Backup & Recovery

Hello,

I would like to get some ideas before finalizing this topology (see attached):

3 r710 machines storing production vm servers on local disks.

A 4th r710 machine is on stand-by for a failure of one of the 3 (this is a target machine for backup restores).

This 4th, target, machine is connected to an MD1000 unit with 15 X 2TB SAS drives, to function as a storage for veeam backup and replication backup copies.

Any comments on this would be appreciated.

A couple of questions:

1. What RAID would suit best on the MD1000?

2. Which option is better - a. install the veeam server on a physical machine, directly connected to the storage (speed up backups, but slow recovery to target?)

                                             b. install the veeam server on a physical machine not physically connected to the storage.

                                             c. install the veeam server on a virtual server on the target machine, which is directly connected to the storage.

All servers share a network link.

Licensing:

VMware Essentials + Vcenter

Veeam Backup & Replication

Thanks!

Hi,

since you do not have a shared storage among the 3 servers, the external Veeam server is going to use network mode, but based on your production design, it does not mean it's going to run bad, it all depends on the amount of data you have to backup daily.

I would personally, in this situation, install Veeam as a virtual machine on ESXi4, connect the MD1000 as a repository to it, and do all the backups of the other 3 servers' VMs. If after some tests backup speed would appear to be slow, I would add additional Veeam proxies directly inside the ESXi servers, maybe installing it on existing Windows VMs to save on licenses.

About the raid, obviously a Raid10 would be the best solution for performance reasons, it will give you fast backup and most of all fast restore speed. In Raid10 your storage would be around 7 Tb, plus a spare disk. If this size is not going to be enough (again, it depends on compression settings, dedup settings, and most of all the amount of retention points) I would use Raid5.

Luca.

Hey Luca,

Thanks so much for you replay!

When you say install Veeam on a VM, you mean on the target machine, right?

In regards to RAID, wouldn't 6 be better than 5 in this case?

Also, would the target machine will be able to run with VM free license?

Thanks!

Hi,

yes, install Veeam in a VM in the ESxi n. 4, so it's outside of the production servers.

About RAID, raid6 gives you a double parity so an added protection, but the write penalty is almost doubled, so performances will be lower than raid5. Do some tests and see if the performances are enough for you.

About licenses, Veeam requires licenses only on source hosts, not the target ones. If you need to run all from n° 4, you would be able to revoke licenses from first 3 servers and move it the the fourth.

Luca.