Veeam Backup & Replication for VMware

Transcription

1 Veeam Backup & Replication for VMware Version 6.x Best Practices for Deployment & Configuration March, 2013 Tom Sightler Solutions Architect, Core Products Veeam Software

2 2013 Veeam Software. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form by any means, without written permission from Veeam Software Inc (Veeam). The information contained in this document represents the current view of Veeam on the issue discussed as of the date of publication and is subject to change without notice. Veeam shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Veeam makes no warranties, express or implied, in this document. Veeam may have patents, patent applications, trademark, copyright, or other intellectual property rights covering the subject matter of this document. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Veeam, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property. Important Please read the End User Software License Agreement before using the accompanying software program(s). Using any part of the software indicates that you accept the terms of the End User Software License Agreement. 2 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

3 CONTENTS CONTENTS... 3 CONTACTING VEEAM SOFTWARE... 5 ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT... 6 COMPONENTS OVERVIEW... 7 VEEAM BACKUP SERVER... 7 PROXY SERVER... 8 REPOSITORY... 8 Windows Server... 8 Linux Server... 9 CIFS (SMB) Share... 9 OPTIONAL COMPONENTS... 9 Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager... 9 Veeam Backup Search... 9 U-AIR Wizards Veeam Explorer for Exchange INFRASTRUCTURE AND PROCESSES BACKUP Onsite Backup Offsite Backup REPLICATION Onsite Replication Offsite Replication RECOVERY & VERIFICATION SureBackup Recovery UNDERSTANDING VEEAM BACKUP & REPLICATION OPTIONS HOW IT WORKS: BACKUP METHODS Reversed Incremental Forward Incremental HOW IT WORKS: TRANSPORT MODES Direct SAN Virtual Appliance Network Mode HOW IT WORKS: RETENTION POLICIES DE-DUPLICATION COMPRESSION INDEXING AND SEARCH DEPLOYMENT SCENARIOS SMALL-SIZE ENVIRONMENT OR PILOT: SIMPLE DEPLOYMENT MEDIUM-SIZE OR LARGE-SCALE ENVIRONMENT: ADVANCED DEPLOYMENT LARGE, DISTRIBUTED ENVIRONMENT: DISTRIBUTED DEPLOYMENT INTERACTION WITH VSPHERE VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

4 VCENTER SERVER Health Capacity Connectivity Maintenance IMPACT OF SNAPSHOT OPERATIONS Snapshot Creation Snapshot Open Snapshot Removal How to Mitigate? SECURITY NETWORK CONNECTIVITY Veeam Backup Server Connections Backup Proxy Connections Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager Connections RESOURCE PLANNING AND OPTIMIZATION PLANNING FOR THE SOURCE PLANNING FOR PROXIES Physical or Virtual? Sizing Choosing Transport Mode PLANNING FOR REPOSITORIES Understanding the Impact of IOPS on Backup Performance The Cost of Forward Incremental Estimating Repository Capacity Deduplicating Storage Compatibility Examples SIZING VEEAM BACKUP & REPLICATION SERVER PLANNING FOR DATA RECOVERY & VERIFICATION Connection to NFS Server Reaching Optimal Performance JOB SETUP OBJECT SELECTION SETTING DE-DUPLICATION AND COMPRESSION LEVEL CHOOSING BACKUP METHOD LOAD BALANCING PLANNING FOR DR: CONFIGURATION BACKUP Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

5 CONTACTING VEEAM SOFTWARE At Veeam Software, we value feedback from our customers. We care about assisting you quickly with technical support. Our mission is to listen to you and build the tools that you need. Customer Support Should you have a technical concern, suggestion or question, please visit our Customer Center Portal at cp.veeam.com to open a case, search our knowledge base, reference documentation, manage your license or obtain the latest product release. Online Support If you have any questions about Veeam Backup & Replication, you can use the following resources: Full documentation set at Veeam documentation page Community forum at forums.veeam.com Company Contacts For the most up-to-date information about company contacts and office locations, please visit 5 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

