Veeam Backup & Replication Networking Tool
Plan and prepare
Plan for operations – “What do I need to do”
First you should plan the operations you want to perform with Veeam Backup and Replication. This will be the first input for the tool. First level operations are:
- Backup will guide you through what and how-to backup
- Replicate is like backup but specific to replication process
- Restore will guide you through restore process
- Externalize will guide you through externalization process such as tapes, capacity tier or cloud connect
Each of these choices will guide you through a tree of options until you reach the end of a branch and can submit your choice.
Note: if you plan a complex infrastructure, it is advised to generate one output per operation. For example, you will use the tool once only for backup operation and generate a first output. Then you can generate a second output dedicated to restore operation and a third to externalization. Once done you can easily merge all three spreadsheets onto one using excel.
Plan for infrastructure – “What do I have to do it”
Once the operations are defined, the relying infrastructure can be narrowed.
Depending on the selected operations, you will be asked to define the potential infrastructure. For example, if you selected backup from vSphere in the operations step, you will be prompted for a vSphere administration tool, whether being vSphere, ESXi, or vCloud Director.
You must also plan underlying infrastructure components such as proxy type, or repository type. First choices are:
- Hypervisor: to define the way the hypervisor is managed.
- Proxy: to define the proxy OS and transport mode
- Storage integration: to define the primary storage integration if relevant
- Repository: to define the repository type and/or integration if relevant
Note: if you do not plan a component – like primary storage integration - just ignore it.
Plan for roles mapping – How is infrastructure deployed”
Veeam being deployed as a role-based architecture, each role can be installed on a specific server.
You should now inventory your servers and plan Veeam roles installation on them. For example, you can plan a server as a combined “all in one” Veeam server, hosting VBR server, proxy, repository and so on. But you might also decide to split the roles on multiple hosts such as a server for VBR, another for MS-SQL server, one proxy, two repositories, a guest interaction proxy…