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replication of hyper-v server

Alex13
Level 3

Hello,

I have 2 server that are hosting number of virtual machine using Hyper-V.

I want to replicate number of this hyper-v server to a third host, so that in case of host failure I could immediately put this crucial hyper-v servers online from this third server.

how do I do this using BE16?

what will be the time deference between the replica? and what will be the minimum time that I could replicate?

how demanding will it be on the production server I/O the replication process ?

ThanksRobot Happy

2 ACCEPTED SOLUTIONS

Accepted Solutions

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

You don't replicate the VM - you just start it from the latest backup set so the frequency depends on your backup job's frequency and the speed of power up will depend on the performance of your BE server's storage, the performance of the BE server's OS and the network between the BE srever and the hyper-visor host. Typically it would be slightly longer than the original power on of the virtual server was prior to your disaster.

 

The running VM should not be affected in a noticeable way during the backup process.

 

BTW Backup Exec is not a replication product so if you truely are after contiunuous realtime replication of all changes in the VM then you are looking at the wrong product and should be looking a High Availability / Replication Products for the Hypervisor itself and not be looking at "Backup" products - although you will still need a backup product as human errors get replicated and therefore need recovery from a system that is not part of replication. (bear in mind that whatever form of replication gets implemented may need to be confirmed as supported by whichever backup product is in use , for instance if if VSS is affected by replication then this might limit adversely affect a backup product or vice-versa)

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Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

I don't think a backup product will help you, you need to look at other types of software. I believe Veeam is a backup product so whilst it might work differently from Backup Exec it may have similar limitations/concepts.

Something like Veritas Storage Foundation might help you as per:

https://sort-static.veritas.com/public/documents/sfha/6.0/windows/productguides/pdf/SFW_VCS_HyperV_S...

 

However please note I have no actual training on Storage Foundation and you will have to post any further questions to a more appropriate community forum.

 

You should probably be aware that what you are trying to do is typically a high end enterprise feature - which kind of means significant hardware and software costs to implement a solution and would normally mean a consultant should be engaged implement a suitable design.

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14 REPLIES 14

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Hi,

Do you want to replicate VMs from 1 H-V host to another? Or the config of the one H-V server to the other? In this case, Hyper-V would start up VMs on surviving nodes so you might not want to replicate VMs as it's going to cause unnecessary resource usage.

If you want to replicate the config, your question might be more for a Microsoft forum.

Thanks!

Thanks for you reply!

I want to have 2 copies of the vm (the vhd and the config) and replicate it to another host where the VM will be off until I need to fail it over.

I know you can use the HYPER-V Replication option but I wonder if there is a better option using the BE.

I hear about the dedup but didn't fully understand what I get from this.

 

My main goal is to have a DR for my 4 crucial servers that in case of a host failure have the minimal downtime.

 

Thanks again!

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

If you run backup to fixed disk (not to tape, deduplication or Removable Disk Cartride/RDX), then Backup Exec 16 has a feature called Instant Recovery which allows a Hyper-Visor Host (Hyper-V or VMware) to start the backup up virtual machine directly from the backup storage on the BE server (over SMB or NFS shares). It will start the virtual machine with networking disabled (to cover scenarios where your original system is not down) but this is quick to change if original server has suffered a disaster.

This recovery can be sent to a different host and once running you can use tools within Hyper-V or VMware to migrate the Insantly Recovered Server back to storage owned by the Hyper-Visor host (if this is an actual disater and you want the temporary power up to become permenant.)

The host you restore to should probably be in same LAN for two reasons:

1) starting a VM across NFS or SMB shares wil not run as quick as it was in the original production setup and would be slower across a WAN link

2) The IP addresses inside the VM will be part of the range of the original LAN

As such you might want to read up/ research this ability to see if it wil help with your thoughts

Thanks a lot for this replay!

In this scenario, How often culd I replicate the VM?

So that the backup could be as close tho the source as possible, like 15-30 seconds.

Is it possible? and how will this effect the running VM? will it be noticeable slower due to the repeated backing up?

thank you!

