Veeam B&R essentials evaluation & vCenter & other questions

[itdirector]

We are evaluating Veeam B&R essentials & essentials plus.
Our environment : vSphere 5 essentials with vCenter essentials : 3 Primary hosts & 1 DR Host (the DR host is not part of vCenter & licensed differently)

A few questions:
We are trying to determine that if we went with Veeam B&R essentials:

- If there is a need for vCenter anymore. If we disassociate our 3 ESX hosts from vCenter, & install/run Veeam essentials, is there a need for vCenter anymore?
Our main needs for vCenter is cloning, & host patching. I understand I will lose the ability to manage all 3 hosts from one console, but is there any other functionality we are losing? Is this recommended? We are running vSphere essentials, so there is no HA or Vmotion. We also don't have a need for mixing the vram allocation between hosts.


- With Veeam B&R essentials, which is only for 3 hosts, is there a need to purchase more licenses for our DR host, if it will only be a proxy target for replicating to, from our 3 Primary hosts? We will not be backing up the 1 DR host VM's; will B&R essentials allow us to make a DR VM the proxy host & replicate to the 1 DR host?

- If one of our main hosts has 90% of the data, but we still want to backup all 3 hosts: is it recommended to install Veeam B&R in a VM in appliance mode on the one host that has 90% of the data? IF yes, will we still be able to backup the other hosts via network? The backup will be going to a DAS (Dell MD1000)

- I am confused about installation procedure for backing up an Exchange 2010 server & being able to recover individual emails. Can we just purchase Veeam B&R essentials plus, & only install the Veeam_Backup_Setup_x64.exe & Veeam_Backup_EX_AIR_Setup.exe? Or do we need to install the enterprise manager also (Veeam_Backup_Enterprise_Manager_Setup_x64.exe)?

Thx in advance

[dellock6]

I understand I will lose the ability to manage all 3 hosts from one console, but is there any other functionality we are losing?

Well, you will also loose the registration of the VMs between hosts, especially if you are using a shared storage between them. Also, performance metrics and logs will be affected by the removal of vCenter. If it's a license problem for the underlying Windows, why don't you use the appliance version?

With Veeam B&R essentials, which is only for 3 hosts, is there a need to purchase more licenses for our DR host, if it will only be a proxy target for replicating to, from our 3 Primary hosts? We will not be backing up the 1 DR host VM's; will B&R essentials allow us to make a DR VM the proxy host & replicate to the 1 DR host?

To replicate VMs to the 4th ESXi you will have to register it into Veeam B&R, so you will have to license it. I think however you cannot mix a Veeam Essentials license with a standard per-socket license, but I will let the final reply to someone else who knows better than me about licensing.

If one of our main hosts has 90% of the data, but we still want to backup all 3 hosts: is it recommended to install Veeam B&R in a VM in appliance mode on the one host that has 90% of the data?
If yes, will we still be able to backup the other hosts via network? The backup will be going to a DAS (Dell MD1000)

The production storage is shared, or you are using local storage on every host? If it's shared, hotadd method will mount disks from the storage via ESXi, so Veeam virtual appliance can be placed in any host.
If not, you can use hotadd only on the ESXi where Veeam is installed and network mode to reach the other hosts.

Luca.

[foggy]

To replicate VMs to the 4th ESXi you will have to register it into Veeam B&R, so you will have to license it. I think however you cannot mix a Veeam Essentials license with a standard per-socket license, but I will let the final reply to someone else who knows better than me about licensing.

VBR is licensed per source host (where processed virtual machines reside) socket. Replication destination hosts do not need to be licensed.

- I am confused about installation procedure for backing up an Exchange 2010 server & being able to recover individual emails. Can we just purchase Veeam B&R essentials plus, & only install the Veeam_Backup_Setup_x64.exe & Veeam_Backup_EX_AIR_Setup.exe? Or do we need to install the enterprise manager also (Veeam_Backup_Enterprise_Manager_Setup_x64.exe)?

It depends on your environment. If you plan to restore application items in a small environment, it is sufficient to have Veeam backup server and Exchange U-AIR Wizard installed. U-AIR workflow is covered in detail in U-AIR Wizards user guide available on the product page under Resources tab.

[itdirector]

VBR is licensed per source host (where processed virtual machines reside) socket. Replication destination hosts do not need to be licensed.

Per the comments above:
If we purchase VBR Essentials plus, that covers 3 hosts & 6 sockets:
- Can we run two copies of VBR on two different servers (using just one VBR Essentials plus license), as long as only the same 3 vsphere host VM's are getting backed up & replicated?
I am asking because we want to run one copy of VBR in a Win2k8 VM for replication jobs. At the same time, we want to run VBR on another physical server (Win2k3 or Win2k8) to run normal backups on. Both replication & backup is done on the same 3 vsphere hosts.
1st VBR server (VM) : Both the datastore that the 1st VBR is stored on & target replication job are DAS (md1000 via Perc 6E).
2nd VBR server (phsical): DAS for target backup files (MD1000 via Perc 6E)

We do not want to run replication & backup from the same VBR install.

Thank you

[Vitaliy S.]

- Can we run two copies of VBR on two different servers (using just one VBR Essentials plus license), as long as only the same 3 vsphere host VM's are getting backed up & replicated?

Yes, if you have enough licences to cover all your source hosts. However I still do not see why do you want to have two backup servers...backup server doesn't process VM data unless it has Veeam proxy deployed on the same server.

What would I recommend here is to install two proxy servers, one for backup jobs another one for replicas:

1st VBR Proxy server (VM) : Both the datastore that the 1st VBR is stored on & target replication job are DAS (md1000 via Perc 6E).
2nd VBR Proxy server (phsical): DAS for target backup files (MD1000 via Perc 6E)

Thanks!

[itdirector]

Thx Vitaliy.
So are you saying that if we have 3 Dell R710 servers (all local DAS) : They are 2 vSphere hosts & 1 physcial Win2k3 server with VBR installed , with all 3 on a local LAN: & if we install a proxy in a VM on the 1st vSphere source & a proxy on a VM on the target vsphere: when doing a replica between the two vSphere source/target, traffic will not travel through the physical VBR server? Because currently, with no proxy on the source nor target, all traffic is travelling through the physical VBR server.

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, that's correct. All VM data now goes through proxy servers, not through Veeam backup console.

[itdirector]

So I installed the Proxy servers on standalone VM's.
First VM Proxy on source vSphere server 1(Source VM's are on a DAS RAID6 array)
2nd VM Proxy on target vSphere server 2 (Target VM's are on a DAS RAID6 array)

I set both of the Proxies to appliance mode.

When I run a replica from source to target servers, it seems the only thing the Proxies are doing is moving a work off of the VBR server, & processing the traffic themselves, through their own NICS. Is that correct?
I was hoping that the proxies, in appliance mode would access the DAS directly, then submit the traffic through the hosts management network. It seems it is not doing either (not accessing the DAS directly) & it is using its own NIC to send traffic to the 2nd proxy server.

Please clarify

[Vitaliy S.]

When I run a replica from source to target servers, it seems the only thing the Proxies are doing is moving a work off of the VBR server, & processing the traffic themselves, through their own NICS. Is that correct?

Correct. The VM data is now moved through this chain: Disk > Source proxy > Network > Target proxy > Disk

I was hoping that the proxies, in appliance mode would access the DAS directly, then submit the traffic through the hosts management network. It seems it is not doing either (not accessing the DAS directly) & it is using its own NIC to send traffic to the 2nd proxy server.

Please see how Virtual Appliance mode works in our sticky F.A.Q. topic.