Setting Up NFS Direct Access for Veeam Backups and Its Benefits

How to Set Up NFS Direct Access for Veeam Backups

Did you know that choosing the right transfer mode when backing up virtual machines stored in NFS datastores can make a huge difference in performance and efficiency? That’s why our experts recommend direct access to NFS for Veeam Backup & Replication. This method is an effective alternative to the traditional Network Mode.

Network Mode Problem

Before we get started, let’s take a look at the network mode issue. Veeam Backup & Replication uses VMware VDDK to communicate with the ESXi host and process VM data in network mode. This method creates an additional burden on the ESXi host, which can affect its performance and the overall efficiency of backup operations.

What is NFS Direct Access?

NFS Direct Access is a mode of transfer used in Veeam Backup & Replication to effectively backup and replicate virtual machines stored in NFS datastores. This is done by installing a native NFS client on a Veeam backup proxy.

The backup proxy is then responsible for transferring data between the NFS datastore and the backup repository. This method helps to reduce the load on the ESXi host and improve backup and replication performance.

Key Features of NFS Direct Access

• Bypassing the ESXi host, direct access to NFS takes the processing load off the host and allows the host to perform other critical tasks.
• Direct access to NFS increases I/O throughput, allowing for faster backup and replication processes than other modes such as network mode.
• Since the ESXi host is not involved in data transmission, its impact on the host’s performance is minimized.
• NFS Direct Access supports environments that use versions 3 and 4.1 of NFS, which makes it suitable for a wide array of configurations.

Why should you choose NFS Direct Access?

NFS Direct Access mode is a more effective method because it allows Veeam Backup & Replication to bypass the ESXi host entirely. Instead, the data is read and written directly to and from the NFS datastores, using the native NFS client over the Veeam backup proxy. This method reduces the load on the ESXi host and keeps the data traffic inside the LAN.

We can use NFS Direct Access for a variety of operations, which include:

• Backup
• Duplicate
• Fast Migration
• Copy VM
• Full VM Recovery
• VM Disk Recovery
• Back in Replication

How to set up NFS Direct Access

To implement NFS Direct Access, we must meet the following requirements:

1. NFS Direct Access supports NFS versions 3 and 4.1 in VMware vSphere environments. So check the versions before launching NFS Direct Access.
2. Veeam backup proxy must have access to NFS datastores that contain VM disks.
3. If NFS volumes on the ESXi host are mounted using names instead of IP addresses, make sure that these names are available via DNS through Veeam backup proxy.

NFS Direct Access Restrictions

It is important to be aware of the specific restrictions of NFS Direct Access:

1. Veeam cannot analyze Delta disks in NFS Direct Access mode. So:
   • VMs with at least one snapshot cannot use NFS Direct Access.
   • In the first session of a replication job, NFS Direct Access is used. Subsequent sessions require the use of a different transition mode due to the presence of snapshots.
2. If enabled, Veeam will not use NFS Direct Access for VMs running with VMware Tools installed on Microsoft Windows.
3. VMs that have disks that cannot be processed in NFS Direct Access mode will default to Network Transport Mode.

How to Configure NFS Direct Access

To set up NFS Direct Access, follow the steps below:

1. First, go to the “Proxies” section of the Veeam Backup & Replication interface.
2. Then right-click on the proxy you want to configure and select “Properties”.
3. In the “Transport Mode” section, select the “Automatic Selection” option. This allows the proxy to choose the best mode of transmission and set the default to direct NFS access if it is usable.
4. Also, make sure that the “Failover to Network mode” option is enabled to prevent backup operations from failing if NFS is not available.
5. In the Job settings, select the “Automatic Selection” option for the proxy. This ensures that the best proxy for NFS backups and direct access is selected.
6. If not all proxies have access to NFS storage, you need to ensure that the correct proxy is selected with the necessary access and permissions for specific jobs.

NFS Direct Access Monitoring

We can also check if backups use NFS Direct Access, by checking Job Log. To do this, it is enough to look for the following modes of transmission:

• [nfs] – NFS Direct Access Mode.
• [san] – iSCSI and Fibre Channel mode (unusable for virtual disks in NFS storage).
• [nbd] – Network Block Device mode.
• [hotadd] – Virtual Appliance Mode.

These modes appear in the Job log after each virtual disk backup.

Click here to read more about Veeam Backup & Replication

Functional Benefits

Implementing NFS Direct Access can improve our backup performance by:

• Reduced open time for VMware snapshots during backup or duplication.
• Minimizing the time required for additional steps such as installing and removing proxy disks using HotAdd.
• Increased throughput I/O in all types of jobs.

NFS Direct Access is especially useful for environments that use NetApp storage, and Enterprise Plus installations can exploit backups of storage snapshots.

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