 

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

You don't replicate the VM - you just start it from the latest backup set so the frequency depends on your backup job's frequency and the speed of power up will depend on the performance of your BE server's storage, the performance of the BE server's OS and the network between the BE srever and the hyper-visor host. Typically it would be slightly longer than the original power on of the virtual server was prior to your disaster.

 

The running VM should not be affected in a noticeable way during the backup process.

 

BTW Backup Exec is not a replication product so if you truely are after contiunuous realtime replication of all changes in the VM then you are looking at the wrong product and should be looking a High Availability / Replication Products for the Hypervisor itself and not be looking at "Backup" products - although you will still need a backup product as human errors get replicated and therefore need recovery from a system that is not part of replication. (bear in mind that whatever form of replication gets implemented may need to be confirmed as supported by whichever backup product is in use , for instance if if VSS is affected by replication then this might limit adversely affect a backup product or vice-versa)

Thanks a lot for clearing thing up for me!

So if I understand correctly the BE have no "real" solution for replication (Real time/close to real time).

So if I need to replicate a VM I need some other solution.

In BE I can do a Instant Recovery witch will let me run the VM from the place this backup stored so I will not lose time while I am restoring it to new location. But this solution will not let me do a real replication (10-30 sec gap).

Can you please confirm that I understand it correctly?

Thanks a lot!

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Yep correct - the only things that BE does that could loosely be called replication (but not real time) is duplication of deduplicated backup sets between two BE servers - but as deduplication is not compatible with Instant Recovery and it is still based on scheduled jobs it is still not real time replication of all changes (so is unlikely to help you)

Thanks!

Can you suggest a software that will be good at a real time hyper v replication?

Do you know if veeam is any good at this?

 

and again, thank you for the help!

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

I don't think a backup product will help you, you need to look at other types of software. I believe Veeam is a backup product so whilst it might work differently from Backup Exec it may have similar limitations/concepts.

Something like Veritas Storage Foundation might help you as per:

https://sort-static.veritas.com/public/documents/sfha/6.0/windows/productguides/pdf/SFW_VCS_HyperV_S...

 

However please note I have no actual training on Storage Foundation and you will have to post any further questions to a more appropriate community forum.

 

You should probably be aware that what you are trying to do is typically a high end enterprise feature - which kind of means significant hardware and software costs to implement a solution and would normally mean a consultant should be engaged implement a suitable design.

Replication is not a disaster recovery option. Whatever you end up doing, make sure you create actual backups (3-2-1 rule) so you have something for actual disaster recovery.

Thank you for your reply!

I do have backups running, I don't know what is the 3-2-1 rule, if you will explain this or point me to an replication it will be great!

I need a live replication for a minimal down time to our main server and I think the best way is a live replication, also I will have  VM backup with option to an instant vm recovery.

Any suggestions will be appreciated Robot Happy

thanks!

 

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

the 3-2-1 rule is

Always have 3 copies of your data

Store the copies on 2 different media types

Keep at least one copy offsite

--------

And to explain why backups are important even if you do replication - think of this scenario.

An employee modifies the contents of some files incorrectly, also deletes some that should not be deleted. (this could be accidental or in some cases malicious behavior)

This activity is not immediately noticed and all these changes are therefore not only made to the original files but also to all replica copies.

Eventually the problems start to be noticed - how do you recover your original data if you have not backed it up in addition to replication.

Also with replication products make sure you know how to stop replication as we have seen scenarios where a disk is replaced with replicatioon still enabled - and the 'empty' content of the replacement disk replicates over all the replicas of the original disk and deletes the data

 

 

Honestly with what you have given us as your network I would just go with HyperV replica server, or if you have the structure and licensing MS storage replica. High availability isn't something you can do with basic replication.

Thanks.

I think I will go with my bacbackup and using the embedded hyper-v replication.

I thinking of backing up the replication so the IO will be there and not on the running VM, what you think about that? Is it a safe strategy backing up the replication VM and not the running one?

And again, thanks a lot for all the help and the suggestions!