storage connection to use for storage integration

[balma01]

I have some questions about storage connection to use for storage integration:
1) to make BFSS is it necessary a direct connection to the storage? is it true for every type of storage?
2) is it possible to use BFSS in an environment with storage connected to the infrastructure by a shared SAS connection? Like this one https://communities.vmware.com/thread/541783
3) is it necessary the direct connection to perform restore from SS (instant VM, application explorer or ondemand sanbox) ?

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hi!
1. Direct connection is required for most of the cases(by "direct" mean proxy has "read"(and optional "write" for restores) access to the production LUN with VMDK disks, means you can have FC Switch in the middle). Example of non-direct path could be Backup from Cisco HyperFlex snapshot. Check supported storage and respectful guidelines here.
2. No, shared SAS connection cannot be used alongside Backup from SAN Snapshots functionality.
3. Same as 1.
/Thanks!

[Andreas Neufert]

BfSS will acutally mount the storage snapshot to the Veeam Proxy. So you need access to the storage backend (NFS/FC/iSCSI) from the Proxy and access to the Management interface of the storage from Backup server. Proxy can be as well the Backup Server.
For NFS/iSCSI no configuration needed other than network access.
For FC you need to configure the zoning and add Veeam as Host entry on the storage (no access to the actual datastores needed).

As Egor said, no SAS supported. => Direct SAN backup method support as well SAS connections if this is needed.

Again as Egor shared we need to identify the storage snapshots and learn which VMs are stored within the snapshots. Therefore we need to temporary mount the snapshots to the Veeam Proxy to scan them. After that you are able to restore from them through the Veeam User Interface.