Veeam Environment Planning

Before you deploy Veeam Plug-in, keep in mind the following requirements and limitations:

• Veeam Backup Repositories
• Veeam Scale-Out Backup Repository
• RMAN Channels and Veeam Repository Task Slots
• Veeam Backup Job Name
• Hosting Environments

Veeam Backup Repositories

• Veeam Plug-in supports the following Veeam backup repositories:

• Windows Server
• Linux Server
• CIFS (SMB) Share
• Dell EMC Data Domain Boost

• Quantum DXi

• ExaGrid
• HPE StoreOnce. If you plan to use HPE StoreOnce as a backup repository for Veeam Plug-in for Oracle RMAN, the total number of stored files (data and metadata) must not exceed 1,000,000 per storage system.

• NFS File Share

• For Veeam Plug-in backups, the warning which indicates that free space on a storage device has reached a specified threshold is configured in the veeam_config.xml file of Veeam Plug-in. The warning settings in the Veeam Backup & Replication console does not affect this setting.

To configure the warning settings, add the following parameter in the veeam_config.xml file.

• The plug-in configuration wizard will not show repositories where the Encrypt backups stored in this repository option is enabled. To learn how to disable the encryption option, see Access and Encryption Settings on Repositories.

If you want to use the same backup target with the repository-based encryption and Veeam Plug-ins, create a second repository in the subfolder for Veeam Plug-in backups.

• If you use Veeam Plug-in version 9.5 Update 4 (old version), Veeam backup copy jobs are not able to process and copy the backups created by the plug-in.

• Veeam extract utility cannot extract Veeam Plug-in backup files. By design of Oracle RMAN, these files cannot be imported “as files” to RMAN as they contain additional metadata bound to the used SBT device.

Veeam Scale-Out Backup Repository

You can also use Veeam scale-out backup repositories that contain supported repository types. Mind the following:

• Veeam Capacity Tier does not support processing of Veeam Plug-in backups.

• For Veeam Plug-in backups and backup copies, the Performance policy of a scale-out repository will function a little differently:

1. Veeam Backup & Replication will check if there are extents without warning on free space insufficiency. If all extents have the warning, Veeam Backup & Replication will use an extent with the largest amount of free space that has a free task slot.
2. If there are extents without the warning, Veeam Backup & Replication checks if there are incremental extents with free task slots. If there are no incremental extents with free task slots, Veeam Backup & Replication uses a full extent with least amount of used task slots.
3. If there are incremental extents with free task slots, Veeam Backup & Replication will send backup files to an incremental extent with least amount of used task slots. If the amount of used tasks is the same, an extent with the most amount of free space.

To learn more about file placement policies of scale-out repositories, see Backup File Placement section of the Veeam Backup & Replication guide.

• If a scale-out repository is configured in the Localty policy, repository extents will be selected according to the amount of free space for each Oracle RMAN connection. If there are two extents with one slot on each extent, the backup will be launched on two streams (one on each extent).

• If you want to migrate Veeam backup repositories to a scale-out backup repository and Veeam Plug-in backups are present on the repository, you must do the following:

1. Transfer the folders that include backups to an existing scale-out backup repository extent.
2. Rescan the scale-out backup repository.
3. Set the scale-out backup repository as a target in the Veeam Plug-in settings.
4. Rescan the repository that you want to add.
5. Migrate the repository to the scale-out backup repository.

RMAN Channels and Veeam Repository Task Slots

• Any parallel channel started by RMAN will use one Veeam backup repository task slot. By design, Oracle Standard Edition can work with one channel. Oracle Enterprise Edition has the option to use multiple channels and you can configure them in the Veeam Plug-in configuration wizard or at the ALLOCATE CHANNEL definition in RMAN scripts. It is recommended to carefully plan repository task slots, so that Oracle RMAN can work with multiple channels in parallel when configured.
• Resource consumption on the Oracle server depends on hardware and Oracle settings. The following hardware resources are recommended based on tests on Skylake processors:

• Oracle server: 1 CPU core and 200 MB of RAM per currently used channel.
• Backup repository server: 1 CPU core and 1 GB of RAM per 5 currently used channels.

These resources are recommended only if you use a separate backup repository for Veeam Plug-in backups. If you use the same backup repository for backups of Veeam Plug-ins and VM backups and/or backups of Veeam Agents managed by Veeam Backup & Replication, see the requirements for backup repository servers in the Release Notes of Veeam Backup & Replication.

We recommend to contact your Veeam system engineer to optimize the channel settings and resource allocation.

• It is recommended to use a separate backup repository for Veeam Plug-in backups.

• The control file does not use a repository task slot and will be processed even if there are no free task slots.

Veeam Backup Job Name

• On the Veeam Backup & Replication server, the backup job name will be created automatically based on the server or cluster name and selected repository.
• For environments that use Oracle RMAN copy processing, one job per repository is created.

Hosting Environments

By default, Veeam Plug-in uses the Oracle server hostname to create a Veeam Backup & Replication job object and backup folder. To be able to distinguish individual servers, it is recommended to set the following entry within the Veeam configuration XML file: <PluginParameters customServerName="hostname.domain.tld" />

• [Linux or Unix]: /opt/veeam/VeeamPluginforOracleRMAN/veeam_config.xml
• [Windows]: %PROGRAMFILES%\Veeam\VeeamPluginforOracleRMAN\veeam_config.xml

If your servers that have the same hostname in multiple environments, you must add the following entries in the plug-in configuration file: