Best Practices Guide

for Dell EMC Unity

Storage Integration
Michael Cade
Global Technologist,
Product StrategyVeeam Software

© 2017 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Contents
Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Supported Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Using Veeam Backup from Storage Snapshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The benefits of using Veeam Backup from Storage Snapshots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Veeam Backup from Storage Snapshots: The Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Architecture Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Add Controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Add Storage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Configure Veeam Proxy (Transport Modes) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Configure Dell EMC UNITY LUN Mapping / Host Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Job Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

VM processing limit (Advanced Settings) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Veeam Explorer for Storage Snapshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Configuration: Create Virtual Lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Create Application Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Create SureBackup job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots — Running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

About the Author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

About Veeam Software. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 1
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Executive Summary
The Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration delivers guidance to customers using Veeam® Availability
Suite™ with Dell EMC Unity (and VNX / VNXe) storage systems. The focus includes benefits, system performance, and
configuration considerations for storage snapshots to enhance backup, replication and recovery tasks.

These guidelines are intended to cover the most common use cases. Though these guidelines are recommended by
Veeam, they are not strictly required. If you have questions regarding these guidelines and their use within your data
center, please contact your Veeam representative to discuss these recommendations.

Introduction
The lightning-fast pace of technological innovation is transforming the way organizations operate in every industry. This
digital transformation can either make or break your business because, in the digital world, customers expect 24.7.365
Availability. To meet these demands, businesses are evaluating new storage technology innovations, including large,
physical storage arrays, cloud services and archival solutions. Yet, these solutions have introduced additional challenges,
costs and management overhead.

As businesses struggle to adapt their environments to leverage virtualization, modern storage and cloud technologies,
the disparate capabilities of software data protection solutions and storage arrays only increases the complexity. Dell
EMC arrays such as Unity (and VNX / VNXe) offer advanced storage snapshot capabilities. These capabilities include
support for array snapshots that may be taken at multiple points-in-time of the storage environment.

Veeam’s integration with these snapshots can greatly enhance backup and recovery performance with little to no impact
on the production environment. By leveraging these snapshots, businesses can greatly enhance their recovery point
objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs). The ability to create more recovery points more often provides
flexibility for recovery and reduces the probability of data loss.

The ability to back up from storage snapshots and granularly recover guest OS files, application items, or even an entire
VM while also offering the capability to automate the entire process is a unique set of features. This guide provides
further direction to best configure Veeam storage snapshot capabilities with Dell EMC Unity (and VNX / VNXe) systems.

Supported Platforms
Veeam provides support for Dell EMC VNX, VNX2, VNXe and Unity storage arrays through NFS, Fibre Channel (FC) or
iSCSI connectivity. For more information and to view requirements and limitations for Dell EMC storage, please refer to
the User Guide for Veeam Backup & Replication™.

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 2
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Using Veeam Backup from Storage Snapshots

Veeam uses a VMware vSphere snapshot during a regular backup. To ensure consistency, Veeam’s Application Aware
Image Processing engages the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) directly through a runtime component. This ensures
the application is in a consistent state, allowing a Veeam backup job to truncate the application logs. This may be
performed after a backup to confirm a successful backup is taken first.

A second option is available using VMware tools for Windows machines, enabling file level integration with VSS. Veeam
also allows users an option to use pre-and post-snapshot scripts if desired.

Regardless of which option is selected, the virtual machine (VM) is in a consistent state when Veeam initiates the
VMware snapshot. At this stage Veeam captures the VM at that point in time.

Before a snapshot is created, the VM is reading and writing to and from the *.VMDK file of the VM. After a snapshot is
created, VMware will create a delta disk. Initially, the delta disk will be small in comparison to the VMDK disk but over
the lifetime of the snapshot, all VM writes are redirected to this delta disk. Reads will continue from the *.VMDK file if the
blocks have not been written since the snapshot.

It is important to note VMware snapshots are not transactional. If a block is updated more than once, the block on the delta disk
will be updated and not require additional space. It is possible for the delta to grow to the size of the *.VMDK file.

While it is important to consider time for the backup application to copy of the *.VMDK quickly while avoiding excessive
writes to the delta disk, the issue should not cause too much concern. Writes to the data disks need to be committed
back to the *.VMDK file and Veeam makes use of VMware Changed Block Tracking (CBT) so that only changed blocks will
need to be backed up.

If a VM experiences heavy I/O operations, you may experience one of the following two issues:
1. Snapshots grow in 16MB extents. Every time a snapshot grows, it needs to pause I/O to the VMFS file system to
allocate more space for the *.VMDK file (meta updates).
2. If you have a thin provisioned VMFS volume, the space will be taken from the containing SAN LUN. However, when
a snapshot is deleted it doesn’t automatically reclaim the space on the SAN, permitting the possibility of significant
white space on the storage system.

Heavy I/O operations usually indicates a high probably of many changed blocks. If a significant number of blocks have
been changed, the duration of a backup job could increase.

Figure 1: Lifetime of a VM snapshot

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 3
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

The benefits of using Veeam Backup

from Storage Snapshots
Veeam Backup from Storage Snapshots enables you to create true backups and replicas from Dell EMC storage
snapshots. Heavy I/O operations are a possible indicator that a VM is experiencing a significant number of changes.

The first step is to create the storage snapshot. This is similar to a standard VMware vSphere snapshot but performed
from the storage API and not the VMware or Veeam console. Because the storage takes the snapshot, the delta disk
is leveraged for a short period of time reducing the space consumed by new writes and the time required to commit/
consolidate back to the *.VMDK file.

Figure 2: Veeam Backup from Storage Snapshots process

One of the many advantages of Veeam’s ability to backup from Storage Snapshots is the ability to directly connect to the
storage system and read the data. Veeam will still create the sparse delta file but minimize the amount of time required
to complete this process.

Figure 3: Reduced time to commit a storage snapshot

Often the question is raised as to if the workload is shifted from the VMware layer to the storage layer? With Dell EMC
Unity (and VNX / VNXe) this is not the case. Because of the way the storage snapshot technology has been created,
Dell EMC snapshots only point to blocks if the snapshot is deleted. There is no need to commit anything back into the
volume as the snapshot (pointers) are simply removed.

This feature is critical for heavy I/O operations though it also takes the load away from the production VMware
environment using the DirectSAN or DirectNFS feature. With Veeam you are able to connect to the storage snapshot
and utilise it to perform backups rather than impacting the production vSphere environment.

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 4
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Veeam Backup from Storage Snapshots: The Process

1. Veeam Backup & Replication analyzes which VMs in the job host their disks on the storage system, and triggers
VMware vCenter Server to create VMware vSphere snapshots for these VMs.
2. Veeam Backup & Replication instructs the storage system to create a snapshot of the storage volume or LUN that
hosts VM disks and VMware vSphere snapshots.
3. Veeam Backup & Replication gets CBT information for VMs hosted on the storage system.
4. Veeam Backup & Replication instructs VMware vCenter Server to remove VMware vSphere snapshots on the
production storage system. The ‘cloned’ VMware vSphere snapshots remain on the created storage snapshots.
5. Veeam Backup & Replication checks the backup infrastructure and detects if there is a backup proxy that has
a direct connection to the storage system. Veeam Backup & Replication mounts the storage snapshot as a new
volume to this backup proxy.
6. Veeam Backup & Replication reads and transports VM data blocks via the backup proxy to the backup repository.
For incremental backup or replication, Veeam Backup & Replication uses obtained CBT data to retrieve only changed
data blocks from the storage snapshot.
7. When VM data processing is finished, Veeam Backup & Replication unmounts the storage snapshot from the backup
proxy and instructs the storage system to remove the storage snapshot.

Veeam
Backup server

3-4

Storage system

1
6
7 Storage volume
Backup proxy Backup
repository
2

5
Storage volume
snapshots

Figure 4: Storage Snapshots process

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 5
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Architecture Considerations
The architecture and configuration requirements for Veeam’s storage integration is minimal. As previously mentioned,
the Veeam Backup Server is responsible for all API requests pertaining to vSphere and the Dell EMC storage arrays.
These calls will assist in determining present volumes, snapshots and all necessary details (e.g., initiator groups, LUN
mappings and available storage protocols).

