IBM Bluemix and Veeam Backup & Replication · 2018-08-06 · IBM Bluemix and Veeam Backup & Replication . Configuration Guide 1 . Introduction Purpose This document provides a concise

IBM Bluemix and Veeam Backup & ReplicationConfiguration Guide

© 2017 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 2

IBM Bluemix and Veeam Backup & Replication. Configuration Guide

Contents1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Intended audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

General Veeam overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

vSphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Hyper-V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Bluemix Infrastructure VSI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

3. Performance considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Throughput . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

4. Storage sizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

5. Provisioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Veeam VSI Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Endurance storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

6. Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Attaching storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Creating the Veeam repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Establishing virtual infrastructure connection(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

Creating the initial backup job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Veeam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Bluemix Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

About Veeam Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32



1 . IntroductionPurposeThis document provides a concise guide for provisioning and deploying Veeam® Backup and Replication™ from the Bluemix Infrastructure catalog to provide protection of Bluemix hosted VMware and Hyper-V virtual workloads .

Intended audienceThis guide is for administrators responsible for evaluating and deploying Veeam Backup & Replication for data management on Bluemix Infrastructure . It assumes the reader is generally familiar with both IBM Bluemix Infrastructure and Veeam Backup & Replication .

General Veeam overviewVeeam enables Availability for the Always-On Enterprise™ with integrated backup, recovery and replication on IBM Bluemix Infastructure . Veeam delivers frequent, efficient backups of Bluemix VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V workloads and flexible recovery from Bluemix backup repositories . Veeam quickly and seamlessly deploys in your Bluemix environment for:

• Fast, agentless image-based backups

• Recovery of entire VMs, individual files and application items

• Item-level recovery and eDiscovery for Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and Active Directory

• Transaction-level restore of Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases

• Automatic testing and reporting of every backup and replica

• Monitoring and alerting to unseen issues which can impact backup and application performance

Endurance Storage

Virtual Infrastructure

Public VSI Veeam Backup &

Replication Server

ScopeThis first edition Configuration Guide provides guidance to address the performance characteristics of the standard public VSI implementation of Veeam Backup and Replication . Successive iterations will expound on the additional scale options presented by private VSI implementation as well as custom Veeam deployments .

https://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/bluemix/



2. System requirementsvSphereVeeam supports ESXi and vCenter environments version 4 .1 or greater . While Veeam is suited for backup of individual ESXi hosts, vCenter if deployed is the preferred interface into a vSphere environment for the added configuration and management simplicity it presents to the Veeam solution .

Veeam supports all operating system types compatible with VMware .

Virtual machines with disks in SCSI bus sharing mode are not supported as VMware does not support snapshotting such VMs .

RDM virtual disks in physical mode, independent disks and disks connected via in-guest iSCSI initiator are not supported . These disk types are skipped from processing automatically .

Hyper-VVeeam supports Windows Server Hyper-V versions 2008 R2 SP1 or greater including:

• Windows Nano Server, with Hyper-V role

• Free Microsoft Hyper-V Server

• SCVMM while supported, but is optional

Virtual hardware versions 5 .0 and 8 .0 are supported along with generation one and two virtual machines . VMs with pass-through virtual disks and disks connected via in-guest iSCSI initiator are not supported .

Bluemix Infrastructure VSIThe Veeam Backup and Replication server components are implemented in a Bluemix Infrastructure public VSI server instance . Minimum VSI server requirements are:

• 4 core

• 8GB RAM

• 1Gb network

Veeam supports Windows Server 2012 and later . However, Windows Server 2016 is recommended for the advanced storage optimization and efficiency presented by the ReFS file system — which will be discussed later .

Storage Bluemix Infrastructure Endurance block storage attached to the VSI instance is recommended for hosting the Veeam backup repository .



3 . Performance considerationsIntroductionVeeam Backup & Replication embeds within its componentry a very high performance data mover engine for reading VM data from production storage, applying compression/de-duplication and writing the resulting data stream to backup storage . The efficacy with which it performs these operations is significantly impacted by available resources including network bandwidth, storage performance and server processing capacity . The following establishes preliminary guidance as to the expected performance of the standard Veeam public VSI server (4 Core, 8GB RAM, 1GB network uplink) .

