Category Archives: Veeam

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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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Video Blogs I appeared on at #VeeamON

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Whilst attending VeeamON conference in New Orleans I had the chance to speak on two different video logs, three recordings.

  • Tim Smith – Tim’s Tech Thoughts
  • Dave Kawula MSDN – Channel9 page

First up Ransomware Talk with fellow Veeam Vanguards – Covering the big topic of the week ransomware, as the title states.

Second the first Channel 9 episode

Episode 64 – Interview with Dean Lewis at VeeamON 2017 – Covering what we are looking forward to at the VeeamON conference, the growth and important of Office365.

And then last, a follow up episode on MSDN Channel 9.

Episode 70 – Interview with Dean Lewis at VeeamON 2017 – another chat around Ransomware, Veeam VAO, the importance of documentation and finally things to think about when testing your DR environment and failover plans.

Regards

Dean


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#VeeamON 2017 Announcements – Now the dust has settled

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The dust settled as my aeroplane wheels landed at Heathrow on Saturday 20th May. VeeamON. So now its time to digest, and detail the information from the worlds premier availability conference, VeeamON.

Veeam is now 10 years old! So its out with the old and in with the new logo!

Veeam old new logo

It’s hard to believe that the logo on the left has been knocking around for so long.

So lets dive into the announcements.

Veeam Backup and Replication v10;
  • NAS Backup – the support for backing up File Shares and NAS devices, and the ability to restore point in time file versions, or file share state.

Veeam v10 Backup Nas Storage Settings

  • Continuous Data Protection (CDP) – utilizing VMware’s vSphere API for I/O Filtering (VAIO) (meaning no snapshots), Veeam has built upon its technology to allow for data protection down to seconds, rather than minutes. The feel and look of the UI settings are that akin to the replication features. Unlike competitors, there is no need for agents inside your virtual machines, or unsupported changes to your VMware environment.

Veeam v10 CDP Settings

  • Full support for physical devices – customers cried out, Veeam listened. There is a need to protect physical workloads, Veeam first produced Endpoint Backup as a free product. Then added enterprise sauce ontop which included support. Now you can fully control your agent backups via the Veeam Backup and Replication Console, including automated deployment. Protect your Workstations, Servers and Failover Clusters.
  • Scale-out Repository Archive Tier – Providing you the ability to send your backups to cheaper storage (think online; Amazon S3, Amazon Glacier, Azure Storage Blobs). With a varying degree of options around thing, its easier to control your sprawling GFS setups, and makes it easier to keep a tight control of data which needs to be retained for a number of years.

Veeam v10 Scale Out Repository Archive Tier Amazon S3 Glacier Azure

  • Oracle RMAN support – allowing users to seamlessly stream RMAN backups into Veeam repositories and easily perform UI-driven restores from backups using a Veeam console.
  • Enterprise Manager enhancements – role-based access control to establish self-service backup and restore functionality for VMware workloads based on vCenter Server permissions.

I attended a session with Anton Gostev, no introductions needed, who was providing a deep dive on v10. You can see the recording below.

62b7742f038634253d6376a0bf05722d6d912768

NEW Veeam Availability Suite v10 – Coming soon

Veeam Availability for AWS

Continue reading #VeeamON 2017 Announcements – Now the dust has settled →

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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 →