6 ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT This document addresses the key factors that must be considered to properly deploy the Veeam Backup & Replication solution (version 6.0 and later). It explains deployment and configuration options, as well as backup methods available, and describes the impact of these choices. The document is intended primarily for solution designers and architects. To receive the full benefit of the information presented, at least intermediate level of knowledge of VMware virtual infrastructure and a basic understanding of Veeam Backup & Replication are required. The following issues will be addressed in this document: Architecture and main components overview vsphere virtual environment considerations Job setup and scheduling Scalability and sizing Deployment strategies Hardware integration Application-specific considerations Reference architectures To read more about Veeam Backup & Replication, you can refer to Veeam Technical Documentation page. Document Revision History Revision # Date Description of Changes Revision 1 28/01/2013 Initial version of the document for Veeam Backup & Replication v6.x Revision 2 11/03/2012 Minor text edits and graphics update. 6 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

7 COMPONENTS OVERVIEW Before planning your Veeam Backup & Replication deployment, you should understand how the solution works, know the factors that can influence performance, availability, storage space, security and scalability of the solution. You should thoroughly understand solution architecture, know what your options are, and then decide which best meets you needs. Veeam Backup & Replication leverages the capabilities of a virtualization hypervisor to provide comprehensive backup and replication of the virtual machines that are running within the virtualized environment. With VMware vsphere, the hypervisor is used to take consistent snapshots of the virtual disks attached to the VM, and Veeam Backup & Replication uses this snapshot to create either a replica of the VM, or a compressed, deduplicated backup copy of the VM. The core components of the solution are: Veeam Backup Server the brain of the solution, responsible for job management and scheduling, indexing tasks, and general orchestration of the backup and replication environment. Proxy servers the muscle for the solution. These servers read data from the VM snapshots, deduplicate and compress that data, and send it on its way. In the case of replication, they also receive the replica data and write it to the new replica, acting as the data movers to transfer data from the source to the target environment. Repositories these systems provide the memory, storing backup images for future restores, and important meta-data used during backup and replication. A repository may be a Windows or Linux server or a NAS device which supports CIFS access. The sections below describe these components in more detail; you can also refer to Veeam Backup & Replication - Architecture and Components online training video. Veeam Backup Server The Veeam Backup Server is the center of the Veeam Backup & Replication architecture. It is here that all backup jobs are defined, managed, and monitored. The scheduler then executes these jobs, communicating with vcenter, taking snapshots, allocating proxies and repositories and monitoring job progress. The typical workflow of a backup job is as follows: 1. Scheduler starts Job Manager processes based on each job s configured schedule. 2. Job Manager connects to vcenter to enumerate objects in the job and places them in the job in the order specified during the Job creation wizard. 3. Job Manager verifies repository availability (online, concurrent process limit not reached). 4. Job Manager selects for object for processing and elects most efficient proxy available taking into account factors such as processing mode, proximity to data, and current load. 5. Job Manager assigns the VM backup to a proxy and performs the required setup such as application-aware processing, snapshot creation, hot-add processing, and others. 6. Job Manager assigns any session-specific settings, such as bandwidth throttling, and instructs proxies to begin the data transfer. After object processing is completed, the Job Manager cleans up, gathers stats, and moves to next object, starting over at step 4. 7 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

8 After last object is processed, the Job Manager gathers all backup information and global job statistics, and exits. Proxy Server The primary role of the proxy server is to provide an optimal route for backup traffic and enable efficient data transfer. Therefore, when deploying a backup proxy, you must understand the connectivity between the backup proxy and the storage with which it is working. Depending on the type of connection, the backup proxy can be configured in one of the following ways (starting from the most efficient): A physical machine used as a backup proxy should have direct SAN access to the storage on which VMs reside, via a direct Fiber Channel or iscsi connection. This way, the backup proxy can retrieve data directly from the storage in the most efficient manner. A virtual machine used as a backup proxy will use the VMware Hot-Add feature to access VM disks on the storage. This type of proxy also enables LAN-free data retrieval. Guidelines for sizing and configuring your proxy servers will be provided in the Planning for Proxies section later in this document. Repository A backup repository is a server location used by Veeam Backup & Replication jobs to store backup files, copies of VMs and metadata for replicated VMs. Technically, a backup repository is a folder on the backup storage. Note that each job can use only one repository as its destination storage, but one repository can be used by multiple jobs in parallel. You can balance the load across your backup infrastructure by setting up several repositories in your environment and limiting the number of parallel jobs for each one. In the Veeam backup infrastructure, you can use one of the repository types described below. Windows Server In this configuration, the storage can be a local disk, directly attached disk-based storage (such as a USB hard drive), or iscsi/fc SAN LUN, or any device that appears as a drive letter at the system level. Note Network drives mapped in user profiles will not work as they are only available during the interactive login session. If necessary to use them as repository locations, please select the CIFS/SMB repository and provide the full UNC path and authentication information. On a Windows repository, Veeam Backup & Replication deploys a local Veeam agent (when you add a Windows-based server to the product console, Veeam Backup & Replication installs a set of components, including the Veeam Backup Proxy Service with Veeam agent, on that server). When any job addresses the repository, the agent on the repository establishes a connection with the source-side agent on the backup proxy, enabling efficient data transfer over LAN or WAN. Windows repositories can be configured to function as vpower NFS Servers. In this case, Veeam Backup & Replication will run the vpower NFS Service directly on the backup repository (namely, on the managing Windows server to which storage is attached) and provide ESX(i) hosts with transparent access to backed up VM images stored on the repository. For more details, refer to the Planning for Data Recovery & Verification section. 8 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

