Understanding the components of Veeam Backup & Replication

The Veeam Backup & Replication software has several components that together make up the complete architecture that is needed to protect your environment.

Veeam Backup & Replication has the following components:

• Backup Server: Installed on either a physical or virtual server, this is the core component of Veeam Backup & Replication that controls and coordinates backups, replication, recovery verification, and restore tasks. It manages job scheduling as well as resource allocation. It also contains global configuration settings for the environment.
• Proxy Server: These are the workhorses of the environment as they offload tasks from the backup server and are the data movers between the backup server and repositories. It is the proxy servers that you can scale to add processing tasks to the environment.
• Repository Server: This is the backup target where all backup files (VBM – metadata, VBK – full backup file, and VIB – incremental) get written. The repository servers can be Windows- or Linux-based and have different filesystems, such as NTFS, ReFS, and XFS.
• Enterprise Manager Server: This server is an optional component and gets installed when you want to manage multiple backup servers in a single pane of glass. You can see backup jobs within your environment from multiple backup servers. Enterprise Manager also allows you to search all Microsoft Windows guest OS files within all current and archived backups with one-click restore. This optional component uses a separate SQL server and backup catalog service for indexing the guest operating systems.
• Built-In WAN Acceleration: This is also an optional component that allows for better movement of data between sites. It helps minimize data transfer by comparing the data blocks before the transfer, so only new blocks are sent across the WAN. It also accelerates backups by up to 50x between sites.
• File Explorers: These are built-in applications used during restore and look very similar to Windows Explorer. They allow you to browse the restore point to select specific files or data to be restored. There are explorers for Active Directory, Microsoft SQL, Oracle, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, and Microsoft OneDrive for Business.

You can reference the Veeam Backup & Replication File Explorers at the following website:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/explorers/explorers_introduction.html?ver=100

The following diagram will show all the aforementioned components:

Figure 1.1 – Veeam Backup & Replication components

In a simple setup, where all components are installed on one server but can scale as needed, you will require at least the backup server, proxy server, and repository server.

When you have multiple offices, you may wish to deploy Veeam Backup & Replication in a more advanced setup, as illustrated here:

Figure 1.2 – Advanced or distributed architecture installation

This deployment depicts the advanced or distributed setup of the application across more than one office where Enterprise Manager would see both backup servers.

Now that you have a better understanding of the components that make up Veeam Backup & Replication, we will now get into the installation, as well as best practices and optimizations, in the next section.