In its product list, Qnap has a lot of enterprise-grade NAS that offer redundant power supply, 10Gb/s network adapters, tiering (Qtier), caching and 2x NVMe location (M.2 2280). These NAS can support enough drives to fit your need. To write this topic, I used a TS-873U. With the rails and an additional 4Gb memory, I paid this NAS 1650€. If you require more drives, you can choose the TS-1673U-RP with 64GB of memory for 3500€. For a company, I think they are cheap.

I built the following configuration (not full optimized because I didn’t want to buy new SSD / NVMe / HDD):

• Cache acceleration (Read / Write): 2x Crucial MX500 500GB => RAID 1
• Storage Pool (Qtier):
  • High Speed tier: 2x SSD Intel S3610 500GB => RAID 1
  • Capacity tier: 4x HDD Western Digital 2TB Red PRO => RAID 6

Let’s see how to configure step-by-step this Qnap to get good performance.

NAS initialization

First of all, download QFinder Pro from this URL. In order that QFinder Pro discover your NAS, make sure you are in the same network subnet. From my side, I connected directly my laptop to a 1Gb/s port. Then run QFinder Pro. The tool should discover your NAS, on the first window, just click on Next.

Then a web browser is open to start the configuration. Just click on Start Smart Installation Guide.

In the next window, provide a NAS name and the admin password.

Then specify the NTP server. Currently it won’t work because the NAS is not connected to the production network.

Then fill the network settings.

Next choose which file transfer service you want to enable. I choose only the Windows services.

Because I need to configure Qtier, cache acceleration and so on, I choose to Configure disks later.

I choose to not enable the multimedia functions.

Finally click on Apply to start the configuration of the NAS.

Update the firmware

When the NAS is ready, check the firmware version and update the NAS. Navigate to Control Panel | System | Firmware Update. Because the NAS has currently no Internet connection, I downloaded the firmware from QNAP website and I used it to update the NAS.

Click on OK to update the firmware.

Network configuration

N.B: In this example, I didn’t implement the most optimize network solution. Because I have 2x 10Gb/s ports, I should implement one IP per adapter and use iSCSI / MPIO. But I use also my NAS to store data such as movies, ISO, VHDX, VMDK etc. and fetch them with SMB. This is why I chose to implement a NIC teaming. But if the only NAS purpose is backup, I recommend you to not implement NIC teaming.

Open the Network & Virtual Switch panel and navigate to Interfaces. Click on Port Trunking.

Then click on Add.

Select the 10Gb/s adapters. In this example they are called Adapter 5 and Adapter 6.

Next choose General Switch (most common).

Next choose Balance-alb. I selected this mode because according to the QNAP documentation, it provides the best performance.

Now your trunk is created, and you can click on Close.

In Network & Virtual Switch, in the trunk click on configure.

Fill the network settings and specify a Jumbo Frame of 9000. To leverage Jumbo Frame, this configuration must be applied on the switches and on the backup server(s).

Then I set the VLAN number.

Now you can plug the NAS to your production network with the 10Gb/s network adapter.

Create the storage pool

Open Storage & Snapshots and create a Storage Pool. Click on Enable Qtier.

In SSD tab, select the SSD and in SATA tab choose the HDD.

Then click on Create.

Once the storage pool is created the wizard asks you if you want to create a new volume. If you chose to leverage iSCSI / MPIO, click on close and create a iSCSI volume in Storage & Snapshot. From my side, I clicked on New Volume.

Then select the storage pool and click on Next.

Specify the volume alias, the capacity and bytes per inode. I chose 4K. Then you can create a shared folder and an alert threshold.

Click on finish to create the volume.

Configure the cache acceleration

To configure cache acceleration, open Storage & Snapshots. Navigate to Cache Acceleration. Click on Create.

Choose the NVMe drives and Read-Write cache type. Click on Next.

I chose to accelerate sequential I/O because backup works on large file.

Then choose the volume that will be accelerated.

Once the cache acceleration is created, the hit rate should increase.

Veeam result

Then I configured Veeam to try the solution. Veeam backup VMs located in my 2-Node S2D cluster based on S3610 200GB SSD. Because These SSD are only 200GB, the performances are poor. When I ran benchmark, I was not able to exceed 450-500MB/s (130K IOPS 4K Read 70% – Write 30%). The following capture shows a processing rate of 373MB/s with a Bottleneck located at the source. 373MB/s is fast compared to some customer productions. But I’m sure I can go beyond this value with a faster S2D cluster.

Conclusion

Today, it’s a non-sense to implement a full flash array for backup repository because it is too expansive. What we need in a storage repository is capacity. But some time, because of the large amount of data to backup, we need also to implement some high-speed drives such as SSD to reduce the backup window. With a small amount of SSD and tiering/caching, we are able to significantly increase performance.

The post Prepare a high-speed storage repository for backup with Qnap appeared first on Tech-Coffee.

Add tape server to Veeam

First of all, open the Veeam Backup & Replication console and navigate to Tape Infrastructure. Then click on Add Tape Server.

StarWind VTL is connected to my Veeam server (VMBCK01) through iSCSI. So I choose the server VMBCK01.

Then you can specify some network traffic rules to control the encryption and throttling of the network traffic.

Next click on apply to install Veeam components for tape server.

