Veeam and Tape - Case # 03111178

[karlochacon]

hey guys

when my pre-sales guys asked me about offering backups to tapes I always said hey man you need a Veeam physical server to do that

is that the only option still until these days?

I mean can I have a virtual veeam server and attached the fiber cables from my tape to my vmware esxi mapp the WWNs to my Veeam VM and my windows will see the tape and I will be able to backup directly?
I supposed I will need a dedicated HBA or HBAs in my ESXi hosts for that and now thinking for that I need a rack server with enough HBAs for Storage and Tape
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1016407


I have case but not sure if I explained myself with the agent
Case # 03111178

thanks a lot guys

[Regnor]

Pass through for tape devices it neither supported by VMware not by Veeam. It could work but if you have a problem no-one can support you.
By the way only the tape server component needs to run on physical hardware, the backup server itself can be virtualized.

[karlochacon]

thanks so it's still current a physical server is needed to connect the tape
I get veeam backup can be virtual but the tape component needs to be physical

thanks

[rmeyer5]

We use a combination of pass-through in vmware and iSCSI on our tapes (about 40 tape libs), it works like a charm