Figure 5: Architecture of a data center including Dell EMC Unity and Veeam

The Veeam Proxy Server(s) read data from the storage snapshot and send this information to the backup repository.
Requirements for the Backup Server and Proxy Server(s) are as follows:

Veeam Backup Server

The management server, where all configuration and job management occurs, MUST have access to the Dell EMC Unity
(or VNX / VNXe) management interfaces. All other prerequisites such LUN mappings, creation of Initiator Groups for
iSCSI, altering NFS exports and snapshot management are subsequently handled via this connection.

Veeam Proxy Server(s)

The Veeam data mover or Veeam Proxy Server MUST be able to directly access the storage array via the same protocol used for
connecting the production data store (Fibre Channel, iSCSI or NFS). However, it is not a requirement for the proxy server to have
access to the production data store itself, as it reads data blocks directly from the cloned storage snapshot.

The Veeam Backup Server and Veeam Proxy Server can be deployed on one single server or scaled out on different servers.
Components may be separated for scalability considerations, including environments where storage integration is utilized.

Configuration
The next section will detail the configuration requirements for Veeam Backup & Replication and Dell EMC Unity storage.

For the purposes of this section, it is assumed Veeam Backup & Replication 9.0 Update 2 or greater is installed. It is also assumed
a Veeam Backup Server and two Veeam Proxy Servers have been deployed and connected to the iSCSI and NFS networks.

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 6
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Add Controller
Adding the Dell EMC Unity system to Veeam Backup & Replication console is accomplished via a task in the storage
infrastructure section of the user interface. This section of the user interface is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Adding a controller using Veeam Backup & Replication

Add Storage
To add the new storage array to the storage infrastructure associated with this Veeam Backup & Replication console,
select the Add Storage link.

Figure 7: Adding Dell EMC storage to the Veeam Backup & Replication console

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 7
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

By selecting Dell EMC you are then prompted to select the appropriate array.

Figure 8: Selecting the appropriate Dell EMC storage

A few tasks are necessary to add the array. First, a DNS name or IP address must be provided to communicate through
the management interface.

Figure 9: Entering the DNS/IP address

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 8
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Access to the Dell EMC Unity system requires authentication and access rights. If this is the first storage system to be
added, you will need to create a new credentials for authentication.

Figure 10: Entering the DNS/IP address

Select Add and then you will be prompted to provide the appropriate credentials and description.

Figure 11: Entering credentials

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 9
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

A user will then be prompted to determine the desired Access Options. This allows choice as to which protocols to use
with the storage array. The appropriate VMware presented datastores may then be selected for scanning as well as
backup proxies. Further information regarding the backup proxies may be found later in this guide.

Figure 12: Specifing Access Options for Dell EMC storage

When the wizard is complete it will determine the relevant LUNs or NFS Exports available on the storage system and add
the configuration to the Storage Infrastructure.

Figure 13: Adding the new configuration to the storage infrastructure

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 10
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Configure Veeam Proxy (Transport Modes)

Now that we have the storage array configured within Veeam Backup & Replication we need to validate the Veeam Proxy
servers have access to the VMware presented LUNs.

This task is performed in the backup infrastructure section of the user interface. This section of the user interface is
shown in Figure 14.

Figure 14: Ensuring access to VMware LUNs by Veeam Proxy servers

By right clicking on the required proxy and selecting Properties, the required transport mode wizard and configuration
may be configured.

Figure 15: Configuring transport modes

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 11
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

The initial menu provides options to select from Transport Modes and Connected Datastores. By default these are
configured as Automatic.

Select Transport Mode and this will open an additional option menu.

Figure 16: Choosing the server for the backup proxy

Automatic Selection is is the default and will proceed through all available transport modes and choose the available option:
1. Backup from Storage Snapshots
2. Direct SAN / NFS
3. Virtual Appliance
4. Network Mode

For the purpose of this guide, only options 1 and 2 will be covered in the above list as these are the most optimal
transport modes when it comes to storage integration.