9 Linux Server The storage can be a local disk, directly attached disk based storage (such as a USB hard drive), NFS share, or iscsi/fc SAN LUN in case the server is connected into the SAN fabric. On the Linux repository, Veeam Backup & Replication deploys and starts the Veeam agent when a job addressing this repository is launched. The agent establishes a connection with the source-side agent on the backup proxy, enabling efficient data transfer over LAN or WAN. CIFS (SMB) Share CIFS (SMB) shares do not support Veeam agents, therefore data sent to the SMB share is written directly from a proxy server assigned to the job (by default, the role of such a proxy server is performed by the Veeam Backup server). However, if you plan to move VM data to an offsite CIFS repository over a WAN link, it is recommended that you deploy an additional proxying Windows server in the remote site, closer to the CIFS repository. Veeam Backup & Replication will deploy a Veeam agent on that server, which will improve data transfer performance: the efficient Veeam traffic stream will be sent between two proxies while keeping the CIFS traffic local to the storage device. Optional Components Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager is an optional component intended to simplify the daily management and administration of the Veeam Backup and Replication environment. This component is typically deployed when you have multiple backup consoles/sites to manage. For example, an organization may have two Veeam Backup servers: one in production environment, used for backup jobs, and another at the DR site, for the replication jobs. For such scenario it is worth installing Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager to have visibility across two backup servers (sample scenario will be described later in this guide). Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager federates Veeam Backup servers and offers a consolidated view of these servers through a web browser interface, so that you can centrally control and manage all jobs through a single pane of glass, edit and clone jobs, monitor job state and get reporting data across all backup servers. Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager also enables you to search for indexed Windows guest OS files in the current and archived backups across your backup infrastructure, and restore these files in one click. For more information on guest OS indexing, please refer to the section below. Note Using Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager to perform file search is recommended for virtual infrastructures with a number of indexed VMs under 100; alternatively, use Veeam Backup Search. You can install the Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager components on the same machine, either physical or virtual, co-install components with Veeam Backup & Replication, or set up all components separately on the machines meeting appropriate system requirements. For detailed information on installing and configuring Enterprise Manager, please refer to Enterprise Manager User Guide. Veeam Backup Search Veeam Backup & Replication enables you to perform quick and accurate searches for guest OS files in a backed up VM without the need to restore it. This can be useful, for example, if a file you need 9 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

