Remote and Branch Offices: Availability made easy with...

Remote and Branch Offices: Availability made easy with VeeamRick VanoverCisco Champion, Microsoft MVP, VMware vExpert

Remote and Branch Offices: Availability made easy with Veeam

2© 2016 Veeam Software

ContentsExecutive summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The Modern Data Center, applied to ROBOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Options for the ROBO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

What is best for the ROBO? Backups, replicas or both? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Usability vs . budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Off-site capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

What if ROBO sites are mostly, but not all virtual? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Decision process for Veeam components for ROBO configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Backup, Replication and Backup Copy Job data flow for the ROBO example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

ROBO data challenges with file servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

ROBO delegation: 1-Click File Restore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Final verdict: Veeam and the ROBO are a good fit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

About Veeam Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16



Executive summaryCompanies with remote and branch offices don’t have to settle for less when it comes to their

Availability requirements. The Modern Data Center takes many shapes, and in this white paper, we’ll

address a number of requirements that remote and branch office (ROBO) environments have and how

Veeam® Availability Suite™ enables the Always-On Enterprise™.

The Modern Data Center, applied to ROBOsToo many times over the years, new data center technologies seemed only to apply to the largest

of organizations that many centralized resources. That’s not the case today. The Modern Data Center

according to Veeam has three key attributes: It is highly virtualized, there is modern storage in use

and there is a cloud strategy in place:

The Modern Data Center is the gateway to enhanced availability for the ROBO

Each of these are situationally important to the ROBO. While the needs of the ROBO are unique,

there is no blanket recommendation or reference architecture for each implementation.

Highly virtualized: This becomes a gateway for so many things for the ROBO. Everything from

a reduced equipment footprint, reduced capital expense, reduced management efforts and

the ability to easily add new workloads; being virtualized is the natural choice for the ROBO.

Modern storage systems: This is an increasingly interesting area for the ROBO. Everything from unified

storage systems to low-end arrays with high capabilities, the ROBO has options for the data center that

do not offer reduced capabilities. Specifically for the ROBO, the Hewlett Packard Enterprise StoreVirtual

SAN as well as the Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) equivalent for StoreVirtual, and the NetApp FAS2500

series storage systems have advance capabilities by supporting the Veeam Explorer™ for Storage

Snapshots and Backup from Storage Snapshots plug-ins.

Cloud strategy: The ROBO can benefit from Veeam-powered services to address Availability when

it comes to off-site backups. Many organizations may struggle to move backup data across leased private

lines, but technologies such as Veeam Cloud Connect can allow ROBOs to move backups to a service

provider directly from internet connections or to central office locations with Built-In WAN Acceleration.



Options for the ROBOOne of the most compelling points for companies who invest in Veeam for ROBO Availability is that

there are a lot of options on design and operations. This is an important step for companies to address.

With Veeam, there are a number of options to deliver these key capabilities:

Even the ROBO can benefit from these capabilities.

Veeam Availability Suite v9 introduced a number of specific enhancements for the remote

office and branch office. Additionally, new products (Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows

and Veeam Agent for Linux) provide new options for more Availability in the ROBO. This

paper is updated with these new capabilities.

What is best for the ROBO? Backups, replicas or both?Many companies struggle with the ROBO on what is the best option for Availability on-site and off-

site. That can specifically mean there are decisions between taking on-site backups, writing backups

off-site and doing replicas both on and off-site. Veeam has long promoted the “3-2-1 Rule,” which

states that there should be:

• 3 Copies of important data

• On 2 different media

• With 1 of which being off-site.

This is a very versatile approach and can address almost any failure scenario. Additionally, it doesn’t

lock companies into any specific technology. In fact, backups on tape can be one way to address this

requirement for the off-site element.

The challenge for the ROBO is especially with a large number of sites in play, there is a decision

to be made on where to do backups, replicas or both. Additionally, there are decisions to be made

as to if and where the off-site strategy will be implemented. Take the following figure for example:



Some sites may require replicas, some sites may require backups as well.

In this example, sites 1 and 3 have the same configuration: On-site backups and replicated VMs with

Veeam. Sites 2 and 4 only have on-site backups. It’s important to note that having backups taken

on-site first provides a number of benefits:

1. Backup times are quickest. Backups that go directly off site will take longer to traverse

a Wide Area Network (WAN) or the Internet.

2. Restore times are quickest. When the data to be restored comes is very close

to the VMware or Hyper-V host.

