I have a vSphere cluster at our main site with a physical Veeam server there backing the VMs up. I also have a physical server at our DR site with Veeam installed. There is a dedicated 10 mbit line between them.
The server at the main site is running Server 2012 and is pulling in the backups uncompressed so that it can dedup them. That means copying the files from one site to the other is....unfeasible due to the files I'd be copying would be uncompressed and not deduped. So my question is, what sort of option do I have (if any) of starting a backup job on Veeam at the DR site but having it use a proxy @ the main site to do the backup and ship across the WAN? Am I correct in thinking that the backup proxy would dedupe and compress at the main site BEFORE shipping it across the WAN? Or is that not how it works? Can anyone offer up a better way of doing things, other than a faster connection between the sites of course.
Hi,
if you can afford two backup jobs from the same VMs, you can configure the remote server as Veeam Repository into Veeam Backup Infrastructure. Then, you can create a secondary job that is using local proxy and remote repository, in this way data from proxy to repository will travel the wan link compressed and deduplicated by Veeam itself.
Be sure to configure job with wan optimization settings.
Many times is easier to run the job twice (one local and another remote) than trying to replicate local backups, unless you are using dedup appliances that can replicate each other's content.
Luca.
Luca Dell'Oca Principal EMEA Cloud Architect @ Veeam Software
In general, Veeam is using two-agent architecture. The compression, as well as, deduplication option is implemented between two Veeam agents. In your case one will be executed at local proxy, the other at remote repository. Thus, it will be guaranteed that data will cross WAN link in highly-compressed, deduplicated state.
So, as Luca’s already mentioned, you should follow this way.
Just my 2c regarding your second (DR) Veeam B&R, should it once come into play: having Veeam B&R server serving as proxy or repository for both itself and another Veeam B&R instance, you need to remember that the number of concurrent tasks per proxy and repository is counted within each backup server independently. Just keep this in mind when considering your backup load.
Thanks all for the replies. I have started my first backup across the WAN.
Another question, looks like I need to bring a copy of the full backups down to the DR site on a USB drive or something to "seed" the DR repository so it only has to transmit the changes instead of trying to shove the first full copy across the WAN. Can anyone comment on the procedure for that process? Specifically I'm wondering about can I just edit the DR jobs to write to a repository on the usb drive and then change the location back after the first full backup? And how do I import the full backups on the DR Veeam server? I assume it isn't as easy as just dropping them in the right folder and restarting the Veeam services?
