I think this KB will help answer most of the questions you have depending on the vendor you are using - KB1745: Deduplication Appliance Best Practices

As always, it depends. I think both options have advantages, and depending on the system, they can of course also be combined. If the requirement is “single GUI, all settings from one interface,” then I would use all the features that are available natively in Veeam, e.g., with copy jobs.  

However, there are systems such as Exagrid that also have native replication and, in this case, WAN acceleration, for example. Perhaps this works more efficiently?

Furthermore, it wasn't long ago that Veeam still had problems creating copy jobs from copy jobs, for example, so it can be helpful to do this using the native tools of the deduplication appliance.

Finally, I would say that this could also be a security aspect—if you assume that the backup server is compromised, wouldn't it be nice to have another copy that you can't see in the Veeam GUI? This is exactly what can be achieved with system-native replication.

Matze

This very much depends on the system, but usually the hardware vendor know their product, and there are pros/cons to both ways. 

If the Hardware vendor are recommending it, I’d usually go with their decision based on best practices to get the most out of the system.    

Chris posted a link to some of the largest players and how to setup with Veeam.  If you follow those documents you can’t go wrong. 

If you pick a specific hardware vendor I can provide more specific help as they all operate slightly different. 

Veeam generally recommends leveraging their own backup copy mechanism, as most, if not all, storage replication techniques are not content aware, meaning that if something is wrong on the first copy, it will arrive to the second storage in the same state. And in contradicts the 321 rule, where for 2 we need to use 2 separate media.

Backup copy works great, however, if you look at something like ExaGrid they will recommend you use theirs due to the significant decrease in bandwidth to send data over long distances. 

Deduplication should never be your primary backup, so if you are replicating deduplicated storage, technically you will be hitting 3-2-1. 

I always recommend testing with Dedupe, as while it can save costs and space, the performance hits are sometimes a lot more than advertised or “sold”  

Certainly, but very often I am seeing them being used as primary and as secondary specifically due to the replication feature. And for the third copy I would prefer tape, or a cloud storage… Or increasing the link

Just keep in mind that when using Dedup appliances as primary backup that restores will suffer if you have low RPO/RTOs.

Hi ​@carlosalcosta 

If retention policies and GFS are important in your environment, I recommend using Veeam managed replication. It offers flexibility and aligns better with Veeam data lifecycle management. Hardware replication can be used as a complement, but it should not be the only method unless the appliance supports deep integration with Veeam such as Data Domain with DD Boost or HPE StoreOnce Catalyst.

Also, Chris’s reference to KB1745 is spot on; it’s a must-read when working with deduplication appliances.