As promised, today a small post on how to configure Backup Copy Job with WAN Accelerator ! We saw in a previous topic how to install and configure WAN Accelerator with Veeam; Today we will be able to put into practice with a concrete case!

Scope of this tutorial:

• Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5
• VMware environment
• Backup Copy Job of existing job
• Target site -> Using WAN Accelerator

Configure Backup Copy Job with WAN Accelerator

Create Backup copy job

• Connect to the main Veeam Backup & Replication server, go to BACKUP INFRASTRUCTURE, select Backup, Backup Copy and select VMware

• Enter the name of the Job, a description, then select the frequency at which you want to copy

• Here we will select the source from which to do the copy job. As we want to make a backup copy job of an existing job we will select “From Backups“

• Select the job you want to duplicate (or the VM contained in a job), and click Add, then Next

• Select the remote destination repository and click on Advanced

• Enable Health Check, this allows an automatic check to ensure that there is no corruption of restore points
• If you also want to defragment and compress backups periodically, activate the Defragment and compact full backup file feature. This feature is available only if you are not using GFS.

• If your repository is remote, as is our case, select Through built-in WAN accelerators then, choose its source server and target server

• Here you can choose when the data will be transferred. Either continuously or on specific tracks.

• Finally, a summary of the configuration of the backup copy job, click Finish to start the job execution

• The job runs immediately if you check Enable the job when I click finish. Note here in the NEXT RUN column the <Continuous> status which corresponds to the previously configured Any Time schedule.

A few words about the Backup copy job

The backup chain on the target backup repository is created in the following manner :

• The first synchronization interval of the backup copy job always produces a full backup file. The full backup file is created in the following way :
  • From the backup chain on the source backup repository, Veeam Backup & Replication copies data blocks can be copied from one or several backup files in the chain, the retention policy for a backup copy job can be different than the retention period of its related backup job, or backup jobs. If the backup chain on the source backup repository was created using the reverse incremental backup method, Veeam Backup & Replication simply copied data blocks of the latest full backup.
    If the backup chain on the source backup repository was created using the forward incremental backup method, Veeam Backup & Replication copies data blocks from the first full backup and a set of incremental backups to form a full backup of a VM as of the most recent state.
    
  • On the target backup repository, Veeam Backup & Replication writes all copied data blocks to the same full backup file.

• At every synchronization interval, when a new restore point appears on the source backup repository, Veeam Backup & Replication copies incremental changes from this most recent restore point and transfers them to the target backup repository. On the target backup repository, Veeam Backup & Replication writes the copied data blocks to the incremental backup file.

The backup copy job can be created for one VM or several VMs, which can be backed up by one backup job or several backup jobs. If the backup copy job is created for several VMs, you can define the order in which the VMs should be processed. Veeam Backup & Replication will process VMs in the job in parallel, starting from the first VM in the order list. If any VM cannot be processed for some reason, for example, in case a new restore point for this VM is not available yet, the job will start processing the next VM. Once this VM is processed, the job will attempt to copy the unprocessed VM once again. Even if a backup copy job processes several VMs, it creates one backup file on the target backup repository and stores the data for all VMs processed by the job.

Note : Backup copy jobs process VMs parallel only if you transport VM data over the direct data path. If you use WAN accelerators for backup copy jobs, VMs will be processed sequentially. Parallel data processing over the direct data path is enabled by default. If necessary, you can disable parallel data processing using a registry key. For more information, contact the Veeam Support Team.

Note 2 : To minimize the amount of traffic going over the network, Veeam Backup & Replication uses data compression and deduplication technologies. And if you plan to copy VM restore point over the WAN and slow connections, you can also use backup mapping. Backup mapping can only be used if you already have a full backup file for the VM you plan to process with the backup copy job on the target backup repository. In this case, you can point the backup copy job to this backup file. This full backup file will be used as a “seed” for the backup copy job and you will need to copy only small incremental over the network.
When changing backup storage settings such as encryption or block size, v9 offer a new ability to trigger a manual Active Full in Backup Copy Jobs. This is also useful in troubleshooting scenarios.

This article is now complete. I hope it could have been useful to you, and that it will have you a little enlightened on the operation of the “Backup copy job”.

If you have any questions do not hesitate to leave me a comment.

Maxime

Hi ! I’m Maxime. Founder and independant author of vDays.net. I have worked in service IT since 6 years ago, after a 5 years’ internship. Via this blog, I would like share and discuss with you on new technologies, especially on virtualization and VMware. If you want to know more about me, check out my “about me” page or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn

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