3. New replication features open new options. Since Veeam Availability Suite v8, backups can

be sourced from both a running VM as well as from a Veeam Backup file. This means that from one

backup, both a replicated VM and a backup file can be made. This helps keep backup windows small

as well as keeping recovery options high. Other new replication features include WAN-Accelerated

replicas and a both a Failover Plan as well as the Planned Failover; to give a lot of options for the ROBO.

Having backups and replicas on-site gives a lot of options for the ROBO.

A lot of discussion can go into how to leverage the different technologies. Many Veeam customers feel

that replicas are more usable in a true disaster at a remote site. A replicated VM will allow a complete

workload to be failed over if there is a loss of a server, storage or more. The fact that a replicated VM

is an inventoried and ready-to-run VM makes it a complete element that can be failed over. Ideally,

replicated VMs are placed on different storage and hosts than their production counterparts. Many

Veeam customers like to “use the old server and storage” for replicated VMs.



Usability vs . budgetThere is always a challenge between what is more useful and what most ROBO scenarios can afford.

The prevailing logic from most ROBO configurations is that replicated VMs are more useful, but budget

constraints effectively only provide backups. As explained earlier, there are a number of factors that

go into what will be deployed.

Generally speaking, setting up backups is a very versatile and cost-effective solution. Setting up

replicated virtual machines is more versatile but requires a virtual infrastructure capable

of supporting the running workload.

Off-site capabilitiesOne of the most pressing concerns for ROBO configurations is determining where data resides, and

addressing its Availability off-site from the remote data center. With Veeam there are a lot of ways to move

data off site. While the ROBO data center footprint may be small, the Availability requirements don’t need

to be sacrificed. Four key technologies can be used to move data off site with Veeam Availability Suite:

• Replicated VMs to another location

• Moving backups to another location with the Backup Copy Job

• Moving backups to a service provider with Veeam Cloud Connect

• Moving backups to tape.

Along with that decision is what type of disk device or storage protocol to store backup data on for

the ROBO. Generally speaking, the highest performing environments (after the release of Veeam

Availability Suite 9.5) will be Windows Server 2016 systems providing the ReFS file system. Other

options such as NAS devices, local disk systems, SAN devices and more are popular as well.

In the previous example, it is possible take a closer look at remote site 3. This ROBO site had a VMware

environment and was performing local backups as well as local replicas. While that arrangement had

both the versatility of restoring from backups or failing over to replicas; the off-site aspect of the 3-2-1 rule

hadn’t been met. The figure below shows remote site 3 leveraging the Backup Copy Job to create backup

restore points in the main data center from the ROBO. If the main site has a deduplicating storage system,

there can be global dedupulication if many remote sites send their backups to that repository.



The Backup Copy Job can create restore points off-site to another Veeam Backup Repository.

Another way to address the off-site Availability technique is to use Veeam Cloud Connect. Veeam

Cloud Connect provides all paid editions of Veeam Backup & Replication™ and a way to leverage

a service provider to provide a cloud repository. A cloud repository is a new type of repository that

comes with Veeam Availability Suite v9.

Veeam Cloud Connect can send Veeam backups to a Service Provider cloud.

Veeam Cloud Connect is a good option for the ROBO in regards to internet traffic management. Each

ROBO would use their own internet connection to send backups off site to a service provider cloud.

This becomes more relevant when there are many ROBO sites and they each have to consider the

off-site Availability requirement. This can save on storage and bandwidth on the central site by using

ROBO internet connectivity over a single TCP Port (a second TCP port is required for Built-In WAN

Acceleration) without requiring a VPN.

For enterprise customers, Veeam also has a new option for the ROBO leveraging Veeam Cloud Connect

for the Enterprise. This leverages the Cloud Connect technology without the requirement of a service

provider. This makes it easy for IT Administrators to provide enterprise cloud backup and replication

services to internal customers, such as different subsidiaries or departments, while maintaining complete

control and visibility. It creates the ability to send Veeam backups and replicas from multiple offices

to a private cloud (HQ data center) or public cloud (Microsoft Azure) while providing the flexibility

and control to choose the enterprise backup and recovery strategy that best meets your needs.

https://www.veeam.com/cloud-connect-enterprise-backup.html

https://www.veeam.com/cloud-connect-enterprise-backup.html



Like these diagrams?

These diagrams were made with the Free Veeam Visio Stencils.

