Backing up 8.6TB within 12 hours
Hi experts,
Currently in our infrastructure, we have 11 Citrix servers totalling at about 1.5TB and 11 other servers totalling at around 7.2TB.
We use zeeam backup and replication 8.0 to run our backups.
There are two backup jobs set up in veeam, broken down as mentioned above:
11 servers totalling 7.2TB - run daily. (This was set to reverse incremental) but was taking about 12 hours to complete, so I had to change this to 'incremental' which now only takes a couple of hours; the problem is, to complete a full backup weekly, this is looking to take around 42 hours roughly)
And another 11 servers totalling at just 1.4TB currently set to reverse incremental, and is run once a week, and takes around 8 hours.
Currently the repository drive is connected to the backup server via iSCSI, and seems to transfer at a very low speed of about 5 - 10MB/s
Does anyone have any better suggestions. Any particular drive or interface to use that will smash this easily?
I need to be able to backup a total of 8.6TB (and growing) in a 12 hour window.. Is this possible?
I don't want it to be a fine line, I would hope I can have this done in about 6 - 8 hours? Any technology out there that is capable of this?
Look forward to your suggestions
Currently in our infrastructure, we have 11 Citrix servers totalling at about 1.5TB and 11 other servers totalling at around 7.2TB.
We use zeeam backup and replication 8.0 to run our backups.
There are two backup jobs set up in veeam, broken down as mentioned above:
11 servers totalling 7.2TB - run daily. (This was set to reverse incremental) but was taking about 12 hours to complete, so I had to change this to 'incremental' which now only takes a couple of hours; the problem is, to complete a full backup weekly, this is looking to take around 42 hours roughly)
And another 11 servers totalling at just 1.4TB currently set to reverse incremental, and is run once a week, and takes around 8 hours.
Currently the repository drive is connected to the backup server via iSCSI, and seems to transfer at a very low speed of about 5 - 10MB/s
Does anyone have any better suggestions. Any particular drive or interface to use that will smash this easily?
I need to be able to backup a total of 8.6TB (and growing) in a 12 hour window.. Is this possible?
I don't want it to be a fine line, I would hope I can have this done in about 6 - 8 hours? Any technology out there that is capable of this?
Look forward to your suggestions
ASKER
Hi Arnold,
I am new to the organisation and did not set this up, so I can't be 100% on the network connection; but I do know that our backup server is the only physical server we have, which is on the same subnetwork as all the Virtual machines.
So, I think the answer to your first question is, we have dataflow into a backup server, which then stores the backup onto an externally connected iSCSI device. I hope this makes sense.
So, this iSCSI setup is an iSCSI software initiator, and the target is a hardware storage array, which is a NAS consisting of 4 x 2TB disks in RAID5 configuration.
not sure of the spindle speed of the drives though.
I am new to the organisation and did not set this up, so I can't be 100% on the network connection; but I do know that our backup server is the only physical server we have, which is on the same subnetwork as all the Virtual machines.
So, I think the answer to your first question is, we have dataflow into a backup server, which then stores the backup onto an externally connected iSCSI device. I hope this makes sense.
So, this iSCSI setup is an iSCSI software initiator, and the target is a hardware storage array, which is a NAS consisting of 4 x 2TB disks in RAID5 configuration.
not sure of the spindle speed of the drives though.
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ASKER
Arnold,
we have 3 ESXi hosts and a HP NAS that manage the 11 VM's - I will look to backing up 3 - 4 servers a night, leaving the hugest server (SQL-01) which is 4.5TB alone, to back up on it's own job at weekend
we have 3 ESXi hosts and a HP NAS that manage the 11 VM's - I will look to backing up 3 - 4 servers a night, leaving the hugest server (SQL-01) which is 4.5TB alone, to back up on it's own job at weekend
Make sure you account for he restore time requirements.
Does your setup include transition of vms live should one host fail?
Depending on the age of the setup, he backup might not be the higher priority for you at this time.
I.e. Upgrade cycle renewing the oldest host.
Does your setup include transition of vms live should one host fail?
Depending on the age of the setup, he backup might not be the higher priority for you at this time.
I.e. Upgrade cycle renewing the oldest host.
ASKER
I have just realised, that taking 3 - 4 FULL backups every night, does not leave room for daily incremental backups for the other servers..if you follow?
It does, what do you mean? Is there a limit on how many backup plans you can have?