To finish, leave checked the option Start tape libraries inventory when I click finish. This enable to run immediately the inventory and discover the tape libraries connected to the server. Otherwise you’ll not see any libraries until you run an inventory.

After the inventory, you should see the libraries. StarWind VTL is emulated by HP MSL G3 drivers. This is why you see this kind of libraries. You can see also all the media available in this libraries. Obviously, because StarWind VTL is based on hard drive, in production you must install enough storage to handle the archival you want.

Media Pool

In Veeam, a Media Pool is a set of media which shares the same retention. So, the second step in order to run archival job is to create a Media Pool. There is also the GFS Media Pool (Grand Father, Father, Son) which enables in a single Media Pool to manage weekly, monthly, quarter and yearly archival. It’s up to you. In this example I choose Media Pool.

I decide to call the Media Pool Yearly.

Then I choose some Media to add into this Media Pool. I suggest you to leave checked the option Add tapes from Free Media … In this way, if there is no enough media in this pool, automatically Veeam will takes a new media from the free media pool to move into your media pool.

Then specify a Media Set name. Each time Veeam will create a tape backup, a media set name will be associated with the format you choose.

Then choose a many time you want to protect data stored on the tape. I choose to protect yearly backup for 10 years.

Next you can choose if you want to encrypt data and if you want to enable parallel processing.

To create the Media Pool, click on finish.

For this exmaple, I have created three media pools (Weekly, Monthly and Yearly). Now my tape infrastructure is ready to use.

Now you can create a tape job. Navigate to Home and select Tape Job. You can choose between two kind of jobs:

• Files: you backup Veeam files by choosing a folders
• Backups: You backup a backup job without specifying folders. This is my preferred method because you can run the tape job after a backup job.

Conclusion

StarWind Virtual Tape Library and Veeam enables to archive backup from a full software stack. You don’t need to manage every day the physical media. StarWind Virtual Tape Library is cheaper than a hardware tape library. This product is valuable for companies which have no vault and no physical tape management.

The post Archive backups with Veeam and StarWind Virtual Tape Library appeared first on Tech-Coffee.

Requirements

To follow this guide, you need an up and running Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 infrastructure. To write this guide, I updated from a Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 2 solution which consists of a single server. Another server hosts a Veeam console. To update Veeam to update 3, you need to download it from the Veeam portal:

Update Veeam Backup & Replication

Before updating Veeam Backup & Replication, you have to disable all backup jobs. Open the Veeam console and navigate to the backup jobs. Select them all and right click. Then select Disable.

Ensure that all jobs are disabled before closing the Veeam console.

Next copy the update to your backup server and run it.

On the first screen, just click on Next.

Enable the checkbox Update remote components automatically to update all components during this wizard. Click on Install to deploy the Update 3.

During the update process, Veeam backup all previous installation files. When the progress bar is finished, Veeam is updated. The update process took me almost 25mn.

When the update process is finished, you should get this screen.

Open the Veeam console from the backup server, navigate to jobs, select them all and right click. Select Disable to enable all jobs.

In the below screenshot, you can see one of the new Veeam features: the central management of Veeam Agent for Windows / Linux instance. You can now centralize the backup of physical servers for example. I’ll do a topic about that later.

Update Veeam Backup & Replication console

If like in my environment you have a server dedicated to remote management, you have to update the Veeam console installed on it. The process is easy, open the Veeam console and connect to the Veeam Backup & Replication server.

The following message is raised: click on Yes to update the Veeam Console. After several minutes, you are connected to Veeam Backup & Replication Update 3.

The post Step-by-Step: Update Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 to Update 3 appeared first on Tech-Coffee.

This backup and restore mechanism can also be used in case of migration. If you have an old Veeam server and you want to migrate to a newer without making again the entire configuration, you can backup and restore the configuration for migration.

Schedule the backup of Veeam Backup & Replication configuration

To manage the configuration backup, open a Veeam Backup & Replication console, click on “hamburger” menu (top left) and select Configuration Backup.

Then you can enable the configuration backup on a backup repository. Scale-Out Repository are not supported for configuration backup. You can choose the number of restore points to keep and you can schedule the backup. To keep credentials you use in Veeam, you have to enable Encrypt configuration backup option.

Specify a password that you’ll never lose, and click on OK.

Restore Veeam Backup and Replication configuration

To restore the Veeam Backup & Replication configuration, open a session on the Veeam server and open Configuration Restore as below:

The wizard asks you if you want to restore or if it is in case of Migration. For this exemple I choose Restore.

Open the backup repository and select the restore point you want.

In the next screen, you get a backup content summary. If you are agree, click on Next.

If you have encrypted your backup, specify the encryption password.

Then specify the target database. If the database already exists, it will be deleted and created again.

Choose what configuration data you want to restore.

If Veeam services are running, the wizard will stop them for you.

Once the restore is running, you should have something as below:

After the restore, the wizard asks you to verify credentials.

When the restore is finished, you get the following screen.

The last step regards the backup job: after a restore they are all disabled. You have to enable them and it is finished

The post Backup and Restore Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 configuration appeared first on Tech-Coffee.

Design overview

The Veeam server is based on a physical server (Dell R630) and running on Windows Server 2016 (July cumulative updates). The Veeam version is 9.5 update 2. This server has two network adapters member of a teaming for production network and two network adapters for iSCSI. I’d like to collect VM data across the iSCSI network adapters. So Veeam collect VM information and process the VM snapshot from the production network and data are copied accross the backup network. In this topic, I’ll connect VMFS LUN (VMware) to Veeam Server. In this configuration, the Veeam proxy is deployed in the Veeam server.

N.B: If you plan to dedicate servers for Veeam proxies, you must connect each proxy to the production storage.

Configure MPIO

First of all, you need to install MPIO if you have several network links connected to a SAN. MPIO ensures that all paths to a LUN are managed to ensure high availability and bandwidth aggregation (if you have not set MPIO to failover). Install MPIO from Windows features and run mpiocpl (it’s work also in Core edition) to configure MPIO:

After you have added the iSCSI or/and SAS support, a reboot is required.

Disable automount

This option prevents Windows from automatically mounting any new basic and dynamic volumes that are added to the system. The volume must not be mounted in Veeam server. We just need access to the block storage. This is why this option is set.

iSCSI configuration

First, you need to start the iSCSI service. This service should also be automatically started:

Next open iSCSIcpl (it’s work on Server Core also) and add portal address. Once the targets are discovered, you can connect to them.

Once you are connected, open the disk management and check if LUNs are well mounted in the system:

Veeam configuration

Now that you have connected your Veeam proxies to the production storage, you can now change the transport mode. In Veeam Backup & Replication console, navigate to backup infrastructure and edit the proxies. Change the transport mode and choose Direct Storage Access.

Now, when you backup a VM located in a SAN datastore, you should have something like this:

Conclusion

If you have a SAN iSCSI or FC and you want to dedicate these networks for backup, Direct Storage Access can be the way to go. The servers must be connected to the SAN and then Veeam is able to copy at block level from the mounted LUN. If your production network is 1GB/s and your storage network is 10GB/s, you can also save a lot of time and reduce the backup windows.

The post Enable Direct Storage Access in Veeam Backup & Replication appeared first on Tech-Coffee.

Before I begin, I’d like to thank Pierre-Francois Guglielmi – Veeam Alliances System Engineer (@pfguglielmi) for his time. Thank you for your review, your English correction and your help.

What is Veeam Cloud Connect

Veeam Cloud Connect provides an easy way to copy your backups to an offsite location that can be based on public cloud (such as Microsoft Azure) or for archival purpose. Instead of investing money in another datacenter to store backup copies, you can choose to leverage Veeam Cloud Connect (VCC) to send these backup copies to Microsoft Azure. VCC exists in the form of two templates that you can find in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace:

• Veeam Cloud Connect for Service Providers
• Veeam Cloud Connect for the Enterprise

The first one is for service providers with several customers who want to deliver Backup-as-a-Service offerings using the Veeam Cloud Connect technology. This provider can deploy the solution in a public cloud and deliver the service to clients. The second version is dedicated to companies willing to build similar Backup-as-a-Service offerings internally, leveraging the public cloud to send backup copies offsite. For this topic, I’ll work on Veeam Cloud Connect for Enterprise, but the technology is the same.

Veeam Cloud Connect is a Veeam Backup & Replication server with Cloud Connect features unlocked by a specific license file. When deploying this kind of solution, you have the following roles:

• Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controller (optional)
• Veeam Cloud Connect server
• Veeam Cloud Gateway
• Veeam backup repositories
• Veeam WAN Accelerator (optional)

Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controller

A Domain controller is not a mandatory role for the Veeam Cloud Connect infrastructure but it can make servers and credentials management easier. If you plan to establish a site-to-site VPN from your on-premises to Microsoft Azure, you can deploy domain controllers within Azure, in the same forest than the existing domain controllers and add all Azure VMs to a domain. In this way, you can use your existing credentials to manage servers, apply existing GPOs and create specific service accounts for Veeam managed by Active Directory. It is up to you: if you don’t deploy a domain controller within Azure, you can still deploy the VCC infrastructure. But then you’ll have to manage servers one by one.

Veeam Cloud Connect server

Veeam Cloud Connect server is a Veeam Backup & Replication server with Cloud Connect features. This is the central point to manage and deploy Veeam Cloud Connect infrastructure components. From this component, you can deploy Veeam Cloud Gateway, WAN accelerator, backup repositories and manage backup copies.

Veeam Cloud Gateway

The Veeam Cloud Gateway component is the entry point of your Veeam Cloud Connect infrastructure. When you’ll choose to send a backup copy to this infrastructure, you’ll specify the public IP or DNS name of the Veeam Cloud Gateway server(s). This service is based on Azure VM(s) running Windows Server and with a public IP address to allow secure inbound and outbound connections to the on-premises environment. If you choose to deploy several Veeam Cloud Gateway servers for high availability, you have two ways to provide a single entry point:

• Round-Robin record in your public DNS registrar; one DNS name for all A records bound to Veeam Cloud Gateways public IP adresses.
• A Traffic Manager in front of all Veeam Cloud Gateway servers

Because Veeam Cloud Gateway has its own load balancing mechanism, you can’t deploy Azure Load balancer, F5 appliance or other kinds of load balancers on front of Veeam Cloud Gateways.

Veeam Backup repositories

This is the storage system that stores backups. It can be a single Windows Server with a single disk or a storage space. Don’t forget that in Azure, the maximum size of a single data disk is 4TB (as of June 2017). You can also leverage the Scale-Out Backup Repository functionality where several backup repositories are managed by Veeam as a single logical repository. To finish, and this is the scenario I’m going to present later in this topic, you can store backups on a Scale-Out File Server based on a Storage Spaces Direct cluster. This solution provides SMB 3.11 access to the storage.

Veeam WAN Accelerator

Veeam WAN accelerator is the same component already available in Veeam Backup & Replication. This service optimizes the traffic between source and destination by sending only new unique blocks not already known at destination. To leverage this feature, you need a pair of WAN Accelerator servers. The source WAN Accelerator creates a digest for data blocks and the target synchronizes these digests and populates a global cache. During next transfer, the source WAN Accelerator compares digests of the blocks in the new incremental backup file with the already known digests. If nothing has changed, the block is not copied over the network and the data is taken from the global cache in the target, or from the target backup repositories, which in such a case act as infinite cache.

Architecture Overview

For this topic, I decided to separate roles on different Azure VMs. I’ll have 5 kinds of Azure VMs:

• Domain Controllers
• Veeam Cloud Gateways
• Veeam Cloud Connect
• Veeam WAN Accelerator
• File Servers (Storage Spaces Direct)

First, I deploy two Domain Controllers to ease management. This is completely optional. All domain controllers are members of an Azure Availability Set.

The Veeam Cloud Gateway servers are located behind a Traffic Manager profile. Each Veeam Cloud Gateway has its own public IP address. The Traffic Manager profile distributes the traffic across public IP addresses of Veeam Cloud Gateway servers. The JSON template provided below allows to deploy from 1 to 9 Cloud Gateway servers depending on your needs. All Veeam Cloud Gateways are added to an Availability Set to support a 99,95% SLA.

Then I deploy two Veeam Cloud Connect VMs: one active and one passive. I add these both Azure VMs in an Availability Set. If the first VM crashes, the backup configuration is restored to the second VM.

The WAN Accelerator is not in an Availability Set because you can add only one WAN Accelerator per tenant. You can deploy as many WAN accelerators as required.

Finally, the backup repository is based on Storage Spaces Direct. I deploy 4 Azure VMs to leverage parity. I choose parity because my S2D managed disks are based on SSD (premium disk). If you want more performance or if you choose standard disks, I recommend you mirroring instead of parity. You can use a single VM to store backups to save money but for this demonstration, I’d like to share with Storage Spaces Direct just to show that it is possible. However, there is one limitation with S2D in Azure: for better performance, managed disks are recommended. An Availability Set with Azure VMs with managed disks supports only three fault domains. That means that in a four-node S2D cluster, two nodes will be in the same fault domain. So there is a chance that two nodes fail simultaneously. But dual parity (or 3-way mirroring) supports two fault domain failures.

Azure resources: Github

I have published in my Github repository a JSON template to deploy the infrastructure described above. You can use this template to deploy the infrastructure for your lab or production environment. In this example, I won’t explain how to deploy the Azure Resources because this template does it automatically.

Active Directory

Active Directory is not mandatory for this kind of solution. I have deployed domain controllers to make management of servers and credentials easier. To configure domain controllers, I started the Azure VMs where domain controller roles will be deployed. In the first VM, I run the following PowerShell cmdlets to deploy the forest:

# Initialize the Data disk
Initialize-Disk -Number 2

#Create a volume on disk
New-Volume -DiskNumber 2 -FriendlyName Data -FileSystem NTFS -DriveLetter E

#Install DNS and ADDS features
Install-windowsfeature -name AD-Domain-Services, DNS -IncludeManagementTools

# Forest deployment
Import-Module ADDSDeployment
Install-ADDSForest -CreateDnsDelegation:$false `
                   -DatabasePath "E:\NTDS" `
                   -DomainMode "WinThreshold" `
                   -DomainName "VeeamCloudConnect.net" `
                   -DomainNetbiosName "HOMECLOUD" `
                   -ForestMode "WinThreshold" `
                   -InstallDns:$true `
                   -LogPath "E:\NTDS" `
                   -NoRebootOnCompletion:$false `
                   -SysvolPath "E:\SYSVOL" `
                   -Force:$true

Then I run these cmdlets for additional domain controllers:

# Initialize data disk
Initialize-Disk -Number 2

# Create a volume on disk
New-Volume -DiskNumber 2 -FriendlyName Data -FileSystem NTFS -DriveLetter E

# Install DNS and ADDS features
Install-windowsfeature -name AD-Domain-Services, DNS -IncludeManagementTools

# Add domain controller to forest
Import-Module ADDSDeployment
Install-ADDSDomainController -NoGlobalCatalog:$false `
                             -CreateDnsDelegation:$false `
                             -Credential (Get-Credential) `
                             -CriticalReplicationOnly:$false `
                             -DatabasePath "E:\NTDS" `
                             -DomainName "VeeamCloudConnect.net" `
                             -InstallDns:$true `
                             -LogPath "E:\NTDS" `
                             -NoRebootOnCompletion:$false `
                             -SiteName "Default-First-Site-Name" `
                             -SysvolPath "E:\SYSVOL" `
                             -Force:$true

Once the Active Directory is ready, I add each Azure VM to the domain by using the following cmdlet:

Add-Computer -Credential homecloud\administrator -DomainName VeeamCloudConnect.net -Restart

Configure Storage Spaces Direct

I have written several topics on Tech-Coffee about Storage Spaces Direct. You can find for example this topic or this one. These topics are more detailed about the Storage Spaces Direct if you need more information.

To configure Storage Spaces Direct in Azure, I started all file servers VMs. Then in each VM I ran the following cmdlet:

# Rename vNIC connected in Internal subnet by Management
rename-netadapter -Name "Ethernet 3" -NewName Management

# Rename vNIC connected in cluster subnet by cluster
rename-netadapter -Name "Ethernet 2" -NewName Cluster

# Disable DNS registration for cluster vNIC
Set-DNSClient -InterfaceAlias *Cluster* -RegisterThisConnectionsAddress $False

# Install required features
Install-WindowsFeature FS-FileServer, Failover-Clustering -IncludeManagementTools -Restart

Once you have run these commands on each server, you can deploy the cluster:

# Validate cluster prerequisites
Test-Cluster -Node AZFLS00, AZFLS01, AZFLS02, AZFLS03 -Include "Storage Spaces Direct",Inventory,Network,"System Configuration"

#Create the cluster
New-Cluster -Node AZFLS00, AZFLS01, AZFLS02, AZFLS03 -Name Cluster-BCK01 -StaticAddress 10.11.0.160

# Set the cluster quorum to Cloud Witness (choose another Azure location)
Set-ClusterQuorum -CloudWitness -AccountName StorageAccount -AccessKey "AccessKey"

# Change the CSV cache to 1024MB per CSV
(Get-Cluster).BlockCacheSize=1024

# Rename network in the cluster
(Get-ClusterNetwork "Cluster Network 1").Name="Management"
(Get-ClusterNetwork "Cluster Network 2").Name="Cluster"

# Enable Storage Spaces Direct
Enable-ClusterS2D -Confirm:$False

# Create a volume and rename the folder Volume1 to Backup
New-Volume -StoragePoolFriendlyName "*Cluster-BCK01*" -FriendlyName Backup -FileSystem CSVFS_ReFS -ResiliencySettingName parity -PhysicalDiskRedundancy 2 -Size 100GB
Rename-Item C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1 Backup
new-item -type directory C:\ClusterStorage\Backup\HomeCloud

Then open the Active Directory console (dsa.msc) and edit the permissions of the OU where the Cluster Name Object is located. Grant the permission to create computer objects to the CNO (in the example Cluster-BCK01) on the OU.

Next, run the following cmdlets to complete the file server’s configuration:

# Add Scale-Out File Server to cluster
Add-ClusterScaleOutFileServerRole -Name BackupEndpoint

# Create a share
New-SmbShare -Name 'HomeCloud' -Path C:\ClusterStorage\Backup\HomeCloud -FullAccess everyone

First start of the Veeam Cloud Connect VM

First time you connect to the Veeam Cloud Connect VM, you should see the following screen. Just specify the license file for Veeam Cloud Connect and click Next. The next screen shows the requirements to run a Veeam Cloud Connect infrastructure.

Deploy Veeam Cloud Gateway

First component I deploy is Veeam Cloud Gateway. In the Veeam Backup & Replication console (in the Veeam Cloud Connect VM), you can navigate to Cloud Connect. Then select Add Gateway.

In the first screen, just click on Add New…

Then specify the name of the first gateway and provide a description.

In the next screen, enter credentials that have administrative permissions in the Veeam Cloud Gateway VM. For that, I created an account in Active Directory and I added it to local administrators of the VM.

Then Veeam tells you that it has to deploy a component on the target host. Just click Apply.

The following screen shows a successful deployment:

Next you have a summary of the operations applied to the target server and what has been installed.

Now you are back to the first screen. This time select the host you just added. You can change the external port. For this test I kept the default value.

Then choose “This server is located behind NAT” and specify the public IP address of the machine. You can find this information in the Azure Portal on the Azure VM blade. Here again I left the default internal port.

This time, Veeam tells you that it has to install Cloud Gateway components.

The following screenshot shows a successful deployment:

Repeat these steps for each Cloud Gateway. In this example, I have two Cloud Gateways:

To complete the Cloud Gateway configuration, open up the Azure Portal and edit the Traffic Manager profile. Add an endpoint for each Cloud Gateway you deployed and select the right public IP address. (Sorry I didn’t find how to loop the creation of endpoint in JSON template).

Because I have two Cloud Gateways and so two Traffic Manager endpoints with the same weight.

Add the backup repository

In this step, we add the backup repository. Open the Veeam Backup & Replication console (in Veeam Cloud Connect VM) and navigate to Backup Infrastructure. Then select Add Repository.

Enter a name and a description for your backup repository.

Next select Shared folder because Storage Spaces Direct with SOFS is based on … shared folder.

Then specify the UNC path to the share that you have previously created (Storage Spaces Direct section) and provide credentials with privileges.

In the next screen you can limit the maximum number of concurrent tasks, the data rates and set some advanced parameters.

Then I choose to not enable vPower NFS because it’s only use in VMware vSphere environments.

