts... So if I decide to put all my VMs on Host A and replicate all VMs to Host B, do I only need one licenses? If this is true, i'm assuming that if i want to put 50% load on Host A and 50% load on Host B, i'll need two licenses.. Correct? I'd like to split the load of the VMs across both of the ESXi host servers. IE: Domain Conroller on Host A, file server on Host B.

Thanks again!

[veremin]

Hmm I like the idea of managing all the backup servers from one Enterprise Manager.. does this require the Enterprise license?

No, it doesn't.

I was under the impression that you HAD to use a Veeam product to failover from one host to another. Just to make sure I understand the product.

You can power up replica VMs already located on DR host manually, but don't expect special settings defined in VB&R (like RE-IP rules and others) to take place. VB&R will be unaware about manual failover done, so, you will have to create reversed replication job to failback VMs. Thus, it's always recommended to orchestrate DR activities via backup console.

I'm assuming I'll need the Standard Edition license for the replication feature?

Correct.

So if I decide to put all my VMs on Host A and replicate all VMs to Host B, do I only need one licenses?

Correct.

If this is true, i'm assuming that if i want to put 50% load on Host A and 50% load on Host B, i'll need two licenses.. Correct?

If you distribute VMs between two hosts and replicate them, you will need a license covering number of sockets both hosts have.

Thanks.

[Vitaliy S.]

What is the backup Essentials? This only price sheet and feature comparisons i could find about Veeam Backup & Replication:

Here you go the direct link > http://www.veeam.com/smb-vmware-hyper-v-essentials.html

[foh]

Thanks for the responses guys. I think I got enough information to start a POC.