You can download them for free here:

http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-stencils.html

What if ROBO sites are mostly, but not all virtual?The ROBO has many sizes and shapes, but there are some sites that may function well with only one

server. That poses a question on whether it should be virtual, and then how Veeam can come into play

there. Generally speaking, the benefits of virtualization shouldn’t need to be explained today. However,

there is a support consideration as well as infrastructure costs. Additionally, virtualizing (even one

system) gives the following additional benefits:

• Easy migration to a new system should that one piece of hardware fail or be due for replacement

• Scalability for if and when the second system is required at the ROBO

• Additional Availability options that can only be delivered to virtualized platforms.

That being said, some environments may still have ROBO sites with one non-virtualized system. One

option for the ROBO is to leverage Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows (formerly Veeam Endpoint

Backup FREE) and Veeam Agent for Linux for these systems. The Veeam Agents can write backups into

a Veeam repository. This is very helpful in the case of a ROBO with a small virtualized footprint and one

or more Windows or Linux systems that need to be made available.

Let’s take a look at ROBO site 4 in the previous example and presume that this site has one Hyper-V

host with four VMs but also has one Windows system that is not supported as a virtual machine. Veeam

Agent for Microsoft Windows can protect that system and write to the same repository in the ROBO

as the VMs on the Hyper-V host.

If a small number of non-virtualized systems are in place, Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows can write to the Veeam repository.

http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-stencils.html?ad=menu-products



Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows is supported on Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 and 2012 R2

as well as Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 systems. Backup targets include local disks, CIFS shares or Veeam

Backup & Replication repositories.

If any situation has a Linux system that is not virtualized, organizations can use Veeam Agent for Linux.

This offers much of the functionality described for Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows. Veeam Agent

for Linux can provide availability for the following Linux operating systems:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 6.0 – 7.2)

• CentOS 6.0 – 7.2

• Debian 6.0 – 8.3

• Ubuntu 10.04 – 15.10.

Decision process for Veeam components for ROBO configurationsOne of the pressing decision points is how to design a ROBO configuration from a Veeam perspective.

There are a number of relevant components for Veeam Backup & Replication relevant to the ROBO yet

not all components would be leveraged by all organizations or configurations:

• Backup Proxy: An architecture component that sits between data source and target,

and is used to process jobs and deliver backup traffic.

• Backup Repository: A location used by Veeam Backup & Replication jobs to store

backup files, copies of VMs and metadata for replicated VMs.

• WAN Accelerator: The Veeam Built-In WAN Acceleration is technology that helps

optimize data transfers over a WAN.

• Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager: An optional component intended for distributed

enterprise environments with multiple backup.

• Veeam Backup Server: A Windows-based physical or virtual machine on which

Veeam Backup & Replication is installed.

• Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows: A solution for backing up Windows-based desktops,

laptops and Servers. There are three editions: Free, Workstation and Server.

• Veeam Agent for Linux: A solution for backing up Linux systems.

• Guest Interaction Proxy: This new v9 feature provides the ability to interact with the VM guest

OS during the backup or replication job locally on the remote site. This removes the requirement

to have a Veeam Backup Server at every remote site.



• Mount Server: This new v9 feature lets you route VM traffic by an optimal way (entirely on the local

network of a remote site), which will reduce the load on the network and speed up the restore process.

• Tape server (and devices): Allow storing full or incremental backups to tape, and select between

available restore points to which you want to restore your VMs or files.

These components can be consolidated in a number of situations. In particular, the Backup Proxy, Backup

Repository, WAN Accelerator, Guest Interaction Proxy, Mount Server, and Tape Server are all a “role” that

is a Windows service and can be installed on the same operating system. In fact, these can be Windows

Server Core and in some cases they don’t even need to be a Windows Server operating system. Generally

speaking, the Backup Repository should be a separate system to consider protection in case of a loss

of the vSphere or Hyper-V host. But the other roles, can be an existing virtual machine or other system

on-site; for smaller environments, it isn’t necessarily required to have dedicated systems for these roles.

Selecting where these components reside will significantly dictate the experience of Veeam in the ROBO.

If we take a look at each of the sites in the examples above, the inventory of components are shown below:

Each site has a different inventory of Veeam components.

Let’s break down each site and describe their placement.

Remote site 1: This site has a Hyper-V host and VMs, a mount server and guest interaction proxy,

a repository and a tape drive for storage off-site. There also are replicated VMs.

Remote site 2: This site has a vSphere host and VMs, a mount server and guest interaction proxy,

a repository, a VMware backup proxy and a Veeam WAN Accelerator (Sending backups to a service

provider using Cloud Connect and Built-In WAN Acceleration).

