Veeam Backup and Recover + FreeNAS - Can you add it as Storage Infrastructure?

[zimmy6996]

Hey all, sorry for the stupid question, but it is a little unclear. I currently have a Veeam B&R setup, and I am able to backup my VM's that are running on ESX and backend storage of FreeNAS for ESX. Veeam server has 30TB of local storage on it for backups.

The question is, there is a "Storage Infrastructure" section in Veeam that allows you to add a SAN to Veeam for direct access to the storage system for VMs. I see notes saying FreeNAS/TrueNAS is certified for Veeam, but when you try to add, it asks you your storage type, and all I see is Cisco Hyperflex, Dell EMC, HPE, Netapp, and IBM as options. Is Free/TrueNAS able to get directly hooked by Veeam?

 

[kdragon75]

Hey all, sorry for the stupid question, but it is a little unclear. I currently have a Veeam B&R setup, and I am able to backup my VM's that are running on ESX and backend storage of FreeNAS for ESX. Veeam server has 30TB of local storage on it for backups.

The question is, there is a "Storage Infrastructure" section in Veeam that allows you to add a SAN to Veeam for direct access to the storage system for VMs. I see notes saying FreeNAS/TrueNAS is certified for Veeam, but when you try to add, it asks you your storage type, and all I see is Cisco Hyperflex, Dell EMC, HPE, Netapp, and IBM as options. Is Free/TrueNAS able to get directly hooked by Veeam?

No, you can't add it as storage a infrastructure item. As you saw, that's for some of the big guys. It's not a matter of "we like X and screw everyone else." It's a matter of integration and APIs. You can still do SAN direct backups but you cannot have the Veeam based snapshot controle etc...

 

[kdragon75]

I have a fair bit of experience with Veeam 9.5. Is there a particular goal that you have?

 

[zimmy6996]

I have a fair bit of experience with Veeam 9.5. Is there a particular goal that you have?

Thanks for the follow up ... So just a small background ...

2 x FreeNAS Storage Arrays
12 x ESXi hosts, with a network interface for guests, and one for storage
1 x Physical Vcenter Box
1 x Veeam B&R Server, local storage on it for backups, all in one box

So what i'm seeing is I've added a VMware Backup Proxy, which is pointed at my Vcenter box. When I run a VM backup, what is happening is it's getting fed all it's data by pulling the SAN throught he ESXi host that currently owns the VM that i'm backing up, and then Veeam is pulling that data from the ESXi host. What I'd like to understand is where I've gone wrong, because ideally, we'd be 100x better off to pull directly from the SAN's (FreeNAS boxes) taking that load off the individual ESXi host. Is that possible?

 

[zimmy6996]

So what i'm seeing is I've added a VMware Backup Proxy, which is pointed at my Vcenter box. When I run a VM backup, what is happening is it's getting fed all it's data by pulling the SAN throught he ESXi host that currently owns the VM that i'm backing up, and then Veeam is pulling that data from the ESXi host.

So i checked a little further, and yes, I have confirmed what is happening. I'm using NBD right now via the management interface of the ESXi host in order to get the backups flowing. My VMware Backup Proxy config as I said points to my physical Vcenter box. And the Transport Mode is currently set for "Automatic Selection". Clearly what I need is to get it working with "Direct Storage Access". The question is "how". I suppose I could force it to DSA, and then uncheck "Failover to network mode if primary mode fails" but I doubt that is going to work.

 

[zimmy6996]

Looks like i may have answered my own question ...

https://www.veeam.com/blog/using-the-iscsi-initiator-within-veeam-backup-replication-in-a-vm.html
https://www.jpaul.me/2010/08/the-missing-manual-part-1-veeam-b-r-direct-san-backups/

 

[kdragon75]

Looks like you found it! Just keep the disk marked "offline" in windows disk manager. On another subject, Is there a reason that you are running vCenter on a physical windows host? I guess if your on 5.5 or older.. I would migrate vCenter to the cluster and move your virtualized Veeam to the hardware. That way you can leverage HA (among other things) to keep vCenter available if the server died. Also ZFS/iSCSI/VMFS would surely be safer than NTFS! With Veeam on hardware, you get to side step vCenter and your hosts entirely for processing the backups (vCenter tasks i.e. snapshots aside) then you data will flow directly from SAN to Veeam server.