Veeam Backup & Replication: tips and tricks. Part 1 / Veeam Software Blog

On May 17, the next VMware Users Community Group was held in Moscow. Veeam, as usual, did not attend this event. I was going to tell a presentation about how to take into account all aspects for the correct construction of a backup system based on Veeam Backup & Replication software - based on last year's presentation at VMworld.

But after preparing all the slides, I realized that the topic is vast enough to fit into the framework of a short presentation. And the presentation slide format itself is not very suitable for her. Plus, I didn’t want to load people with text. In general, at the very last moment before the start of the presentation, having received several questions about the innovations of version 7, I changed the presentation topic to “Veeam Backup & Replication History”, where I talked about what was, what we have now, and what we plan to do in the next version.

The topic of how to configure Veeam Backup has remained relevant. In addition, during the speech, and much more - after it, I received technical questions, which I intend to cover in a series of articles. And most importantly - ask questions here in the comments, and we will answer them.

Before moving on to today's topic, I’ll point out one question that I was asked on the VMUG forum. When will Veeam Backup back up data not through VMware snapshots, but “iron” storage snapshots? At that time I could not voice it, but now I fully answer: from version 7 Veeam Backup will be able to copy data from SAN snapshots. Initially, HP hardware will be supported: LeftHand (including VSA) and 3PAR.
The principle is simple: now there is Veeam Explorer for SAN Snapshots, which allows you to pull data from snapshots. With this technology and VMware Changed Block Tracking (CBT), Veeam Backup will incrementally retrieve data already for backups.

And now for the first part of the tips:

Copy Modes in Veeam Backup

Briefly, the Veeam Backup backup architecture looks like this: the
Veeam Backup server starts the task and determines the optimal Veeam Backup Proxy for copying data. Veeam Backup Proxy pulls out data from vSphere virtual machines, deduplicates data, archives and streams it to Veeam Backup Repository. Veeam Backup Repository writes data to disk in backup copies, and also monitors the policy of storing copies: for example, it collects full synthetic copies if necessary.

At the same time, Veeam Backup Proxy can be a physical server or a virtual machine with MS Windows, and the methods for retrieving data can be: over the SAN network, through VMware Hot Add technology, or over the LAN network.

Here about these methods, what they are and what it is worth paying attention to and the story will go further.

Direct SAN Access (Direct SAN Access)

How it works

We present Veeam Backup Proxy to VMFS with virtual machine disks. During copying, the proxy reads the necessary data blocks directly from the storage system.

Good

1. This mode is considered the fastest way to copy. But I’ll immediately note that over a 10G network, data can be copied faster.
2. The method gives the least impact on the virtual infrastructure:
   
   • Firstly, because the copying process itself is completely submitted to dedicated proxy servers, and is not carried out on the hosts of the hypervisor;
   • Traffic is isolated by SAN (LAN-free)

poorly

1. Only block access to storage is supported. Those. does not work for NFS storage.
2. For work with FC - storages physical servers are required. A VM with a dedicated, presented physical FC adapter will not work. And this moment does not fit very well into the project for total infrastructure virtualization. On the other hand, you can get busy with old servers on which hypervisors will not be deployed, but be sure to read the recommendations section below.
3. It's not for beginners. It requires knowledge of how to configure SAN hosts. Need to plan.
4. Requires SAN configuration: mapping, zonning.

Evil

Here are three easy ways to hurt yourself:

1. Enable Windows Explorer auto-mount to recognize new drives (enabled by default)
2. Mindless clatter in the Disk Management console. “O-pa! Some discs here! ”
3. Issuance of the rights of the local Administrator "on the ball."

The worst thing that can happen is that Windows will “take over” LUNs with VMFS, and vSphere will no longer be able to recognize them as its datastores. But no panic! VMware Support can fix this. And secondly, read the “Safe Way” to avoid this situation.

Safe way

1. Present the VMFS LUNs to the backup proxy servers in read-only mode.
2. Disable auto-mount on backup proxy servers.
   Installing Veeam Backup Proxy does it yourself. But if you want to present disks before installing proxies on the server, then use the utility diskpart. And keep in mind that it is better to do this through SAN Policy(OfflineShared), and not AutoMount.
   
3. Disable the Disk Management snap-in through Group Policy:
   User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Window Components > Microsoft Management Console > Restricted/Permitted snap-ins > Disk Management

Tips & Tricks

1. If you have a modern fast SAN, and you want to get the most out of it (i.e. copy speed) from Direct SAN Access mode, then use modern servers for Veeam Backup Proxy. Yes, this is somewhat contrary to the recommendation to use old equipment, but ultimately it is up to you: save on equipment or save on time (speeding up the process).
2. Update firmware and server drivers (especially if the server is physical), SAN equipment, FC cards.
3. Disabling MPIO (aka Multi-Path Input / Output, it's just multipassing) on ​​a Veeam Backup Proxy server can improve performance. If you put MPIO, then most often everything is better to install software from the hardware manufacturer, and not Windows MPIO.
4. For iSCSI SAN on Veeam Backup Proxy, optimize TCP / IP for better performance: netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
5. Increase read-ahead buffers. By default, 4MB, which is optimal for most SANs. However, in some cases, increasing it may help. On the main Veeam Backup server in the registry, create a new value in bytes: VddkPreReadBufferSize(DWORD)
6. Look about your specific glands in the official forum: http://forums.veeam.com/viewforum.php?f=2

useful links

1. Learn more about the new features of Veeam Backup & Replication v7
2. Download Veeam Backup & Replication Free - Veeam Backup Free Edition
3. Read more about the new v7 feature - backup using hardware snapshots.