10 has been deleted on the VM and you want to restore it from a backup. Once you find a necessary file, you can use Veeam s file-level restore to recover the file from the VM backup. Note At present, the search functionality is supported for Windows-based VMs only. To be able to perform a search within the VM image backup, you need to enable file indexing in properties of a corresponding backup job. When such a backup job is run, Veeam Backup & Replication creates a catalog, or index, of the VM guest OS files and stores index files on the Veeam Backup server in the C:/VBR Catalog/Index/Machines/[vm_name] folder. Creation of index is extremely fast and has minimal impact on network and VMware environment. Once the index is created and stored on backup servers, the indexing service on Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager performs index replication it aggregates index data for all VM image backups from multiple backup servers. This consolidated index is stored on the Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager server in the C:/VBR Catalog/Index/catalog and is used for search queries. With a relatively small number of backups, search for guest OS files in backups is performed with Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager. However, if you frequently need to search through a great number of backups (more than 100 VMs or more than 10 million files), it is recommended to configure the Veeam Backup Search - an optional component in the backup infrastructure that is used for the purpose of search performance optimization. Veeam Backup Search is installed on a dedicated Microsoft Search Server to streamline VM guest OS files search in large-scale virtual deployments. It uses Microsoft Search Server functionality to crawl content in the shared VBRCatalog folder on the Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager server and to create a content index on the Search Server that is used to process search queries. For detailed information on Veeam Backup Search, please refer to the User Guide. U-AIR Wizards Universal Application-Item Recovery (U-AIR), enabled by the Veeam vpower technology, allows you to recover individual items from any virtualized application. For such applications as Active Directory, Microsoft SQL and Microsoft Exchange, U-AIR is a wizarddriven process that is, you can recover necessary items from applications using applicationspecific wizards. For other applications, U-AIR is user-driven that is, Veeam Backup & Replication starts the application and all components required for its proper work in a virtual lab so that users can connect to that application and recover items themselves. U-AIR wizards are not tied to the Veeam Backup & Replication installation these are standalone components that can be downloaded, installed and updated independent of the product release. You can install U-AIR wizards on any machine in your production environment from which you plan to perform the restore process. For details, see the Veeam Backup & Replication Help and U-AIR Wizards User Guide. Veeam Explorer for Exchange Veeam Explorer for Exchange is a free tool available to users of Veeam Backup & Replication starting with version 6.1 (in all editions, including Free Edition). It allows you to browse Microsoft Exchange 2010 database files and restore necessary items, such as mailboxes, folders, messages, tasks, contacts and so on. Instead of fully restoring and starting the VM with the Microsoft Exchange Server, you can use Veeam Backup & Replication capabilities to extract the necessary Microsoft Exchange database from the backup file and then use Veeam Explorer for Exchange to browse and restore individual items. Restore options include: Exporting mailbox folders and items as Personal Folder Files (.pst) Saving mailbox items as Microsoft Exchange Mail Documents (.msg) Sending mailbox items as attachments via 10 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

11 Restoring mailbox folders and items into their original location (available only with Veeam Backup & Replication Enterprise Edition) Veeam Explorer for Exchange can be downloaded and installed independently from other Veeam Backup and Replication components. Important Consider that Veeam Explorer for Exchange requires full access to Microsoft Exchange database files for item recovery. This level of access is usually granted to a very limited number of employees within the organization. If you would like to allow less privileged users to perform recovery of Microsoft Exchange items from backups, you can use the Application-Item Recovery (AIR) wizard for Microsoft Exchange. 11 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

12 INFRASTRUCTURE AND PROCESSES This section briefly reminds you of backup and replication infrastructure and processes. For the detailed description, as well as for information on other processes (recovery verification, data recovery, quick migration and so on), please refer to the User Guide and other product resources. You can also view the Veeam Backup & Replication - How It Works online training video. Backup The backup infrastructure comprises the following components: One or more source hosts with associated datastores One or more backup proxy servers Backup repository The source host and the repository produce two terminal points between which VM data is moved. Backup data is collected, transformed and transferred with the help of Veeam agents. Veeam Backup & Replication uses a two-agent architecture one agent interacts with the source host, and the other one interacts with the repository. The agents communicate with each other and maintain a stable connection. All backup infrastructure components engaged for the job make up a data pipe. VM data is moved over this data pipe block by block processing of a single VM includes multiple processing cycles. When a new backup session is started, the target-side agent obtains job instructions and communicates with the source-side agent to begin data collection. 1. The source-side agent accesses a VM image and copies VM data using one of VMware transport modes, as prescribed by the proxy server settings. While copying, the sourceside agent performs additional processing it consolidates the content of virtual disks by filtering out overlapping snapshot blocks, zero-data blocks and blocks of swap files. During incremental job runs, the agent retrieves only those data blocks that have changed since the previous job run. Copied blocks of data are compressed and moved from the source-side agent to the target-side agent. 2. The target-side agent deduplicates similar blocks of data and writes the result to the backup file in the backup repository. After a backup job completes, the resulting backup file is written to the backup repository that you have selected as a backup target. Veeam Backup & Replication creates a full backup file (VBK) during the first run of a backup job. During every subsequent job run, it copies changes that were made to the VM since the last backup, whether full or incremental. Depending on the backup method you select, Veeam Backup & Replication handles incremental changes differently: If you use the incremental backup mode, Veeam Backup & Replication saves incremental changes to an incremental file (VIB) in addition to a full backup file (VBK) on the backup repository. If you use the reversed incremental backup mode, Veeam Backup & Replication injects copied changes to the full backup file, and saves replaced blocks of data as a reversed increment file (VRB) in addition to the full backup file (VBK) on the backup repository. Note To review backup methods in detail, you can refer to the How It Works: Backup Methods section of this document, Veeam Backup & Replication Online Help, or How It Works online training video. Also, in addition to backup files, Veeam Backup & Replication creates a backup metadata file (VBM) that contains information on the backup job, VMs in the backup, number and structure of backup 12 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