StoragePreliminary testing of Veeam on Bluemix infrastructure was conducted with Endurance block storage with LUN’s from 1–2Tb, at both the .25 IOPS / GB and 2 IOPS / GB performance levels . Virtually identical backup operations performance was achieved at both levels . Hence for general purpose backup and restore, .25 IOP / GB Endurance storage is recommended .

In addition to standard backup and restore operations, Veeam enables a variety of advanced features reliant on the proprietary Veeam vPower technology . With Veeam, virtual machines (VMs) are booted to a hypervisor host directly from the Veeam backup repository . These operations are highly read intensive operations on the backup repository . Preliminary testing has yielded acceptable vPower Veeam Instant VM Recovery® performance at the .25 IOPS/GB level based on standard internal Veeam benchmarks . However, customers are highly encouraged to thoroughly test before selecting storage performance levels for their production Veeam repository .

ThroughputConsideration for the initial and subsequent ongoing backup windows is a significant decision factor in the selection and application of any data protection solution . Veeam intelligently optimizes both cases . For the initial full backup, Veeam ignores empty or deleted virtual machine storage blocks . For example, if a VM has been allocated 1Tb of storage, thin or thick provisioned, but only consumes 450G, then Veeam only actively processes 450GB for that VM . For ongoing incremental backups, Veeam only processes VM data blocks changed since the last backup .

Based on preliminary results, the standard VSI Veeam server processes approximately 220GB of VM data per hour . For illustrative purposes if total-active VM data to be backed up was 1Tb, then the initial full backup would take approximately 4 .5 hours . Assuming a 10% per day VM change rate the daily incremental backup then would take approximately 45 minutes .



4 . Storage sizingProper sizing of the backup repository is a primary consideration when deploying any data protection solution . An excellent aid for estimating Veeam backup storage consumption can be found at http://rps .dewin .me/ . However, regardless of how good any estimation tool is, individual results will vary according the characteristics of any given virtual workload .

Veeam has created the Veeam Scale-out Backup Repository™, so a single repository can be created but then supplemented with the addition of storage extents as needed . In this way, the backup repository grows with the needs of your environment rather than requiring the purchase of large quantities of storage up-front . Setup specifics will be elaborated on in the Deployment section later in this paper .

http://rps.dewin.me/



5 . ProvisioningVeeam VSI ServerThe following steps outline the process for provisioning the Bluemix Infrastructure public VSI server which will host your Veeam Backup & Replication instance .

After logging into your Bluemix Infrastructure account (https://control .softlayer .com) navigate to “Devices” “Device List”

Select “Order Devices .”



In the “Virtual Server (public node)” section choose “Monthly .”

Selecting a Bluemix Infrastructure data center is the first step in provisioning your VSI image . Proximity to your existing virtual infrastructure is preferred .



The base Veeam server implementation requires 4 CPU cores and 8 GB RAM . For initial testing and evaluation using a minimal environment, this configuration will likely be sufficient . A larger configuration should be used to meet your specific needs .

As previously mentioned, Veeam supports Windows Server 2012 and later, however Windows Server 2016 is highly recommended . Veeam is fully enabled to leverage the efficiencies the 2016 ReFS file system presents . Veeam “synthetic full” backup operations are dramatically streamlined .



Either SAN or local disk is suitable for the Veeam VSI server instance .

Be sure to select 1GB for network uplink speed .



Finally, select the Veeam licensing based on the number of VM’s to be protected .

Once the Veeam VSI server specifications are complete, proceed to checkout . At checkout specify a server and domain name and accept the terms and conditions .



Endurance storageTo allocate the Endurance storage which will host the Veeam Backup and Replication backup repository complete the following steps .

After logging into your Bluemix Infrastructure account (https://control .softlayer .com) navigate to “Storage” “Block Storage .”

Select “Order Block Storage .”

Choose the same data center that will be hosting your Veeam VSI instance and the .25 IOPS / GB storage performance level .

https://control.softlayer.com/



Choose the appropriate storage size, based on the estimated aggregate storage consumption for your backups . No snapshot space is required however the “0 GB” option must be specified . Choose “Windows 2008+” for the OS type .



6 . DeploymentPrerequisitesDeploying Veeam Backup & Replication in the Bluemix Infrastructure cloud presumes the following prerequisites have been met:

• Public Veeam-enabled VSI provisioning completed

• Endurance block storage allocated for Veeam backup repository

• Accessible hypervisor environment credentials

Attaching storageEndurance storage supports multi-path I/O which we will enable within the Veeam VSI instance via the following steps .

