BE3600 Appliance -> BE2012 VRAY

[chris_vanderlin]

Quick question:

I currently have a BE3600 appliance sitting in Site A working pretty much flawlessly, however I need to create a solution that will allow me to replicate the DeDupe storage across the WAN to a remote site.

My plan is to get a VRAY install setup on Site B, which would be linked as a managed BE server for the BE appliance (will need to purchase the CASO option for the appliance), and then have it replicate the DeDupe storage across the WAN from the Appliance -> VRAY install.

I just want confirmation that this is possible and has successfully been done before, prior to purchasing ~4K in hardware upgrades (drive mainly), as well as a $1200 CASO license for the BE Appliance.

If the above is a valid solution, which server should become the CASO to properly do the Optomized dedupe across the WAN?  I believe documentation is leading me to believe that the VRAY install should get the CASO option, but would like some advice regarding this.

Thanks!

[Jaydeep_S]

The VRAY in site B is better to be a CAS. Here are the Best practices for Deduplication option which would give you better insight about this.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO74447

[pkh]

At Site B, do you have a lot of VM's? If not then you don't need the V-Ray edition. It may be cheaper for you to get the normal Be with the debut option

[chris_vanderlin]

I am now looking at doing it a little different:

Primary Site (SITE A) -> Appliance backs up VMs as normal

SITE A is set to replicate all VMs across the wire to Hyper-V host in SITE B

SITE B has a server with V-RAY edition installed, that will backup all VMs on the host in SITE-B

(all the VMs & all replicas).

My question here is that it looks like Microsoft says backing up a replica VM in your DR site is not supported, however it seems that BE 2012 does this without issues

http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=13383 (and see related post that he links to).

My understanding is that when Hyper-V shows the status of the replica VM as 'backing up', any replication jobs will get paused or immediatly fail, meaning that it should have a consistent, clean backup of that VM per it's last replica update.

Has anyone deployed a similiar scenario like this before?

Thanks!