So you are implementing Veeam and need a dedupe appliance for repository but not sure which one to select. I was in the same position an year back. There was an inclination from higher up for HPE StoreOnce. But there wasn’t enough data out there (or maybe I couldn’t find it) on the expected dedupe ratios with Veeam backup.
Finally after multiple back and forth with HPE and a written guarantee on a minimum expected dedupe ratio, we bought HPE StoreOnce 5100. Here is my experience.
Configuration
- 2 x 16Gb FC HBA’s
- 4 x 10Gb Ethernet (2 x dual port card)
- Capacity: 106TB
FC connection between StoreOnce and a bare metal Windows server with Veeam gateway role.
StoreOnce Setup
Assuming the initial configuration has been completed for StoreOnce, perform the following steps to create a StoreOnce catalyst as a Veeam repository.
HPE StoreOnce Catalyst deduplication is not global to the appliance but rather local to individual catalyst stores. This can have a significant impact how you design catalyst stores for use as repositories.
- Create a StoreOnce Catalyst client. The name needs to be named “Veeam“. Create a password. You will use this within Veeam to add the repository
- Next go to Stores within Catalyst to create a store. You will add this as a repository within Veeam.
- Next add the client you created in the first step to the store, enabling “Access“
- Next step would be to add this Catalyst store to Veeam, assuming all fabric zoning has already been configured to the gateway server.
Veeam Configuration
- Add the gateway server to Veeam as a backup proxy.
- Add new backup repository in Veeam.
- Select Deduplicating storage appliance
- Select HPE StoreOnce
- Select checkbox Use Fibre Channel connectivity. This adds in COFC- to the server name. This is required if connecting through FC. Add in the FQDN of the StoreOnce after COFC- e.g. COFC-mystoreonce.mycorp.com
- In credentials, add the Veeam client that was created in StoreOnce earlier
- In the Gateway Server, select the gateway server
- If everything is configured correctly, select you will select the Catalyst store
- For the concurrent tasks, this will depend on the number of connections between the gateway server and StoreOnce
- Review the settings and finish the wizard. Congratulations you have just added in a StoreOnce Catalyst store to your Veeam
Deduplication
This is what we are seeing one year after implementation
General repository (predominantly Windows server backups) – 16:1
Microsoft Exchange backups – 23:1
File Services backup – 23:1
Hope this is helpful to someone.