13 files, restore points and so on. This metadata file facilitates import of backups and mapping of backup jobs to existing backups. Onsite Backup Backup to Windows or Linux-based Repository To back up to an onsite Windows or Linux-based repository, you need to deploy a backup proxy on a server that has access to the source datastore, and point the backup job to this proxy. In this scenario, the source-side agent is started on the proxy server, and the target-side agent is started on the Windows or Linux repository server. Backup data is sent from the proxy to the repository over LAN: Backup to SMB Share To back up to an onsite SMB share, you need a Windows-based proxying server that has access to the SMB share. This can be either the Veeam Backup server or another Windows server added to the Veeam Backup & Replication console. In this scenario, Veeam Backup & Replication starts the source-side and target-side agents on the same server. Backup data is sent from the proxy to the target SMB share over LAN. Offsite Backup The common requirement for offsite backup is that one Veeam agent runs in the production site (closer to the source datastore), and the other agent runs in the remote target site (closer to the repository). During backup, the agents maintain a stable connection, which allows for uninterrupted operation over WAN or slow links. 13 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

14 Backup to Windows or Linux-based Repository To perform offsite backup to a Windows or Linux-based repository, you need to deploy a backup proxy in the production site, closer to the source datastore. In this scenario, the source-side agent is started on the proxy server, and the target-side agent is started on the Windows or Linux repository server. Backup data is sent from the proxy to the repository over WAN: Backup to SMB Share To back up VMs to an offsite SMB share, you should deploy a backup proxy in the source site and an additional Windows-based proxying server in the remote site. The SMB repository should be configured to point to the target-side proxying server. During backup the source-side agent runs on the source proxy in the production site, and the target-side agent runs on the target proxying server in the remote site. Backup data is transferred between the backup proxy and the proxying server over WAN: Replication As well as backup, replication is a job-driven process; in many ways, it works similarly to forward incremental backup: During the first run of a replication job, Veeam Backup & Replication copies the whole VM image and registers a replicated VM on the target ESX host. During subsequent runs of a job, Veeam Backup & Replication copies only incremental changes, and creates restore points for a VM replica so you can recover your VM to the necessary state. Every restore point is in fact a usual VMware snapshot. 14 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