The following steps are not mandatory. I just clean up the default configuration. First I remove the default tenant.

Then I change the Configuration Backup task’s repository to the one created previously. For that I navigate to Configuration Backup:

Then I specify that I want to store the configuration backups to my S2D cluster. It is highly recommended to encrypt configuration backup to save credentials

Finally, I remove the default backup repository.

Deploy Veeam WAN Accelerator (Optional)

To add a Veeam WAN Accelerator, navigate to Backup Infrastructure and select Add WAN Accelerator.

In the next screen, click Add New…

Specify the FQDN of the target host and type in a description.

Then select credentials with administrative permissions on the target host.

In the next screen, Veeam tells you that a component has to be installed.

This screen shows a successful deployment.

Next you have a summary screen which provides a summary of the configuration of the target host.

Now you are back to the first screen. Just select the server that you just added and provide a description. I choose to leave the default traffic port and the number of streams.

Select a cache device with enough capacity for your needs.

Finally you can review your settings. If all is ok, just click Apply.

You can add as many WAN accelerators as needed. One WAN Accelerator can used by several tenants. Only one WAN Accelerator can be bound to a tenant.

Prepare the tenant

Now you can add a tenant. Navigate to Cloud Connect tab and select Add tenant.

Provide a user name, a password and a description to your tenant. Then choose Backup storage (cloud backup repository).

In the next screen you can define the maximum number of concurrent tasks and a bandwidth limit.

Then click Add to bind a backup repository to the tenant.

Specify the cloud repository name, the backup repository, the capacity of the cloud repository and the WAN Accelerator.

Once the cloud repository is configured, you can review the settings in the last screen.

Now the Veeam Cloud Connect infrastructure is ready. The enterprise can now connect to Veeam Cloud Connect in Azure.

Connect On-Premises to Veeam Cloud Connect

To connect to the Veeam Cloud Connect infrastructure from On-Premises, open your Veeam Backup & Replication console. Then in Backup infrastructure, navigate to Service Providers. Click Add Service Provider.

Type in the FQDN to your Traffic Manager profile and provide a description. Select the external port your chose for the Veeam Cloud Gateways configuration (I left mine to the default 6180).

In the next screen, enter the credentials to connect to your tenant.

If the credentials are correct, you should see the available cloud repositories.

Now you can create a backup copy job to Microsoft Azure.

Enter a job name and description and configure the copy interval.

Add virtual machine backups to copy to Microsoft Azure and click Next.

In the next screen you can set archival settings and how many restore points you want to keep. You can also configure some advanced settings.

If you a WAN Accelerator on-premises, you can select the source WAN Accelerator.

Then you can configure scheduling options for the backup copy job.

When the backup copy job configuration is complete, the job starts and you should see backup copies being created in the Veeam Cloud Connect infrastructure.

Conclusion

This topic introduces “a large” Veeam Cloud Connect infrastructure within Azure. All components can be deployed in a single VM (or two) for small environments or as described in this post for huge infrastructure. If you have several branch offices and want to send backup data to an offsite location, it can be the right solution instead of tape library.

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Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 provides advanced ReFS integration to provide faster synthetic full backup creation, reduce storage requirements and improve reliability and backup and restore performance. With Storage Spaces Direct, Microsoft recommends mainly ReFS as the file system. This is why, if you have a S2D cluster (or you plan to deploy) and Veeam, it can be a great opportunity to host backup on the S2D cluster.

S2D cluster provides three resilience models: mirroring, parity and mixed resiliency. Mirroring volume is not a good option to store backup because too many spaces is used for resilience (50% in 2-way mirroring or 3-way mirroring). Mirroring is good to store virtual machines. Parity is a good option to store backups. More you add storage, more your storage is efficiency. However, you need a 4-node S2D cluster. Mixed resiliency is also a good option because you mix mirroring and parity and so performance and efficiency. But mixed resiliency requires a fine design.

In this topic, I’ll implement a S2D cluster with a dual parity volume to store Veeam backups.

4-node S2D cluster deployment

First of all, you have to deploy a S2D Cluster. You can follow this topic to implement the cluster. For this topic, I have deployed a 4-node cluster. After that Operating System and drivers are installed I have run the following PowerShell script. This script installs required features on all nodes and enable RDMA for network adapters with the name containing Cluster.

$Nodes = "VMSDS01","VMSDS02","VMSDS03","VMSDS04"

Foreach ($Node in $Nodes){
    Try {
        $Cim = New-CimSession -ComputerName $Node -ErrorAction Stop
        Install-WindowsFeature Failover-Clustering, FS-FileServer -IncludeManagementTools -Restart ComputerName $Node -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null

        Enable-NetAdapterRDMA -CimSession $Node -Name Cluster* -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null
    }
    Catch {
        Write-Host $($Error[0].Exception.Message) -ForegroundColor Red -BackgroundColor Green
        Exit
    }
}

Then from a node of the cluster I have run the following cmdlets:

$Nodes = "VMSDS01","VMSDS02","VMSDS03","VMSDS04"
$ClusIP = "10.10.0.44"
$ClusNm = "Cluster-BCK01"

Test-Cluster -Node $Nodes -Include "Storage Spaces Direct", Inventory,Network,"System Configuration"
New-Cluster -Node $Nodes -StaticAddress $ClusIP -NoStorage
Enable-ClusterS2D

New-Volume -StoragePoolFriendlyName "*Cluster-BCK01" -FileSystem CSVFS_ReFS -ResiliencySettingName Parity -PhysicalDiskRedundancy 2 -Size 100GB

Rename-Item c:\ClusterStorage\Volume1 BCK01

At this moment, the cluster is created and Storage Spaces Direct is enabled. The cluster is called Cluster-BCK01 (IP: 10.10.0.44) and a dual parity volume is created. Then open the permissions of the OU where is located the Cluster Name Object of the cluster. Then add a permission for the cluster name object to allow to create computer objects.

