Veeam B&R v7.0 Design Advice using a SAS IBM Storwize V3700

[massimiliano.rizzi]

Hello experts,

as part of a Server Consolidation using Virtualization project for a new customer, we are planning to repurpose an existing IBM Storwize V3700 as VMware shared storage. This Storage is already used in production. More specifically, it is currently being used as an 1Gb iSCSI Target connected to one of the old physical Windows servers.

The IBM Storwize V3700 contains two node canisters, and each node canister provides 4x 6 Gbps SAS ports and 2x 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet ports, so the best choice for connecting each ESXi 5.1 host is 6 Gbps SAS. We will be deploying 2x VMware ESXi 5.1 hosts and using Veeam B&R v7.0.

The production environment as a result of the Server Consolidation and Virtualization will be relatively small and is described below:

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- 2x VMware ESXi 5.1 hosts
- VMware vSphere Essentials Plus Kit license
- Veeam B&R v7.0 Enterprise license
- 15 virtual machines (approximately 1.5/2 TB overall size)
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With regard to the new Veeam B&R Backup Infrastructure, which of the following makes sense to you ?

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1) Deploy Veeam B&R on a VM placed on the IBM Storwize V3700 shared storage and use hot-add mode.
2) Deploy Veeam B&R on a physical server with plenty of CPU, memory resources, sufficient free disk space and buy a couple of additional 6 Gbps SAS HBAs in order to use the Direct SAN Access transport mode. I am unsure, however, if the Direct SAN Access transport mode can be used to pull data over a 6 Gbps SAS connection instead of using a traditional iSCSI or Fibre Channel connection.
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It would be great if someone could kindly share his thoughts and help me validating the new Veeam B&R v7.0 Design.

Thanks and Regards,

Massimiliano

[veremin]

Hi, Massimiliano,

It doesn't matter where VB&R Management server is installed, as everything is done by proxy servers and you can have as many physical or virtual proxies, as you want to.

As to SAS Direct SAN mode, then, I believe, starting from 5.1 version, SAS has been listed as supported for Direct SAN mode in the VDDK Programmers Guide. Additionally, this link might be helpful.

Thanks.

[massimiliano.rizzi]

Hi Vladimir,

thank you for your quick reply (and BTW Happy New Year !).

Believe me or not, I just found the article at the link you provided when you replied to my topic !

The article describes a POC using the HP P2000 G3 SAS attached SAN, however it is my understanding that the same information applies to our customer’s IBM Storwize V3700 as we will be leveraging SAS Direct SAN mode as well.

The POC described in the article involves the use of a single 6 Gbps SAS HBA to directly attach the physical backup server into the SAS fabric instead of using a couple of HBAs that will provide high availability for the physical backup server itself.

Since multipathing is involved when using multiple HBAs for the physical backup server itself, when leveraging SAS Direct SAN mode would you recommend that we use multipath drivers provided by storage vendors, that we use native multipathing support provided by Microsoft Windows Server 2012 operating system or that that we use a single HBA to simplify the overall design of the new Veeam B&R Backup Infrastructure?

Thank you again for your support.

Massimiliano

[veremin]

If I were you and were after HA, I would use vendor multipath, since I can recall some cases where Windows Multipathing failed for some reasons. Though, I'm not sure whether it's still the case with Windows Server 2012, as most of the said cases happened with Windows Server 2008. Thanks.