15 When you perform incremental replication, data blocks that have changed since the last replication cycle are written to the snapshot delta file next to a full VM replica. The number of restore points in the chain depends on your retention policy settings. Replication infrastructure and process is very similar to those used for backup. It includes a source host, a target host with associated datastores, one or two proxy servers and a repository. The source host and the target host produce two terminal points between which replicated data is moved. Replicated data is collected, transformed and transferred with the help of Veeam agents. In addition to source-side agent and agent hosted on a repository, replication process involves a target-side agent that interacts with the target host. The agent hosted on a repository works with replica metadata files. Important Although the replica data is written to the target datastore, certain replica metadata must be located on a backup repository. This metadata is used by the source proxy and thus should be deployed close to the source host. 1. When a new replication session is started, the source-side agent operates in the same way as in backup process. In addition, in all cases when use of VMware CBT is not possible, the source-side agent interacts with the agent hosted on the repository to obtain replica metadata in order to detect what blocks have changed since the previous job run. 2. Copied blocks of data are compressed and moved from the source-side agent to the target-side agent. Note In on-site replication scenarios, the source-side agent and the target-side agent may run on the same backup proxy server. 3. The target-side agent then decompresses replica data and writes the result to the destination datastore. Veeam Backup & Replication supports a number of replication scenarios that depend on the location of the target host and will be discussed later in this guide. During replication cycles, Veeam Backup & Replication creates the following files for a VM replica: A full VM replica (a set of VM configuration files and virtual disks). During the first replication cycle, Veeam Backup & Replication puts these files to the selected datastore to the ReplicaName folder, and registers a VM replica on the target host. Replica restore points (snapshot delta files). During incremental replication, Veeam Backup & Replication creates a snapshot delta file in the same folder, next to a full VM replica. Replica metadata (VBK) used to store replica checksums. Veeam Backup & Replication uses this file to quickly detect changed blocks of data between two replica states. A metadata file is written to the backup repository. During the first run of a replication job, Veeam Backup & Replication creates a replica with empty virtual disks on the target datastore. If the Virtual Appliance mode is applicable, replica virtual disks are mounted to the backup proxy and populated through ESX I/O stack. This results in increased writing speed and fail-safe replication to ESXi targets. To streamline the replication process, you can deploy the backup proxy on a virtual machine. The virtual backup proxy must be registered on an ESX(i) host that has a direct connection to the target datastore. In this case, the backup proxy will be able to use the Virtual Appliance transport mode for writing replica data to target. If the backup proxy is deployed on a physical server, or use of the Virtual Appliance mode is not possible for other reasons, Veeam Backup & Replication will use the Network transport mode to populate replica disk files. 15 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

16 Onsite Replication If the source and target hosts are located in the same site, you can deploy one backup proxy for data processing and a backup repository for storing replica metadata. This backup proxy must have access to the source host and to the target host at the same time. In this scenario, the sourceside agent and the target-side agent will be started on the same backup proxy. Replication traffic will be transferred between the two agents (using low compression). Offsite Replication The common requirement for offsite replication is that one Veeam agent runs in the production site (closer to the source host), and another agent runs in the remote DR site (closer to the target host). During backup, the agents maintain a stable connection, which allows for uninterrupted operation over WAN or slow links. Thus, to replicate across remote sites, you should deploy at least one local backup proxy in each site: 1. A source backup proxy in the production site 2. A target backup proxy in the remote DR site. The backup repository should be deployed in the production site, closer to the source backup proxy. 16 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

17 Tip When planning for off-site replication, consider advanced possibilities to reduce the amount of replication traffic and streamline replica configuration replica seeding, replica mapping, network mapping and re-ip. In this scenario, the following connections need to be open between the Veeam Backup & Replication components: Veeam Backup server should have access to vcenter server, ESX(i) hosts, and both source and target backup proxies. Source backup proxy should have access to the Veeam Backup server, source host, target proxy, and source vcenter server. Target proxy should have access to the Veeam Backup server, source proxy, target host, and target vcenter server. Important If you are planning for offsite replication over WAN, it is strongly recommended that you deploy a proxy server on the target side. With a proxy server set up on the target side, the data will cross the WAN compressed and will be uncompressed by the target proxy. Note that you also can seed the replica job by sending your backup files offsite (using some external media, for example) and then have only incremental job runs. It is also recommended that you install an additional Veeam Backup & Replication server in DR site; there shouldn t be any issues related to the license, since Veeam is licensed by physical CPU socket of source hypervisor host (where protected virtual machines reside), not by Veeam server. In this scenario: Veeam Backup server deployed in the production site will be responsible for backup jobs and/or local replication Veeam Backup server in the DR site will control the remote replication jobs. Thus, in disaster situation all functionality (Failover, Failback and etc.) can be performed by Veeam Backup & Replication Server in DR site without any problems. Additionally, it may be worth installing Enterprise Manager to have visibility across two backup servers, and in case of failover you can manually revoke licenses from the host that is down. Replication bandwidth estimation has always been a challenge, depending on multiple factors such as number and size of VMs, change rate (at least daily, per RPO cycle is ideal), 17 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

