replacing esxi hosts

[andreas2012]

Hi,

We are currently moving from a typical VMware environment with SAN, and changing to a VSAN environment, regarding this I have some questions.

1. I have revoked license on 2 old ESXi hosts, but I am not sure how I add the license to the new hosts. If I go to Backup Infrastructure>Managed Servers>VMware vSphere>vCenter Servers> I can see all my ESXi hosts under this, both the old and new. I was just hoping that I could right clikc one of these ESXi hosts and assign the license but thats not the right way. So do I have to add right click Managed Servers and choose Add Server and then specify the ESXi root login ?

2. Is there something I need to consider changing when it comes to backing up virtual machines that are on a vSAN instead of a regular SAN ?

Thanks for reply.
/Regards
Andreas

[HannesK]

Hello,

but I am not sure how I add the license to the new hosts.

just run a backup - it will assign the licenses automatically if required

@2: as direct SAN mode is not available for VSAN, you will probably have to change your backup mode. If you choose Hot-Add / Virtual appliance mode, then one proxy per VSAN host is recommended for best performance / efficiency.

Best regards,
Hannes

[andreas2012]

Hi,

Thanks for answer, that solved my problem, and ESXi is added correctly

Regarding hot add, I can see that we are using that so I guess that is ok.

When it comes to proxy, as of today we have 4 proxies since we have 2 locations there is 2 proxies on each location. But when you say I should have 1 proxy per vsan physical node, then we suddenly need 14 proxies instead since there are so many vsan physical nodes??... and I guess I also need to configure affinity rules for those proxies so they dont change esxi host ?

Is there a vsan best practice document ?

Thanks for answers

/R
Andreas

[HannesK]

Hello,
well, if you are happy with the current amount of proxies, then there is no need to change it.

The "one proxy per ESXi host" (yes, with affinity rules) comes from https://www.veeam.com/kb2273 which is about reducing network traffic. Probably it would be oversized...

I'm not aware of any dedicated Veeam & VSAN whitepaper. The user guide also mentions the network traffic reduction but if you have enough bandwidth there is no requirement to change to 14 proxies.

Best regards,
Hannes

[cpfleger]

Besides of the resources Hannes already linked to there is a KB from VMware available (https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2149874) as well as several blog posts (all resources of different age) which might give additional insights

. https://www.veeam.com/blog/deep-dive-on ... n-6-6.html
. https://www.virtualtothecore.com/en/vee ... deep-dive/
. https://vinfrastructure.it/2018/08/tuni ... datastore/
. https://www.virtualizationhowto.com/201 ... ware-vsan/

The only white papaer reg. Veeam and vSAN is a rather pre-sales focused one (https://www.veeam.com/vmware-virtual-sa ... ce_wpp.pdf) - a good read but maybe not in the tech direction you are looking for.

Regards!

[andreas2012]

Thanks for links.

So anyone out there with veeam and vsan, how many proxies have you configured ? one for each esxi vsan node ?

/R
Andreas