Open the failover clustering manager and rename the networks to ease the management.

You can check also that you have all the enclosures and physical disks.

When S2D has been enabled, a storage pool with all physical disks has been automatically created. I have renamed it to Backup Pool.

You can check also that a Cluster Shared Volume has been well created.

Next run the following cmdlets to create SOFS role, create a folder in the volume and create a share on this folder.

Add-ClusterScaleOutFileServerRole -Name BCK-REPO
new-item -Type Directory -Path '\\vmsds01\c$\ClusterStorage\BCK01' -Name VMBCK01
New-SmbShare -Name 'VMBCK01' -Path C:\ClusterStorage\BCK01\VMBCK01 -FullAccess everyone

If you go back to the cluster, you can see that a Scale-Out File Server role has been created as well as the share.

You can edit the permissions of the folder to give specific permissions to the account that will be used in Veeam Backup & Replication.

Veeam Backup & Replication configuration

First of all, I create a new backup repository in Veeam Backup & Replication.

Then choose the shared folder backup repository.

Next specify the shared folder where you want store the backups. My SOFS role is called BCK-REPO and the share is called VMBCK01. So, the path is \\BCK-REPO\VMBCK01. Specify also credentials that have permissions on the shared folder.

In the next window, you can specify advanced properties.

Then I choose to not enable the vPower NFS service because I backup only Hyper-V VMs.

To finish the backup repository creation, review the properties and click on Apply.

Run a backup on the S2D repository

To test the new backup repository, I choose to create a backup copy job.

Then choose the VM that will be in the backup copy job.

In the next screen, choose the S2D backup repository, the number of restore points and the archival settings.

Next choose if you want use a WAN accelerator or not.

When the wizard is finished, the backup copy job is processing. You can see in the shared folder that data is coming.

When the backup is finished, you can see that data processed and size on disk are different. It is because Veeam leverages ReFS to reduce the storage usage.

Conclusion

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct can be used to store your virtual machines but also your backups. If you plan a S2D in disaggregated model, you can design the solution to store VM data and backup job. The main disadvantage is that backup should be located in a parity volume (or a mixed resiliency) and that requires at least a 4-node S2D cluster.

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• Deploy Veeam 9.5 Backup & Replication
• Connect Veeam to vCenter and add a backup repository
• Backup and restore your first VMware VM

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On-Premise architecture overview

I have deployed Veeam Backup and Replication 9.5 with update 1 in a Hyper-V virtual machine. This VM is located on a 2-node cluster based on Storage Spaces Direct. The backups are in a Synology NAS and connected through SMB. I have already set a backup job to protect domain controllers. I will make a backup copy of this job to Microsoft Azure

Deploy and Veeam Cloud Connect

First, the Veeam Cloud Connect must be deployed in Microsoft Azure. Logon to the Azure Portal and look for Veeam Cloud Connect for Enterprise.

Then configure the VM as you wish. Keep in mind that some data disks must be added to the VM for the backup repositories. So, select the VM size with the right number of disks allowed. For this topic, I deploy all Veeam Cloud Connect services in the same VM, but for production, you can deploy services across several VMs. For example, you can dedicate the backup repositories to some VMs and the gateway to others. For my lab needs, I have deployed a DS2_V2 VM.

Once your VM is deployed, we can add some disk for the backup repositories. To add a disk, navigate to the VM settings and select disks.

Once you have added some additional disks, we have to configure a public IP address statically. To set the static IP, navigate to the public IP resource and click on configuration. Then change the assignment setting to static.

You can now connect to the VM across RDP

Configure Veeam Cloud Connect

The first time you connect to the VM, you have to do the following task:

• Add the Veeam Cloud Connect license
• Upgrade to Veeam Backup & Replication to the same On-Premise version

Once these tasks are done, you can format the additional disks as below:

Add a backup repository

Now you can open the Veeam Cloud Connect console (which is in fact a Veeam Backup & Replication console). Navigate to backup infrastructure and select Add Backup Repository.

Give a name and a description for your backup repository.

Next, specify the type of backup repository. Because the backup will be located on disks directly attached to the VM, I choose Microsoft Windows Server.

Then specify the repository server. You can add a remote VM if you would like. For this topic, I choose to store backup locally.

Next I specify the drive letter of my additional disk.

In the next screen, I don’t enable the vPower NFS because Hyper-V doesn’t need it.