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 12
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

At the bottom of the menu you will also see “Failover to network mode if primary mode fails, or is unavailable.” This
setting allows for using network mode to ensure a backup is still created in the event direct storage access is lost.

Figure 17: Selecting options for the backup proxy transport mode

Configure Dell EMC UNITY LUN Mapping / Host Access

When creating a host within Unisphere, you will add the selected Veeam proxies through the create host option. iSCSI
connectivity will use IQN addresses and TCP/IP Addresses. This should be configured in a similar manner as to how
VMware hosts are connected to present VMFS datastores.

Within Unisphere select Access and Hosts as shown below:

Figure 18: Creating a host within Unisphere

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 13
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

The first menu will prompt for name and some information based on what this host access group will be used for.

Figure 19: Naming the host

From your Windows Operating System Veeam Proxy server you will need to validate that the iSCSI service has started.
From the iSCSI initiatior properties locate the Initator name / IQN. Each proxy will have a unique initiator name.

Figure 20: iSCSI initiatior properties

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 14
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Please note the IQN address and add this into the Unisphere wizard. CHAP authentication may also be configured
here if required.

Figure 21: Adding the iSCSI initiatior

When you have added your Veeam Proxy servers (see Figure 22), you will have completed the only step required for
setting up host access.

Figure 22: iSCSI initiatior properties

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 15
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

In the next step, a summary is presented to review the host configuration.

Figure 23: Reviewing the host configuration

Next, commit the changes and the hosts will be added accordingly. The screenshot below provides further
illustration of this process.

Figure 24: Finalizing the host configuration

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 16
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Job Setup
The next step in the configuration process is to create the backup job that will leverage Veeam’s ability to backup from
storage snapshots. Navigate to the backup and replication section of the user interface. The New Backup Wizard will
request the following information:

Figure 25: Creating the backup job

After you have provided a name and description for your new backup job, you will then be prompted to add the objects
you wish to backup (based on the VM, vSphere tags or a datastore).

Figure 26: Creating the backup job

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 17
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Select the VMs or objects that you wish to include in the backup job.

Figure 27: Selecting VMs or objects for the backup job

Next we need to configure where we want to store the backup and for how long do we wish to keep the backup.

Figure 28: Configuring the parameters for the backup job

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 18
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Under the advanced settings there are some specific options for storage integrations. By default “Enable backup from
storage snapshots” is selected. Additional options are also available as, if you have a large number of VMs resisding
in one datastore you may wish to reduce or limit the amount of processed per storage snapshot. This helps avoid
unnecessary impacts on performance to the storage array.

There is also the option to failover to standard VMware snapshot backup if the storage integration does not work.
Further information regarding this option is available following this section.

Figure 29: Options for storage integration

Following on from the advanced settings, the option for application aware processing can be configured.

Figure 30: Configuring application aware processing

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 19
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Set a schedule on when you would like the backup job to take place.

Figure 31: Job scheduling options

A summary of the job configuration may be seen in Figure 32.

Figure 32: A summary of the backup job configuration

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 20
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

VM processing limit (Advanced Settings)

Figure 33: Advanced settings required for storage snapshot integration

When adding several VMs to a job, Steps 1 and 2 (Backup from Storage Snapshot — The Process section) are repeated by
default until all VMs within the job have successfully completed. Only then will Backup from Storage Snapshots proceed
to Step 3 and authorize the storage snapshot. For example, adding over 100 VMs to a backup or replication job could
cause a very high VM snapshot lifetime for the first VMs in the job list.

When configuring large jobs, it is advised to configure the maximum number of VMs within one storage snapshot. The
setting is available in the advanced job settings within the Integration tab.

Example: When creating a job with 100 VMs and setting the limit to 10, the Backup from Storage Snapshot job will
instruct the job manager to process the first 10 VMs (Steps 1 and 2), issue the storage snapshot, and proceed with the
backup (Steps 3–7). When Step 7 has successfully completed for the first 10 VMs, the job will repeat the above for the
following 10 VMs in the job.

When ensuring proper configuration of Backup from Storage Snapshots, minimal VM snapshot lifetime is achieved, and
reduces overall I/O penalty on the production storage for highly transactional VMs.

