V6 backup proxies (physical V6 svr, phsyical vSphere host)

[parneye]

Any advice welcome. Thanks.

Environment Brief (Hardware / Software)
1x vSphere Host:
- 12core - Xeon E5645 @ 2.40GHz, 32GB RAM, 24 logical processors.
- local storage, RAID 10, 6x1TB drives (Can't recall if SAS or SATA -- I think SAS), 2.19TB free space.
- vSphere 5, 7 virtual machines, vCentre 5 running as one of the virtual machines.

1x Veeam Physical Server
- 4 core, Xeon X3440 @ 2.53GHz, 8GB RAM, 8 threads (HT).
- local storage, RAID 10, 4x1TB SATA drives, 1.65TB free space.
- Veeam 6
- One job that backs up all the virtual machines to the storage on the veeam server.

Edit
Sorry forgot to mention when I submitted post... The realtime statistics when I am running the backup job, list the "source" as the bottleneck.

Question
I've done a fair bit of googling and going through the help files of veeam to find out information on backup proxies. I found little on how to configure them, and even less on when and how to use them...

Currently there is one backup proxy configured in Veeam which is the default proxy installed on the Veeam server.
Basically, I want to know
- if I should add a proxy on a virtual machine on the vSphere host.
- if true, then how do I take advantage of the proxy to help my backup.
- is there an ovf template available that I can use, or should I just install a proxy on an existing virtual machine

Also, feel free to elaborate if I'm missing the point completely, or if you could offer advice on questions I should have asked...

Thanks again for your help.

[Jfmoots]

Your main Veeam B&R server has a built in proxy. For your environment, I would say you're in pretty good shape. Adding a proxy on the ESX host would allow you to leverage Hot Add to read the VMs directly through the ESX Storage I/O stack, which is faster, but you're still going to be sending over the LAN to your repository over on your Veeam B&R server, which will kind of make the faster reading of the VM pointless. I'd leave it as is for now and see how your backups go. Just know that you'll be backing up in "Network Mode". "Network Mode" is the least desirable of our three backup modes but for your setup, should work just fine. Just keep your backups running outside of production hours so you don't swamp your LAN with backup traffic while everyone is trying to work.

There is no OVF. A proxy is a Windows server with our Proxy Service installed on it. You add a proxy by right clicking on the Proxy item under the Infrastructure section in our software. You simply point it a Windows box, give it credentials, and the Proxy service is sent over and installed.

Finally, your source being listed as the bottleneck is simply your weakest link being identified. It's a finger pointing at what you'd need to improve if you want the job to run faster. In this case, your source is the bottleneck becaues we're reading it through the ESX network I/O stack. If you make a Windows virtual machine a proxy, your Source would likely no longer be the bottleneck but instead be identified as the Network. But your job would probably run in about the same time.

[parneye]

Hi Jfmoots...
Thanks for your excellent answers, they have pretty much filled me in on all I was looking to find out.
I'll stick to the built-in proxy on the veeam server.

Just out of curiousity:
When installing a proxy service on a virtual machine,
is it wise to use a production windows virtual machine that for example won't be under much normal user load at night time,
or is it best to use a new virtual machine with a fresh install of windows dedicated to being a proxy.

Cheers

Kind Regards
James

[Jfmoots]

Just out of curiousity:
When installing a proxy service on a virtual machine,
is it wise to use a production windows virtual machine that for example won't be under much normal user load at night time,
or is it best to use a new virtual machine with a fresh install of windows dedicated to being a proxy.

Both are acceptable. I think if I were rating them, I'd prefer to have my own dedicated machine to run the proxy from because I'm greedy

If I were paying for the Windows license out of my pocket, I think I might place the proxy on an already existing machine...

[Reimold]

Adding a proxy on the ESX host would allow you to leverage Hot Add to read the VMs directly through the ESX Storage I/O stack, which is faster, but you're still going to be sending over the LAN to your repository over on your Veeam B&R server, which will kind of make the faster reading of the VM pointless.

isn´t it so, that the proxy will send the compressed Data over the network to the repository and so it brings a better performance using Hot add with a proxy ?

br

Dirk

[foggy]

Dirk, hard to estimate what will be faster in a particular environment. Really depends on a configuration/setup.

[Jfmoots]

isn´t it so, that the proxy will send the compressed Data over the network to the repository and so it brings a better performance using Hot add with a proxy ?

br

Dirk

VERY good point! It's possible this could present a performance gain as a result of adding a virtual appliance proxy. In a basic example, you should be sending less data over the network for the exact reason you've specified.

[parneye]

thanks everyone for your input...
I've got some different questions relating to installs i've done for other clients...
I'll create new threads when my time permits.

Thanks Again for your advice.