You are effectively reducing the amount of data transferred daily while on a weekly basis the same amount of total data is transferred.
Those servers should be similarly subdivided.
Perhaps I am not clear of what the remaining issue is.
I.e. You have five for each day full backups each includes a couple.
The backup is either initiated from the backup server, or from the client.
Please clarify the basis of your statement.
You are effectively reducing the amount of data transferred daily while on a weekly basis the same amount of total data is transferred.
Those servers should be similarly subdivided.
Perhaps I am not clear of what the remaining issue is.
I.e. You have five for each day full backups each includes a couple.
The backup is either initiated from the backup server, or from the client.
Please clarify the basis of your statement.
ASKER
Let's say a FULL backup is taken of server-01 on Monday; an incremental backup is taken on Tuesday.
But if I have full backups taking place every day of the week, this leaves no room for an incremental backup of a server fully backed up the day before for example, hope this clarifies
But if I have full backups taking place every day of the week, this leaves no room for an incremental backup of a server fully backed up the day before for example, hope this clarifies
The smaller full backup will be done within a few hours leaving room for the incremental. I am not understanding the backup plans available to you.
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How much is changing on the Citrix servers that require them to be backed up daily? Seems excessive to me.
It depends on what the line of business is and how much data ...
I.e. An architectural firm/engineering firm/audio video editing/graphical.... documents will be of a significant size.
The backup could reflect snapshot of the VM I.e ............
I.e. An architectural firm/engineering firm/audio video editing/graphical.... documents will be of a significant size.
The backup could reflect snapshot of the VM I.e ............
Properly built and configured Citrix servers wouldn't be housing any data that needed to be backed up. User data should be redirected to a home drive, and the servers should be managed from a master image.
ASKER
OK, it appears that I need to suggest we change the backup target device. I will also look into the network throughput etc, but right now, I am having a capacity issue also (running out of room to back everything up)
In total, all our servers use around 8.5TB of storage. This does not include daily incremental backups.
I think it would be safe to say I need at least 12TB of backup storage, and after reading about RAID configurations, I think a RAID10 setup would be good for speed and reliability.
I have been looking at one of these, https://www.qnap.com/i/uk/product/model.php?II=123&event=2
If I filled it with 10x 3TB drives and configured it to RAID10, am I correct in saying this would give me 15TB of storage to use, or would this give me only 7.5TB to use?
In total, all our servers use around 8.5TB of storage. This does not include daily incremental backups.
I think it would be safe to say I need at least 12TB of backup storage, and after reading about RAID configurations, I think a RAID10 setup would be good for speed and reliability.
I have been looking at one of these, https://www.qnap.com/i/uk/product/model.php?II=123&event=2
If I filled it with 10x 3TB drives and configured it to RAID10, am I correct in saying this would give me 15TB of storage to use, or would this give me only 7.5TB to use?
You can get immediate relief if you remove servers that don't need to be backed up. What version of Citrix are you running? Of the 11 servers, what are the roles (Controller, WebInterface/StoreFront/Wo
I like the QNAP boxes. One possibility for increasing your backup throughput is to get two NAS boxes for backup targets and arrange your network connections so that there is sufficient capacity to do backups in parallel instead of only serially.
If you are upgrading/increasing capacity, you should not merely go up one level to pass for now, depending on the age of the one you have, you could use one for the full backups of some systems and incremental.
Multiple destination devices for different systems. do you keep more than one full backup at a time?
It depends on the one you have, some provide the option of chaining that could ......
Another option is to use less frequent full backups as Brian pointed out, the system's themselves need only be fully backed up on changes (update installs/application installs/etc.)full backup right before and if it goes well, right after discarding the prior ......
H
Multiple destination devices for different systems. do you keep more than one full backup at a time?
It depends on the one you have, some provide the option of chaining that could ......
Another option is to use less frequent full backups as Brian pointed out, the system's themselves need only be fully backed up on changes (update installs/application installs/etc.)full backup right before and if it goes well, right after discarding the prior ......
H
Brian beat me to it but generally speaking I don't backup Citrix servers (depending on the role of course) at all, let alone daily. For things like XenApp workers, they should be changing so rarely that what's the need?
Scheduling individual server backups at a time would meet your criteria by adding an intermediary local 3TB drive that is not network depended.
Disk to disk to iscsi/tape
What is your iscsi storage of?