Veeam Explorer for Storage Snapshots

While the ability to reduce impact on the production VMware environment by leveraging backup from storage snapshots
is an enticing feature, the integration between Veeam and Dell EMC also enables the ability for high speed recovery
techniques directly from the storage array.

Veeam Explorer™ for Storage Snapshots may be used to view historic snapshots or snapshots that have not been orchestrated
by Veeam. Even if the snapshot has not been orchestrated by Veeam, you can still enable file level recovery options and:
• Recover guest OS files, application items or even an entire VM from a storage snapshot in two minutes or less
• Restore directly from storage snapshots, eliminating the need for staging snapshot contents
o disk and intermediate restores
• Reduce the time needed to mount snapshots by 10x or more compared to manual processes, lowering your RTOs
while avoiding human errors that can occur during critical recovery steps such as mounting snapshots

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 21
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

This feature may be accessed within the storage infrastructure section of the user interface and by navigating through
the storage array and storage level snapshots to find the available options on a per VM basis. Below you will see the view
from a snapshot that is created and orchestrated by Veeam.

Figure 34: Snapshot

Because this snapshot is in an application consistent state, Veeam Backup & Replication allows for application consistent
restore options. The end result is the ability to provide application item level recovery from a storage snapshot (no
agents required) via a simple to use interface.

Another option within the Veeam Explorer for Storage Snaphots is the ability to leverage Instant VM Recovery® from a
storage snapshot, the storage snapshot mounts directly to the ESXi host by the recovery wizard and the VM inventoried.
This presents the VM to the datastore name with Veeam appended to the actual datastore name.

It’s important to note that the VM can’t stay here forever. We recommend that you migrate the VM from the storage
snapshot back to a production datastore via either Storage vMotion or Veeam’s Quick Migration, both of which can move
the storage associated with the VM from the storage snapshot to a production datastore.

Figure 35: Instant VM Recovery

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 22
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

With the same technique, guest files can be restored from a storage snapshot to the original or new location.

Figure 36: Restore Guest Files

On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots

Thin Clone is a great technology from Dell EMC offering businesses a fully functional snapshot version of their production
data with production storage performance. Veeam enables automation of this task, including the creation of the Thin
Clone snapshot, presentation, provisioning and most importantly the clean-up operations once testing and development
is complete. This feature can provide a full performance virtual lab without using any further production storage.

On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots™ allows existing storage snapshots, to create a segregated, full performance
copy of production workloads for testing and troubleshooting.

Figure 37: Veeam On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots

There are three requirements to use the On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots feature. The first requirement is a
segregated network within our VMware environment known as a Virtual Lab. An application group will consist of the VM
to be used within this segregated environment for testing or development purposes. Finally a job that will pull the virtual
lab and application group together for starting and stopping the environment.

Configuration: Create Virtual Lab

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 23
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Creating a virtual lab is a one time process and, once configured, may be used repeatedly. A virtual lab may be shared by
multiple SureBackup Jobs.

To create this required entity the configuration can be accessed within the backup infrastructure section of the user interface.

Using the wizard, provide a relevant name and description for the virtual lab.

Figure 38: Creating a Virtual Lab

Next, select the required ESXi host for running the virtual lab.

Figure 39: Selecting a host for the virtual lab

The following screen will provide a brief statistics summary for the host that was selected and also allow you to configure
a folder and resource pool for the virtual lab.

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 24
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Figure 40: Configuring a resource pool for the Virtual Lab

Because a virtual lab uses a storage snapshot, the ability to write any changes to that snapshot will not be available and
will require storage for any redo logs and temporary files. This is also relevant when running from backup files.

Figure 41: Choosing a datastore

For the purposes of this guide, the Virtual Lab Proxy Appliance has been configured for recovery verification tasks and
file level recovery. This is not required for use with On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots.

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 25
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Figure 42: Configuring a proxy appliance

Next, specify the networking settings for the virtual lab. Each option is dependent upon the environment. Be sure to
check the overview provided for each option and select accordingly.

Figure 43: Choosing the network

A summary of the configuration will then be displayed.

