Adding more than one hotadd backup host to the Netbackup and VMware environment

[DNT]

Hi there

I've been reading up a bit about Netbackup and VMware backup and restore options and architectures, trying to find out how I could make what I've been handed run more efficiently.

The current setup consists of a Solaris 10 Master/Media server (Site 1) and a Solaris 10 Media server (Site 2). The two physical servers are on seperate sites (Site 1 and Site 2).

The VMware environment consists of 1 VCS and 4 ESXi hosts. Two ESXi hosts reside at each site (Site 1 and Site 2), and are also logically seperate with VMware datacenters. The backup host resides at the same site as as the VCS (Site 1) and both are virtual machines.

Datastores and Netbackup servers are using SAN attached FC storage.

Due to hardware and infrastructure constraints, I have to go with the hotadd backup host option. My concern is that the backup host is not in the same datacenter as the all of the VM's that need to be backed up.  Currently it seems all backup traffic goes via the LAN (not a dedicated backup LAN), which is not ideal.

Can I have two hotadd backup hosts, one at each site? Would it be of any benefit? 

Other suggestions to improve the efficiency will be appreciated.

Dean

[RiaanBadenhorst · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Yes that would work better. Configure a policy for each site, and have the local backup host and storage unit in it.

[DNT]

Thanks, Riaan.

I'll give that a go. 

Adding to that, I'm not sure if I'm understanding the documentation I read on zoning for the backup host. I can see and understand how it is done with a physical server as the backup host, but is there FC switch zoning to be done when using a VM as the backup host? This would be to make use of the SAN instead of the LAN for backups and restores, where possible.

[sdo]

Yes - seems like a good idea to perform the backups at the site at which the source data resides, but I guess it somewhat depends upon the location and form of the backup storage targets.  i.e. if using disk based storage units, then do you want source data and backup copies always located at the same site?  If using tape, and not ejecting, then it might be worth backing-up cross-site?

[DNT]

Thanks for the reply.

The backup storage units are disk based. From there they are duplicated to tape and removed from the library for storage.

Cross-site backups would be nice if there was a high performing WAN infrastructure but it is a poor connection, unfortuantely. And, as I have mentioned, there is no dedicated LAN just for backups. It can get quite conjested.

[cruisen]

I am very sorry but i do not understand please can you explain this better to me!

"Due to hardware infrastructure constraints, I have to go with the hotadd backup host option. My concern is that the backup host is not in the same datacenter as the all of the VM's that need to be backed up. Currently it seems all backup traffic goes via the LAN (not a dedicated backup LAN), which is not ideal." 

=====> you need to set the transport mode in the backup host properties, all not local storage will go over Lan.

Buy this I mean and not to be missspeak, that local storage backup is not the same as san.

San backup has no overhead on the ESX.

You said :"Datastores and Netbackup servers are using SAN attached FC storage" . ===> perfect you can use san Transport method. You need to zone the datastores to the mediaservers.

please read: https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH183072.html for better understanding of different transport modes.

Best practices around SAN:

• For using SAN, make sure that datastore LUNs are accessible to the VMware Backup Host.
• SAN transport is usually the best choice for backups when running on a physical VMware Backup Host. However, it is disabled inside virtual machines, so use HotAdd instead on a virtual VMware Backup Host.

Running the VMware Backup server on a virtual machine has two advantages: it is easy to move a virtual machine around and it can also back up local storage without using the LAN, although this incurs more overhead on the physical ESX/ESXi host than when using SAN transport mode.

Check also: Best practices when using advanced transport for backup and restore (1035096)

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1035096

The backup proxy can be a virtual machine or a physical machine. SAN transport is supported only on a physical machine, and HotAdd transport is supported only on a virtual machine. SAN requires a physical proxy to share a LUN with the ESX/ESXi host where a datastore resides, enabling direct access to raw data and bypassing the ESX/ESXi host altogether for I/O operations. HotAdd involves attaching a virtual disk to the backup proxy just like attaching the disk to a virtual machine.

I hope you will find out by ourself that hot add is not the best to go as you are mixing what backup is with the virtual environment. The best would be in my opinion, not to mix both, let backup infra belong to media- robot- disk etc.  and the virtual infra belongs to vm machines.

Best regards,

Cruisen

[DNT]

Hi

You've mentioned a lot. What do you not understand? Let's go step by step and hopefully we come up with a solution.