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Veeam Replication use case


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Can someone enlighten me on my queries?

 

If I have to replicate the backup from Prod to DR, what will be the best approach?

I believed you can install veeam in the VMware Prod only then Replicate the VM directly to the DR VMware environment, it means no Veeam Mgmt in the DR installed, but on the failback what will the approach for that?

 

I handled other backup before, on Arcserve I must have arcserve on both sites to do the replication, is that approach is feasible to veeam? must have both veeam mgmt for prod and dr

 

If customer have exisiting vsphere replication for critical apps. Do I need to maximize the CDP feature instead of veeam replication?

Thanks :)

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Best answer by JMeixner 8 February 2022, 11:37

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I would say best practice is to install the Veeam server on the DR Site. So you have your Veeam Server at hand in the case there is a disaster at your prod site. Otherwise you have to rebuild your Veeam Server with the configuration backup at the DR site if the prod site is destroyed.

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I would say best practice is to install the Veeam server on the DR Site. So you have your Veeam Server at hand in the case there is a disaster at your prod site. Otherwise you have to rebuild your Veeam Server with the configuration backup at the DR site if the prod site is destroyed.

This is generally the recommended approach, you can deploy Veeam components to your production site whilst having the B&R server itself located remotely

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I would say best practice is to install the Veeam server on the DR Site. So you have your Veeam Server at hand in the case there is a disaster at your prod site. Otherwise you have to rebuild your Veeam Server with the configuration backup at the DR site if the prod site is destroyed.

@MicoolPaul @JMeixner Thanks. What do you mean by “configuration backup”? 


if i will install veeam in Dr environment, is that requires a same specs in Prod. If I have 2cpu, 64gb ram, and 30th storage, veeam Dr must have the same specs as well?

 

 

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A configuration Backup is a backup of your Veeam database. This is a must have. Otherwise you cannot recreate your Veeam Server with your existing configuration.

Create a configuration backup once a day and keep some versions of it… And copy them to several locations, because Veeam itself is able to create it in one Repository only.

 

I cannot say much to your specs, because I don’t know your environment and requirements.

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A configuration Backup is a backup of your Veeam database. This is a must have. Otherwise you cannot recreate your Veeam Server with your existing configuration.

Create a configuration backup once a day and keep some versions of it… And copy them to several locations, because Veeam itself is able to create it in one Repository only.

 

—- noted on that.

 

 

I cannot say much to your specs, because I don’t know your environment and requirements.

— the Prod veeam Mgmt have 2cpu, 64gb ram and total of 30tb storage, with short retention and total of 60vms. Able to replicate the backup in the Dr ( were done via replication directly in the vmware Dr) If the best approach is to install veeam as well in the Dr, do have at the est of veeam specs in Dr?

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

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You’ll be migrating the VBR management VM from production to DR or creating a new one and migrating the config backup, in either scenario yes you’ll want the same specification 🙂

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Normally you have one Veeam server only. and best practices say to put it on the DR site. From there the server can do its work on the prod site.

Another possible solution is to put the Veeam Server on the Prod site and a similar or equal equipped machine on the DR site and rebuild the Veeam Server on this machine after a disaster struck. For this you need the configuration backups of the Veeam server database. And you need it at the DR site, so be sure to copy it to both sites. This is the solution we have realized for several of our customers.

So, if you can afford to put a second server with the same configuration to the DR site, you can do it.

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You’ll be migrating the VBR management VM from production to DR or creating a new one and migrating the config backup, in either scenario yes you’ll want the same specification 🙂

Ok, if it is a VM…

I assumed a hardware server :sunglasses:

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You’ll be migrating the VBR management VM from production to DR or creating a new one and migrating the config backup, in either scenario yes you’ll want the same specification 🙂

Ok, if it is a VM…

I assumed a hardware server :sunglasses:

The Veeam Mgmt in prod is physical server with attached NAS of 30tb usable 😊.  Then we will replicate the VMs from Prod to Dr using the Veeam Mgmt prod console and it will goes directly to Dr VMware environment , it consumed the Dr resources of vmware not the Veeam Dr similar specs and equal equipped like Veeam Prod?

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You should have only one Veeam B&R management server in this scenario and it should live at the DR site, you can have the backup proxy & repository components remotely on the server connected to the NAS if that remains in production. But if you’re replicating your VMs (as opposed to backups and backup copies) then you’ll likely want to create a failover plan and possibly use features such as network mapping or Re-IP. So Veeam will need to “survive” to apply the reconfiguration to your VM replicas you wish to bring online. Otherwise you’d have to restore Veeam first or manually make these configuration changes.

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Can someone enlighten me on my queries?

 

If I have to replicate the backup from Prod to DR, what will be the best approach?

I believed you can install veeam in the VMware Prod only then Replicate the VM directly to the DR VMware environment, it means no Veeam Mgmt in the DR installed, but on the failback what will the approach for that?

 

I handled other backup before, on Arcserve I must have arcserve on both sites to do the replication, is that approach is feasible to veeam? must have both veeam mgmt for prod and dr

 

If customer have exisiting vsphere replication for critical apps. Do I need to maximize the CDP feature instead of veeam replication?

Thanks :)

If you choose the Veeam as DR solution, suggest to deploy VBR server in DR site and replicate the Prod VMs to the DR site. The vSphere cluster is managed by a vCenter in each site (Prod and DR).

VMware vSphere Replication (VR) supports the minimum 5 min RPO, CDP is not supported. And VR is not supported the failover test. Suggest to replace VR by VBR.

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I would say best practice is to install the Veeam server on the DR Site. So you have your Veeam Server at hand in the case there is a disaster at your prod site. Otherwise you have to rebuild your Veeam Server with the configuration backup at the DR site if the prod site is destroyed.

Agree, always better to do a ‘pull’ replication than a ‘push’ replication

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Hello,

 

It is also a good recommendation to have veeam server and repo in Prod site to backup VMs from Prod and then replicate some of the VM in Dr VMware site? and then backup the Configuration Settings of Veeam going to DR site? So if there is disaster failure we can install Veeam in DR and "import” the Backup Settings copy of Veeam to able get the Veeam Prod settings setup. Thanks

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As I have written above, you can do this. But then you will have more work in disaster case, because you have to rebuild your VBR server at the DR site.

In a disaster case you will have enough stress and will be happy about every task you don't have to do at this time...

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Great responses here. As suggested, you should keep your phys Prod VBR server and use for backups and/or backup copies, then for DR create a 2nd VBR VM & use solely for Replication to replicate your Prod VM backups to your DR site. This way if your main/Prod site goes down, you’ll have a Veeam server to perform DR tasks on. And I recommend you Replicate your vCenter VM to your DR site. In a DR situation, you’ll need to get tihs powered on a direct ESXi Host on your DR site before you can begin your DR tasks.

Your DR Veeam server VM doeesn’t require the same specs as your Prod phys server. Assuming you create a VM for your DR Veeam server, you don’t need nor would you want to use 64GB RAM for the Veeam VM. Just follow Veeam’s recommendation for sizing for Veeam VM servers in their helpcenter here

And, Veeam is going away from socket-based licensing (has been trying to get customers off this for a few yrs now), but “official” end date isn’t until 1 July of this yr. So, if you are using socket-based licensing as I still do in my environment, one licensing note you may not have realized - only your *source* Hosts require licensing..not target Hosts (refer to Socket Licensing section here). Knowing this can save you a bit of $$ on licensing.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

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