synthetic full backup on remote proxy over WAN connection

[sschwab]

Hi Board,

we recently encountered a fully used WAN connection, while synthetic full backup was transforming the backups.

Scenario is the following:
- Backup Server at the HQ, Enterprise console also installed
- Backup proxy at the remote site with local cifs backup repository

while daily backups work fine with no traffic on the wan link, scheduled transformation on friday started as defined. After 60 hours (monday morning) the job was cancelled by the customer, as smb-processes filled up the 8 MBit WAN link.
I checked the configuration and additionally added the remote backup proxy to the repository configuration.

My question is, as i was unable to find the prerequisites for that scenario in the manuals and other posts: what has to be configured to let the remote backup proxy transform the backup files or do i have to use active full backup?

regards,

Sebastian

[foggy]

Sebastian, you just need to set up your proxy server as a Windows-based repository (not CIFS). In this case transformation will be performed by a repository agent installed on that server. CIFS repository is not agent-enabled.

[ccitrano]

All,

Can someone clarify the job of the Proxy with regards to managing the file manipulation in Full Synthetics and Reverse Incremental jobs.

I'm looking at a remote scenario where I will have a Proxy and a Repository at a remote location. I'm trying to determine if the Proxy Server handles the file injection pieces of building either a reverse or full synthetic backup.

If that is the case, is a Reverse Incremental scenario acceptable since only the change blocks are being sent across the WAN and the Proxy handles all the heavy file lifting.

I'm sure that this has been covered in other threads, but my searches yielded a lot of threads. Sorry.

Cheers.
Chuck.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Chuck, all this is done by a repository, unless the repository is SMB/CIFS. Thanks!

[ccitrano]

Vitaly,

Thanks for merging this thread and commenting. Below is a snippet from the user manual that I have a question about. It suggests that I use a local proxy that connects to a remote repository. It indicates that the local proxy kicks up an agent to read the source and the repository kicks up an agent to write the destination. Can you confirm that that source side agent does some form of compression prior to delivering to the destination? Also, if only changed blocks are being sent and the Repository agent is performing the injection into the "Reverse Incremental" is there really any performance impact beyond the actual bandwidth limitations between sites? In a nutshell, does the Remote Repository just rely on local resources after the incremental data has been pushed to it for both Synthetic Full and Reverse Incremental?

Offsite Backup
The common requirement for offsite backup is that one Veeam agent runs in the production site (closer to the source datastore), and the other agent runs in the remote target site (closer to the repository). During backup, the agents maintain a stable connection, which allows for uninterrupted operation over WAN or slow links.
To perform offsite backup to a Windows or Linux-based repository, you need to deploy a backup proxy in the production site, closer to the source datastore. In this scenario, the source-side agent is started on the proxy server, and the target-side agent is started on the Windows or Linux repository server. Backup data is sent from the proxy to the repository over WAN.

[Vitaliy S.]

Can you confirm that that source side agent does some form of compression prior to delivering to the destination?

Yes.

Also, if only changed blocks are being sent and the Repository agent is performing the injection into the "Reverse Incremental" is there really any performance impact beyond the actual bandwidth limitations between sites?

Job performance will also depend on your target storage and especially the max number of IOPs it can support.

See this topic for more details about the IOPs: Reverse vs daily transform?

In a nutshell, does the Remote Repository just rely on local resources after the incremental data has been pushed to it for both Synthetic Full and Reverse Incremental?

Yes.