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First Look – Leveraging the Nimble Secondary Flash Array with Veeam – Setup guide

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Following on with the setup guide of the Nimble Secondary Flash Array, I am going to go through the deployment options, and the settings needed for implementation with Veeam Backup and Replication.

What will be covered in this blog post?

  • Quick overview of the SFA
  • Deployment Options
    • Utilizing features of Veeam with the SFA
    • Using a backup repository LUN
  • Best practices to use as backup repository
    • Veeam Proxy – Direct SAN Access
    • Creating your LUN on the SFA for use as a backup repository
    • Setting up your backup repository in Veeam
    • vPower NFS Service on the mount server
    • Backup Job settings
    • SureBackup / SureReplica
    • Backup Job – Nimble Storage Primary Snapshot – Configure Secondary destinations for this job
    • Encryption – Don’t do it in Veeam!
  • Viewing data reduction savings on the Nimble Secondary Storage
  • Summary

My test lab looks similar to the below diagram provided by Veeam (Benefits of using Nimble SFA with Veeam).

Nimble Storage Veeam Architecture diagram

Quick overview of the SFA

The SFA is essentially the same as the previous Nimble Storage devices before it, the same hardware and software. But with one key difference, the software has been optimized against data reduction and space-saving efficiencies, rather than for performance. Which means you would purchase the Nimble CS/AF range for production workloads, with high IOP performance and low latency. And the SFA would be used for your DR environment, backup solution, providing the same low latency to allow for high-speed recovery, and long-term archival of data.

Deployment options

With the deployment of an SFA, you are looking at roughly the same deployment options as the CS/AF array for use with Veeam (This blog, Veeam Blog). However with the high dedupe expectancy, you are able to store a hell of a lot more data!

So the options are as follows;

  1. iSCSI or FC LUN to your server as a Veeam Backup Repo.
    • Instant VM Recovery
    • Backup Repository
    • SureBackup / SureReplica
    • Virtual Labs
  2. Replication Target for an existing Nimble.
    • Utilizing Veeam Storage Integration
      • Backup VMs from Secondary Storage Snapshot
      • Control Nimble Storage Snapshot schedules and replication of volumes

If we take option one, we open up a few options directly with Veeam. You can use the high IOPs performance and low latency, for features such as Instant VM recovery, where by the Veeam Backup and Replication server hosts an NFS datastore to your virtual environment and spins up a running copy of your recovered virtual machine quickly with little fuss.

Veeam Instant VM Recovery Continue reading First Look – Leveraging the Nimble Secondary Flash Array with Veeam – Setup guide →

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First look at Veeam 9.5 & Nimble Storage Integration – Part 2

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This is a continuation piece regarding the integration of Nimble Storage to the Veeam Backup & Replication software in the upcoming release 9.5.

Part 1

  • So what does the integration give us?
  • The test environment
  • Adding the Nimble Storage Array into Veeam
    • Configuration
    • Nimble Audit Logs

Part 2

  • Now we’ve added the Nimble Storage Array
  • What can we do with Snapshots?
    • Controlling Nimble Storage  snapshots and restoring files from the Veeam console
    • Backing up a Virtual Machine from a Nimble Snapshot
    • Backing up a Virtual machine to a Nimble Snapshot (Snapshot-only Job)
    • Replicating a Virtual Machine from a Nimble Snapshot
  • SureBackup from Nimble Snapshots

Following on from part one of this first look two part blog series, where we added the Nimble Storage Arrays into the Veeam software, we continue to see how this integration piece works.

Now we have added the Nimble Storage Array

So before we get started, we can now see the datastores of the Nimble Storage Array, and the snapshots of each datastore. In the second screenshot, we can see the enumeration of VMware virtual machines and which host they are were attached to.

Adding Nimble Storage to Veeam - Storage Infrastructure - Nimble Array and SnapshotsAdding Nimble Storage to Veeam - Storage Infrastructure - Nimble Array and Snapshots 02

Controlling Nimble Storage  snapshots

Continue reading First look at Veeam 9.5 & Nimble Storage Integration – Part 2 →

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First look at Veeam 9.5 & Nimble Storage Integration – Part 1

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As a part of the Veeam Vanguard program, I have been given access to the beta version of Veeam 9.5. And in this blog post I will cover some of the integration components between Nimble Storage and Veeam, announced by Veeam back in April. If you have been following the Veeam forums, then you’ll know that there is a very active post where the forum users are all pitching in which storage vendor they think should be next to get integration.

Note: This blog post content is created from a beta version of Veeam 9.5, any features, dialog boxes, names and such are subject to change before the final public release.

What I’ll be covering in these series of blog posts;

Part 1

  • So what does the integration give us?
  • The test environment
  • Adding the Nimble Storage Array into Veeam
    • Configuration
    • Nimble Audit Logs

Part 2

  • Now we’ve added the Nimble Storage array
  • What can we do with Snapshots?
    • Controlling Nimble Storage  snapshots and restoring files from the Veeam console
    • Backing up a Virtual Machine from a Nimble Snapshot
    • Backing up a Virtual machine to a Nimble Snapshot
    • Replicating a Virtual Machine from a Nimble Snapshot
  • SureBackup from Nimble Snapshots
So what does the integration give us?

I think the below extract from this article by Clint Wyckoff sums it up best.

Veeam's advanced integration with Nimble Storage provides additional protection and recovery options that are not available without direct integration and joint development efforts that provide the ability to:

    - Schedule the creation of Nimble storage snapshots containing application-consistent VM images, and storage snapshot replication orchestration.

    - Restore from Nimble storage snapshots or their Replicated Copies (entire VM, guest files and application items)

    - Backup from Nimble storage snapshots or their Replicated Copies.

The only other company to have this kind of integration is NetApp, showing this high regards Nimble Storage are held in from Veeam. But also showing that Nimble Storage has been a dedicated partner working with Veeam over the past few years, and its paying off with this integration offering.

Veeam and Nimble Storage Integration - Feature comparison table

The test environment

Luckily for me, Veeam have produced a reference architecture diagram which pretty much describes the test environment used in this preview blog post. In this environment there will be no Tape nor cloud connect components.

Veeam-Nimble-Storage-Integration-Topology

Adding the Nimble Storage Array into Veeam 9.5

Continue reading First look at Veeam 9.5 & Nimble Storage Integration – Part 1 →