Remote site 3: This site has a VMware host and VMs, a mount server and guest interaction proxy,

a repository, a VMware backup proxy and a Veeam WAN Accelerator (Sending backups to the main

site via a Backup Copy Job with Built-In WAN Acceleration). There also are replicated VMs.

Remote site 4: This site has a Hyper-V host and VMs, a mount server and guest interaction proxy,

a repository and a Veeam WAN Accelerator (Sending backups to the main site via a Backup Copy Job

with Built-In WAN Acceleration). This site also has one non-virtualized system with Veeam Agent

for Microsoft Windows installed writing backups to the Backup repository locally.



Main Data Center: This site has both a Veeam Backup Server and a Veeam Enterprise Manager

server installed (the only instance for the entire organization), a repository and a Veeam WAN

Accelerator (To receive the ROBO backups via a Backup Copy Job with Built-In WAN Acceleration).

There may be additional data center components at the main site, but they are omitted

for the scope of the ROBO configuration.

There are a few notes to this configuration. You’ll notice that none of the remote sites have

a Veeam Backup Server, this is due to the new guest interaction server and mount server roles.

This way jobs can be managed centrally.

Additionally, the VMware ROBO sites have a backup proxy, but the Hyper-V sites don’t. Hyper-V

can have a proxy be off-host, but an off-host proxy is not typical for a ROBO. For smaller Hyper-V

environments, the proxy service can function on-host for the Hyper-V infrastructure.

Each design at the remote site performs local backups on-site, even without a Veeam Backup

Server (a console). This will ensure the backups and more so the restores happen locally

with the highest performance.

Want more information on the v9 ROBO features?

Read more about enhancements to ROBO environments from v9:

https://www.veeam.com/remote-branch-office-backup-recovery.html

Backup, Replication and Backup Copy Job data flow for the ROBO exampleFor this sample arrangement, to meet these needs a number of different jobs (and their configuration)

need to be considered as well. Each ROBO site would have the following job configuration characteristics:

Remote site 1: 1 Hyper-V Backup job of all VMs, 1 Hyper-V Replication job of all VMs, 1 backup to tape job.

Remote site 2: 1 vSphere Backup job of all VMs, 1 Backup Copy Job of all of the VM backups

to the Cloud Connect service provider.

Remote site 3: 1 vSphere Backup job of all VMs, 1 vSphere Replication job of all of the VMs

(using the Source option of the backups on the backup repository), 1 Backup Copy Job of all

of the VM backups to the Main Data Center.

Remote site 4: 1 Hyper-V Backup job of all VMs, 1 Backup Copy Job of all of the VM backups to the

Main Data Center, 1 Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows backup job to the Veeam Backup & Replication

repository, 1 Backup Copy Job of the Windows Agent backups to the Main Data Center.

https://www.veeam.com/remote-branch-office-backup-recovery.html



Managing a large number of agents?

For environments with a large number of installations of either Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows

or Veeam Agent for Linux, the Veeam Availability Console will be the management option. Read

more about the Veeam Availability Platform here:

https://www.veeam.com/availability-platform.html

Note that the main data center has the Veeam Enterprise Manager console in place. This can aggregate

all backup job performance, regardless of hypervisor. Additionally if Veeam ONE™ is used, key questions

for each site can be answered such as how much backup storage remains, which proxies (and what

transport mode) are being used and who is doing what type of restores.

The Restore Operator Activity report gives summary and detail information on who is doing what type of restores for the ROBOs.

ROBO data challenges with file serversOne of the IT services that the ROBO usually needs a good experience with is file shares. In many

situations, accessing file shares over a WAN is a less than optimal experience. Fortunately, there are

many file share replication technologies that are in use. Specifically to ROBO environments that

are sharing files locally, there are a lot of options to protect those file servers with Veeam. ROBO

environments using Veeam can leverage one or more of the following file sharing technologies:

• Windows or Linux virtual machines

• File sharing virtual appliances

• Physical Windows systems.

Between Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows; the file share resources

can be protected both on-site and optionally protected off-site. There are strategies around replicated

file systems and not backing them up at all locations; but give consideration to the Availability

of that data in regards to each site.

ROBO environments that have virtualized Windows and Linux file servers can get additional recovery

options (such as self-service restores explained later) in addition to the entire system.

https://www.veeam.com/availability-platform.html



File servers generally have low amounts of change rate on disk, so image-based backups are efficient

on this data profile. Most files are written once, and read often. This results in a low change rate on the

underlying disk. Additionally, file servers generally respond well to Veeam’s built-in compression and

deduplication. Finally as a vote to virtualize file servers, they can be protected the same as any other

ROBO resource with Veeam.