After logging into your VSI instance open Windows “Server Manager .” Select “Local Server,” scroll to the “Roles and Features” section, select “Tasks” and then “Add Roles and Features .”

In the “Features” dialog select “Multipath I/O .” Next, “Restart the destination server automatically if required” and Install .



Once the Multipath I/O feature is added your VSI will likely require a reboot . When the reboot is complete, log back in and a feature installation confirmation should appear to validate the installed Multipath I/O feature .

Next, to configure the Windows iSCSI initiator, select “Tools” and then “iSCSI Initiator” from the Server Manager dashboard .

If the iSCSI initiator service has not been previously enabled, a prompt to enable the service will be displayed .



In the Bluemix Infrastructure portal, navigate to the storage information page . To authorize the Veeam VSI instance select “Authorize Host” from the storage “Actions” menu for the Endurance storage provisioned for the Veeam backup repository .

Select the Veeam VSI instance .



Once authorization is complete select the storage instance, scroll to the “Authorized Hosts” section and copy the host IQN . In the Windows iSCSI initiator choose the “Configuration” tab, select “Change” and then paste the new IQN into the “New Initiator name” field .

In the Windows iSCSI initiator choose the “Discovery” tab and select “Discover Portal .” Copy the storage “Target Address” into the “IP address or DNS name:” field in the “Discover Target Portal” dialog and then select “Advanced .”



Select “Enable CHAP log on,” copy the “Username” entry from the Bluemix Infrastructure “Authorized Hosts” section to the iSCSI initiator “Name” field, and then copy the password entry from the storage “Authorized Hosts” section to the iSCSI “Target secret” field . Choose “OK” twice to finalize the discovery settings .

In the Windows iSCSI initiator choose the “Targets” tab and select discovered storage IQN which should show an “Inactive” status . Select “Connect” and enable multi-path .



Select “Advanced” and repeat the process for enabling CHAP as before .

If the settings are all correctly applied the storage should now show a “Connected” status .



Finally, to enable operating system visibility to the attached storage navigate to the Windows “Computer Management” application directly or via Server Manager .

Navigate to “Disk Management” and the new storage will appear as an offline disk .

Right click on the disk and bring the storage online . You will also need to right-click and initialize any storage not previously in use .



Right click within the volume field and choose “New Simple Volume .”

Next, allocate the full capacity of the LUN and assign a drive letter . For the partition format options select ReFS and the 64K block size if your VSI is running Windows Server 2016 . These settings will insure optimal performance and reliability with your Veeam deployment .

The volume should now be ready for use as a Veeam repository .



Creating the Veeam repositoryNow that the Endurance storage has been attached and configured, the Veeam repository can be created . To accomplish this open the Veeam console .

Navigate to “Backup Infrastructure” “Backup Repositories” and select “Add Repository” from the tool ribbon . Give the repository a descriptive name .



Select “Microsoft Windows Server” as the storage is directly attached to the Veeam VSI instance .

Select the “Populate” button and the server drives will be enumerated in the grid display . Select the drive which corresponds to the attached Endurance storage and select “Next .”

In the subsequent dialog select “Advanced,” check “Use per-VM backup files” and proceed to the next step .



Accept the defaults for the Mount Server definition .

Apply the settings:

And the repository extent will be created .



When prompted to relocate the Veeam configuration backup location to the new repository select “No .”

While it is certainly possible to simply begin writing backups to this repository, for maximum economy, flexibility and scalability the creation of a “Scale-out Backup Repository” is strongly advised . To accomplish this select “Scale-out Repositories” and “Add Repository” from the tool ribbon . Give the repository an appropriate name .

In the “Extents” dialog select “Add” and select the previously created backup repository .



Accept the default policy and the scale-out repository is created .

Since we don’t have to create a scale-out repository why bother? For economy this enables the purchase of only the storage needed for your current deployment . As your Bluemix Infrastructure environment grows additional Endurance storage “extents” can be purchased and added to the scale-out backup repository thereby lessening the up-front cost of the Veeam solution and without incurring the overhead of reconfiguring backup jobs to point to specific extents within the repository .