18 RPO target, replication window. Full information about these factors, however, is rarely at hand. As an option, you may want to setup backup jobs that mirror what you would do with a replication job, and use the "transferred size" to calculate bandwidth (as this would be the same amount of data used for replication). Also, when replicating VMs to a remote DR site (or performing offsite backup), you can manage network traffic by applying traffic throttling rules or limiting the number of data transfer connections. See User Guide for more information. Recovery & Verification The Veeam vpower NFS service is a Windows service that runs on a Windows-based backup repository server and enables it to act as an NFS server. vpower NFS allows Veeam Backup & Replication to mount a compressed and deduplicated backup file as a regular VMDK file directly to the ESX(i) host via NFS, so ESX(i) hosts get transparent access to backed up VMware VM images. The vpower technology is used to perform the following tasks: Recovery Verification (SureBackup) Instant VM Recovery Multi-OS File-Level Recovery Universal Application-Item Recovery (U-AIR) SureBackup SureBackup is developed to automate and simplify the backup verification process, one of the most crucial parts of data management and protection. It is a feature that allows you to start VMs directly from VM backups in a fenced-off environment and perform backup reliability and availability testing as a routine part of the backup process. To perform recovery verification testing, you need to create an application group required to verify full functionality of backed up VMs, an isolated virtual lab where VMs should be tested, and a recovery verification job. An application group is a group of virtual machines that contains VMs running production applications on which VMs to be verified are dependent. That is, it includes all components and services that should be started to enable fully functional work of VMs you want to test. A virtual lab is an isolated virtual test environment where verified VMs with all components required for their proper operation are started and tested. A virtual lab is created using existing resources in your VI environment and ensures secure integrity and functionality testing for backed up VMs. A recovery verification job aggregates all settings and policies of a recovery verification task, such as required application group, virtual lab to be used and backups of VMs that should be verified in the created environment. When a recovery verification job runs, VMs from the application group are published and then started from backups in the required order and remain running while VMs from verified backups are booted and tested. 18 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

19 During verification, a backed up VM image remains in the read-only state all changes that take place when a VM is running are written to redo log files that are stored on a selected datastore in the production environment. Once the recovery verification process is complete, the redo logs are removed. When performing recovery verification of VM backups, Veeam Backup & Replication runs VMs directly from backup files without restoring them to a production datastore. This is achieved by utilizing the vpower NFS service a Windows service that runs on a Windows-based backup repository server and enables it to act as an NFS server. vpower NFS allows Veeam Backup & Replication to mount a compressed and deduplicated backup file as a regular VMDK file directly to the ESX(i) host via NFS, so ESX(i) hosts get transparent access to backed up VMware VM images. Recovery Veeam Backup & Replication allows you to perform both image-level and file-level restores of backups and replicas. You can restore a virtual machine as a whole to start it on the target ESX server, recover only VM hard disks, VM files (.vmdk..vmx and so on) or VM guest OS files and folders and save them on your local machine. VMs or files can be restored at any of the available restore points. Note The restore process is always performed via the network. When performing instant recovery, Veeam Backup & Replication creates an independent temporary copy of a VM in your VMware environment and immediately starts it (if necessary). You can also use a recovered VM for testing purposes to ensure the VM guest OS and applications are functioning properly. Instant VM recovery does not require you to extract a VM from a backup and move it across datacenter it mounts a VM directly from a compressed backup file on a selected ESX host. 19 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION

20 The archived image of a VM remains in a read-only state to avoid unexpected modifications. All changes to a virtual disk that take place while a VM is running are logged to an auxiliary file on the Veeam Backup server or any datastore you select. These changes are discarded as soon as a restored VM is removed. When you perform file-level recovery for Windows OS, the Veeam agent running on the target host or backup repository mounts the VM file system to the local drive via Veeam's proprietary driver. After that, you can copy necessary files and folders to your local machine drive and save them anywhere within the network or simply point any applications to the files and use them normally. The backup file or replica will remain read-only no matter what you do. For details on data recovery and verification, please refer toveeam Backup & Replication Help, Evaluator s Guide and U-AIR Wizards User Guide; you can also view the Veeam Backup & Replication - How It Works online training video. 20 Veeam Backup & Replication BEST PRACTICES FOR DEPLOYMENT & CONFIGURATION