ROBO delegation: 1-Click File RestoreOne of the most powerful things that ROBOs can do is to leverage 1-Click File Restore. This capability

solves a real problem with the “daily disasters” of the ROBO. Specifically, deleted files can be restored

very easily. 1-Click File Restore is delivered through the Enterprise Manager component, and a special

role called the restore operator is able to restore files from systems backed up by Veeam. There are

some key controls in place however (for the restore operator role):

Scope: The restore scope of a specific user (usually based on an Active Directory user name) is limited

to any infrastructure construct that is applicable. This can be a cluster, data center (the ROBO location),

a vApp or a specific list of virtual machines.

Administrative access: The restore can be provisioned without requiring that user to have

administrative access on the file servers they are restoring to.

Virtual infrastructure access: The 1-Click Restore feature does not require any access

to the VMware or Hyper-V infrastructure.

Backup infrastructure: The 1-Click Restore feature for file restore operators only shows the ability

to restore the files applicable in their assigned scope.

File types: Specific file types and be allowed for restores. For example, if this feature applies

well to a ROBO’s needs the following file types could be permitted for 1-Click File Restores:

.XLS, .DOC, .PPT, .PDF, .JPG, etc.

Viewing of data: The most intriguing feature, however, is that the restore operator role can

have files restored directly back to where they came from, without this person being able

to see the contents of the file.



The Restore Operator is assigned a scope of a vSphere folder and a ROBO data center, as well as only being allowed to restore files

to their original location only and additionally only of certain file types.

Many ROBOs that invested in this feature with Veeam empower office managers to do the 1-Click File

Restore capability. The controls above are very good, and the ROBO can handle its own daily disasters.

Additionally, the restore activity report identified earlier is a good additional control.

One more important point to consider is that the 1-Click File Restore doesn’t require that the person

be familiar with the infrastructure. Simply speaking, they may need to restore a PDF file but don’t

remember the name or location. The restore operator may not know what file server the file is on and

that’s no issue. They can simply search for the file name or even part of it, and all results within their

scope are returned for an easy restore. The example below is a search of just “PDF,” and all file results

within the restore operator’s scope are displayed:

A PDF file can be restored by simply searching across all files, knowledge of the infrastructure isn’t required.



This functionality can provide whole VM restore capabilities and it can apply to a scope as well.

Administrators can still provide the full complement of restore scenarios as well.

Final verdict: Veeam and the ROBO are a good fitIt’s clear that there are plenty of options and Availability techniques that work well for the ROBO. This

paper should provide some direction on how to proceed with effective designs for success. Improved

Availability via high-speed recovery, data loss avoidance, complete visibility and more.

You can find more resources at Veeam.com and share your experience on the Veeam Forums. There,

you can find others sharing their stories and more. Share with Veeam here:

Veeam Forums: http://forums.veeam.com

Technical Documentation: http://www.veeam.com/documentation-guides-datasheets.html

Recorded Webinars: http://www.veeam.com/videos.html

Veeam University: http://www.veeam.com/university.html

http://forums.veeam.com

http://www.veeam.com/documentation-guides-datasheets.html

http://www.veeam.com/videos.html

http://www.veeam.com/university.html



About Veeam Software Veeam® 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 less than 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, while always supporting the current and future business goals

of Veeam customers.

Founded in 2006, Veeam currently has 41,000 ProPartners and more than 205,000 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.

Rick Vanover (Microsoft MVP, VMware vExpert, Cisco Champion) is the Director

of Technical Product Marketing at Veeam Software based in Columbus, Ohio.

Rick is a popular blogger, podcaster and active member of the virtualization

community. Rick’s IT experience includes system administration and IT

management; with virtualization being the central theme of his career recently.

Follow Rick on Twitter @RickVanover or @Veeam.

About the Author

https://www.veeam.com

https://www.veeam.com/data-center-availability-suite.html

https://www.veeam.com/vm-backup-recovery-replication-software.html

https://www.veeam.com/

https://twitter.com/RickVanover

https://twitter.com/Veeam



NEW Veeam Availability Orchestrator

Disaster recovery orchestration for the Enterprise

Remote and Branch Offices: Availability made easy with...

Documents

Transcript of Remote and Branch Offices: Availability made easy with...