General guidelines

Please always check the general deduplication appliances section as the best practices listed there also apply to ExaGrid.

ExaGrid recommended Backup Job and Repository settings

To perform backup to ExaGrid appliances, follow the recommendations for Exagrid listed in the Veeam Help Center.

Encryption at-rest

Do not enable encryption for the jobs targeted at the deduplication storage appliance as this has a negative effect on the deduplication ratio.

Instead, enable encryption at-rest on the ExaGrid. Be aware that this does not protect from data exfiltration, but only protects the data in case the physical device is stolen.

SOBR Settings

Once Veeam repositories have been created for each ExaGrid Share on each ExaGrid appliance, add the extents (repositories) into a single SOBR. This way, the backup data is automatically directed to the various ExaGrid Shares, determined by their available space.

Use the default SOBR settings:

• Enable Use per-VM backup files
• Use the Data locality policy

Converting a standalone Backup Repository to SOBR

Veeam repositories can be easily combined into a single Veeam SOBR. However, having a Veeam SOBR that contains multiple extents (repositories) from the same ExaGrid appliance can lead to a behaviour when more free backup capacity reported than actually exists.

It’s recommended to consult with ExaGrid to develop a plan to move from a non-SOBR configuration to a SOBR configuration.

References

• Veeam Help Center - Exagrid
• Veeam Alliance Partner Integrations & Qualifications - Exagrid -> Deduplication Target
• KB1745 - Deduplication Appliance Best Practices

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