Veeam Backup and Replication Design

[ksamarakoon]

We are currently using Veeam 5.0 Essentials Plus to backup VMs hosted on our ESX servers at a data centre to local disk on a physical backup server. This allows us to do instant restores and application level recovery.

We are looking at implementing offsite replication using Veeam 6 to a ESX server hosted at a remote office. We would like to continue to be able to store backups locally at the data centre to provide the instant restores from the local storage without having to copy across the WAN. Can someone please clarify the following questions and provide any recommendations.

1. Placement of the Veeam Server(s)
a. Should we keep the existing veeam server at the data centre or run veeam in a virtual machine on the offsite DR server?
b. Should we look at running two veeam servers, one for replication and one for backup to the data centre?
c. Should we run one veeam server offsite, setup seperate jobs for replication offsite and backup to proxy at the data centre?
2. Domain Membership
a. Assuming we are setting up a new VM on the DR ESX server, should this be a member server on the domain?
b. If the machine is not a part of the domain, can we still restore application items from the replicas?


Thanks in advance.

[foggy]

1. Placement of the Veeam Server(s)

To be able to use Veeam B&R failover/failback functionality in case of disaster, you can either virtualize the Veeam B&R and replicate it along with other VMs or set it up in the DR location and pull replicate the VMs from the source site. What is also very important for replication performance, is to have proxy servers running in both sites.

2. Domain Membership

No need to be a domain member, you just need to specify the correct credentials that will work in the domain where VMs being backed up reside.

b. If the machine is not a part of the domain, can we still restore application items from the replicas?

Please note, that application items restore is performed from backup files only (don't mix it up with file-level restore).

[ksamarakoon]

Alexander, thanks for your reply.

Assuming we go ahead with a virtual veeam B&R server at the DR site, can we use this server to create backups to a repository at the data centre and can we do instant restores and application restores from this repository without having to move data across the WAN?

[foggy]

Assuming we go ahead with a virtual veeam B&R server at the DR site, can we use this server to create backups to a repository at the data centre

Yes.

and can we do instant restores and application restores from this repository without having to move data across the WAN?

Yes, mentioned operations are performed locally by the corresponding proxy and repository servers. However, this is not the case with Windows guest files restore and VM files restore operations, which do not provide the ability to specify a particular proxy and always use the default one to perform the restore, causing the restored virtual disks blocks to cross the WAN.

[huwy]

HI there,
We have 2 ESXi servers in our HQ and one in our DR site.
We were thinking of creating a Veeam VM in the DR site - is this a good idea?
Cheers for any advice.
-Huw