Configure the Cloud Gateway

Now that backup repository is set, we can configure the Cloud Gateways. The On-Premise Veeam Backup & Replication connects to Veeam in Microsoft Azure through the Cloud Gateways. You can deploy this role to other servers (with for example, a load-balancer). For this topic, the cloud gateway is the same server than other roles. To configure the Cloud Gateways, navigate to Cloud Connect, and select the default cloud gateway. Right click on it and choose Properties.

Select the server and click on next. If you have configured a Network Security Group, don’t forget to allow the external port.

Select This server is located behind NAT, and specify the static public IP of the Azure VM.

Add a tenant

To finish the Veeam Cloud Connect configuration, we should create a tenant. Navigate to Cloud Connect tab and right click on Tenants. Then select Add tenant.

Specify credentials for this tenant and choose which resources are assigned to it.

In the next screen, you can define the number of concurrent tasks and limit the bandwidth for this tenant.

You can also define a quota associated with this tenant. With the below setting, the tenant can use 1000GB on the backup repositories.

To finish, specify which backup repository the tenant can use.

At this moment, we have finished configuring the Veeam Cloud Connect. We can now connect Veeam Cloud Connect from On-Premise Veeam Backup & Replication.

Add Cloud repository to Veeam Backup & Replication

Open your On-Premise Veeam Backup & Replication and navigate to backup infrastructure. Click on Add Service Provider.

Next, specify the static Public IP address of the Veeam Cloud Connect.

In credentials screen, I add the credentials that I have set when I have added the tenant in the Veeam Cloud Connect.

If Veeam Backup & Replication can connect to Veeam Cloud Connect, you should see the available cloud repositories.

Once you have finished, you should have the Veeam Cloud Connect listed in service providers.

Make the backup copy to Microsoft Azure

Now that On-Premise Veeam Backup & Replication is connected to Veeam Cloud Connect, we can make a backup copy. Select a job and click on Backup Copy.

Give a name and a description for this backup copy job. Then choose when the backup copies are created.

Next, add virtual machines to the backup copy job.

In the next screen you can choose the backup repository, the number of restore points to keep and archival policy. After all, the Cloud can replace LTO libraries for long-term backups.

Then choose if you want to transfer data through the WAN accelerators or directly. For this topic, I choose direct.

Because the backup to the Cloud can take a lot of bandwidth, you can schedule when the data can be transferred.

Once the backup job is finished, I run it to copy VM backup to Azure.

While the copy, a new job has been created to receive data.

Once the backup copy job is finished, I open the backup file and as you can see, both backup VMs are now externalized to Microsoft Azure.

Conclusion

The Veeam Cloud Connect feature enables to externalize some backups to Microsoft Azure. Thanks to this feature, you can leverage Microsoft Azure for long-term backups & archival. Moreover the 3-2-1 rule can be applied easily.

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Thanks to this powerful feature, the RTO is small. Moreover, you can restore quickly your data from recovery points. Before restoring the VM in production, you can verify the integrity of your data. It’s useful against ransomware. In this topic, we will see how to perform an instant VM Recovery. This feature is available from the Standard edition to Enterprise Plus.

Architecture overview

For this topic, I use a 2-node Hyper-V cluster based on Windows Server 2016. The storage is managed my Storage Spaces Direct. I have created two virtual disks called CSV-01 and CSV-02. Each node manages a CSV. I have also deployed a VM called VMBCK01 where I have installed Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5. I have created a share folder in the NAS and I have connected it with Veeam by using SMB protocol.

To write this topic, I have protected with Veeam a VM called VMCTN01 (my container lab). To create a Veeam backup, you can read this topic.

Run the VM from backup repository with Instant VM recovery

To run an instance VM recovery from Veeam, navigate to Virtual Machines, then choose the VM and right click on it. Select Restore and Instant VM recovery.

In the first screen, you should see the VM that you want to restore. You can add other VMs or choose another recovery point.

As you can see below, I can restore my VM from older recovery points.

Next, you can choose if you want to restore the initial VM or if you want change some settings. For this topic, I choose Restore to the original location.

Then you can specify a reason for your recovery. I’m sure you can specify something more useful than my reason :).

Veeam checks if the VM already exists in the virtual infrastructure. If Veeam sees the VM, it informs you that the object exists and it will be deleted.

In summary screen, you can choose to power on the VM after the recovery. Once you have reviewed your settings, you can click on finish to run the instant VM recovery process.

When Veeam says Waiting for user action, you can connect to the VM. In the below screenshot, I have clicked on Open console and I have specified my credentials. From this moment, you can connect to your VM to check if the services work well or if you have recovered your data. Users can connect to the VM as before recovery.

Migrate data to production storage volume

Now you may want to migrate the VM in the production storage volume. While the migration occurs, you still have access to your VM. But it’s useful to recover your VM in production storage volume for maintenance and performance. To migrate the VM to production, navigate to Backup & Replication, and open Instant Recovery. Right click on your VM and select Migrate to production.

Once you have run the migration process, the recovery process continues. The VM data are copied in the production storage volume and will be added to the cluster automatically.

When the recovery process is finished, you can see your VM in the cluster. The VM is running and the service works well.

Conclusion

Veeam provides powerful features with Backup & Replication product. With instant VM recovery, you can restart your service in 2mn. Ok, it is in degraded state, but your service is up! What I love in Veeam software is the ease of the tool. The graphical interface is really good and even if you don’t know Veeam, you can start quickly.

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