VDP on which network.

[Styvboard]

Running VDP evaluation and it works fine when backing up small machines. Larger machines, more then 400 GB takes forever, canceled after a few days. Something to do with the virtual machine itself or something other that might cause this?

On what network should I place the VDP servers, same as VMotion, Mgmt network or Production VLANs?

[schepp]

Hi,

you should tell us a little bit more about your design.

VDP only uses the network to backup VMs when the host it runs on can't access the VMDK of the VM over the datastore directly.

So let's say for example you have 2 clusters A and B.

Each cluster has it's own datastores, so hosts in cluster A can't mount datastores of cluster B.

When your VDP appliance runs on cluster A and backs ups VMs of cluster A, the VDP appliance can mount the VMDK (the snapshot of it) directly and copy the data without issuing network traffic.

When the appliance has to backup VMs running in cluster B, this data has to travel over the network because the appliance can't mount the VMDK.

In this configuration it would make sense to deploy a second VDP appliance to cluster B and let it backup it's 'local' VMs of cluster B to avoid slow network traffic.

Tim

[Styvboard]

Hi, we have a total of 7 clusters on two locations. Backup storage is on a cheap NAS server. NAS server and VMWare hosts mgmt network are on same subnet but not the 2 VDPs we are running.

All subnets are available on both locations, but routing of a specific network is on either site.

[schepp]

As said it's not so mouch about your networks.

Question is, can the hosts where the VDP appliances run access the VMFS datastores of the VMs that you want to backup?

[Styvboard]

Yes, appliances can access VMFS some SAN datastores but not all as we have 7 clusters, don't have 7 VDPs. But the mounted disks must be copied från SAN disk to NAS disk. So, is it VDP appliance that moves data or VCenter or what? If VDP appliance is on same network as NAS disk, would that be preferable. Wish to avoid routing as that could mean traffic will go back and forth over WAN link.

[Styvboard]

Let's assume VDP don't have direct access to SAN datastore. How is data transferred? From ESXi host to NAS datastore? Or via VDP appliance?

[RyanJMN]

If VDP is unable to directly access a datastore that a vmdk is on than the data is transferred over a network connection from esxi server that the VM is running on to proxy.  VDP has a proxy built in or you can optionally deploy external ones.  If network connection is slow deploying a proxy that has access to the datastore can significantly increase speed if network connection is slow.

VDP uses VADP Hotadd transport mode when available and NBD transport mode when it is not.

[Styvboard]

Hi, but question is: which network does VDP prefer? I'm guessing a should have my VDPs on the same network as NAS server. But will VDP fetch vmdk files from ESXi host that runs the VM and forward it to it's disk, in this case a NAS server. Or will VDP tell ESXi host to send files to disk NAS server directly?

Let's put it this way, is it a bad idea to have VDP servers on same network as Management network and NAS server also on the same network?

[Styvboard]

Thanks for the answer. If NBD transport is used, what interface is sending and what interface on backup side is recieving? VMs ESXi hosts management NIC? And backupservers NIC or backupservers ESXi host management NIC.

[RyanJMN]

If using NBD the data flows from ESXi management to VADP proxy nic.  Oftentimes the proxy is also the backup server but not always.

[vdp4life]

surprised you were even able to get it to run on a NAS. Ive had horrible performance on anything less than a 10gb capable NAS.

[Dorygray]

Hello guys, I'm having the same problem here.. Can anybody help me?

[Dorygray]

Hi guys... I'm having the same problem... Can anybody help me?