Establishing virtual infrastructure connection(s)Now that the Veeam repository is ready to store backups, the virtual infrastructure to protect needs to be configured . To accomplish this in the Veeam console navigate to “Backup Infrastructure” “Managed Servers” and select “Add Server” from the console tool ribbon .



Add the IP address or DNS name for your ESXi host, vCenter or Hyper-V server .

In the Credentials dialog select “Add” and enter username and password for your virtual infrastructure host .



Accept any certificate warnings .

The hypervisor host should now appear in the “Managed Servers” display .

Creating the initial backup jobNow that the requisite infrastructure components are configured, backup job(s) can be created . In the Veeam console select “Backup & Replication” “Jobs .” Select “Backup Job” from the console tool ribbon and the backup job creation wizard will appear .



Once a name is chosen for the backup job the next dialog will present options for VM’s to include in the job . Individual VM’s, VM folders, VM resource pools or entire hosts and clusters can be added to the job . Adding VM groupings simplifies ongoing job maintenance as the Veeam backup job does not need to be modified in the event VM’s are added or removed from the grouping entity .

Select the scale-out backup repository for the job’s backup storage target . By default 14 restore points are maintained hence if the job runs daily two weeks’ worth of backups are maintained . The backup chain is constructed in a “forward incremental” fashion where after the initial full backup is stored only changed blocks are stored for the subsequent restore points . Information on backup chain maintenance and affiliated options can be found at: https://helpcenter .veeam .com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_files .html?ver=95

Veeam’s application aware processing for advanced application-specific item level recovery accommodation of SQL, Oracle, Exchange, Sharepoint etc . are beyond the scope of this document, however further information can be found at: https://helpcenter .veeam .com/docs/backup/vsphere/application_aware_processing .html?ver=95

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_files.html?ver=95


https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/application_aware_processing.html?ver=95




Next assign the job run frequency and schedule .

To begin the initial backup immediately select “Run the job when I click Finish .”

Job status may be derived by double-clicking the running job and selecting “Show Details” for granular information on job processing status .



7 . ReferencesVeeamEvaluator’s guides

• VMware — https://helpcenter .veeam .com/evaluation/backup/vsphere/en/getting_started .html

• Hyper-V — https://helpcenter .veeam .com/evaluation/backup/hyperv/en/getting_started .html

Knowledgebase — https://www .veeam .com/kb_search_results .html

Best practices guide — https://bp .veeam .expert/

Backup chain methods — https://helpcenter .veeam .com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_files .html?ver=95

Application-aware processing — https://helpcenter .veeam .com/docs/backup/vsphere/application_aware_processing .html?ver=95

Bluemix InfrastructureKnowledgebase — https://knowledgelayer .softlayer .com/

Connecting Windows to block storage — https://knowledgelayer .softlayer .com/procedure/accessing-block-storage-microsoft-windows

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/evaluation/backup/vsphere/en/getting_started.html

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/evaluation/backup/hyperv/en/getting_started.html

https://www.veeam.com/kb_search_results.html

https://bp.veeam.expert/




https://knowledgelayer.softlayer.com/

https://knowledgelayer.softlayer.com/procedure/accessing-block-storage-microsoft-windows

https://knowledgelayer.softlayer.com/procedure/accessing-block-storage-microsoft-windows



About Veeam SoftwareVeeam® recognizes the new challenges companies across the globe face in enabling the Always-On Business™, a business that must operate 24 .7 .365 . To address this, Veeam has pioneered a new market of Availability for the Always-On Enterprise™ by helping organizations meet recovery time and point objectives (RTPO™) of < 15 minutes for all applications and data, through a fundamentally new kind of solution that delivers high-speed recovery, data loss avoidance, verified protection, leveraged data and complete visibility . Veeam Availability Suite™, which includes Veeam Backup & Replication™, leverages virtualization, storage, and cloud technologies that enable the modern data center to help organizations save time, mitigate risks, and dramatically reduce capital and operational costs .

Founded in 2006, Veeam currently has 43,000 ProPartners and more than 216,500 customers worldwide . Veeam‘s global headquarters are located in Baar, Switzerland, and the company has offices throughout the world . To learn more, visit http://www .veeam .com .

https://veeam.com



Documents

IBM Bluemix and Veeam Backup & Replication · 2018-08-06 · IBM Bluemix and Veeam Backup & Replication . Configuration Guide 1 . Introduction Purpose This document provides a concise