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 26
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Figure 44: Deploying the virtual lab

When the job is completed the required components will be created within the environment.

Figure 45: Applying the configuratuion for the virtual lab

Create Application Group

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 27
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

To create this required entity the configuration can be accessed within the backup infrastructure section of the user
interface shown below.

Figure 46: Creating an Application Group

Provide a name and description for the Application Group.

Figure 47: Naming the Application Group

You will notice at this screen you have the ability to choose from backups, replicas and Storage Snapshots. For the

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 28
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

purpose of this guide we will select storage snapshots. It is possible to select from various locations if desired.

Figure 48: Adding VMs to the Application Group

Select the VMs that are required within the Application Group. This should include the main system to be tested and any
dependancies that are required.

Figure 49: Selecting VMs for the Application Group

Once selected, you will see the list of VMs and the source of the storage snapshot.

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 29
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Figure 50: A list of VMs assigned to the Application Group

In some environments or use cases, you may not require the same resources as the live VM, providing the ability to
reduce the allocated memory as well as other configuration settings.

Figure 51: Selecting verification options for the Application Group

The following figure provides a Summary of all the VMs that have been added to the job.

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 30
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Figure 52: A summary of the VMs includined in the Application Group

Create SureBackup job

A SureBackup® job pairs the virtual lab and application group together, allowing the task to be started and stopped as
required. This job will also be stopped to perform a structured powered down if ncessary.

To create the SureBackup job, the Job Wizard may be accessed within the backup and replication section
of the user interface.

Figure 53: Creating the SureBackup job

Select the newly created Virtual Lab that we created previously.

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 31
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Figure 54: Adding the Virtual Lab to the SureBackup job

Next, select the Application Group that was also just created previously.

Figure 55: Selecting the Application Group for the SureBackup job

Please note, if you wish to use automated verification of SureBackup or SureReplica then you do not need to select the
option illustrated in the figure below. If you would like to interact with VMs in the Application Group, then you will need

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 32
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

to select this to ensure systems stay up and running.

Figure 56: Select the box to interact with the Application Group VMs

A summary of the SureBackup job is provided at the conclusion of the wizard. If you would like to run the job now then
please select the “Run the job when I click finish” setting.

Figure 57: Finalizing and running the SureBackup job

On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots — Running

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 33
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

If you have selected the same configuration above, then the job will have started and you will see similar results to the figure
below. Storage clone technology is used to create a clone of the selected snapshot within the SureBackup job configuration.

Figure 58: Running a On-Demand Sandbox session

Within your VMware environment you will now see the newly presented VMs. These will power on in the order provided
in the configuration.

Figure 59: Newly presented VMs

You will also be able to see the storage configuration of VMs if you navigate to datastores within the VMware vSphere

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 34
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

Client. The newly presented datastore containing the VMs above should be visible.

Figure 60: Viewing the storage configuration within the vSphere Web Client

Within the Dell EMC Unity Unisphere interface you will see a Veeam-created clone and presented snapshot.

Figure 61: Viewing the Veeam-created clone and snapshot

At this stage, all Application Group VMs should be powered on and accessbible for your test and development requirements.

When testing is complete, navigate to the running job within the backup and replication section of the user interface, select the

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 35
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

job and close session. This will then start the decommissioning of all the VMs, datastores and mounted snapshots and clones.

Figure 62: Closing the session

Conclusion
The Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration provides configuration and setting recommendations for
Veeam Backup & Replication when used with Dell EMC Unity (or VNX / VNXe) storage systems in general use cases.

For detailed discussion of the reasoning or methodology behind these recommendations, or for additional guidance for
specific use cases, please contact your Veeam representative.

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 36
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

About the Author

Michael Cade is an IT Professional with over 10 years of industry experience with a key
focus on Data Center technologies including Virtualisation, NetApp Storage and Cisco
Data Center. Michael is very active around the social media sphere blogging and tweeting
relevant technical content. Michael lives near Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

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 < 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.

Founded in 2006, Veeam currently has 51,000 ProPartners and more than 267,500 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.

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 37
Best Practices Guide for Dell EMC Unity Storage Integration

© 2018 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 38