1+1=3

Cisco + Veeam
Better Together

The IT world is changing

fundamentally at the moment.
New technologies like the Internet
of Things and modern industry are
resulting in massive data growth
in data centers. It is becoming
more important to guarantee the
Availability of the critical data that
companies depend on to power
their business. Therefore, it is
imperative customer partner with
industry-proven technologies like
Veeam with Cisco to meet their
strategic IT goals. These tests show
that the combination of Veeam and
Cisco delivers a joint solution that
maximizes the performance and
efficiency of backups in customers
data centers.
Stefan Renner,
EMEA Alliance Systems Engineer,
Veeam

Thrive in the era of data growth

Maximize backup performance with
Veeam Backup & Replication and Cisco
C3x60 storage server
Summary
In lab performance testing at Cisco labs in Copenhagen, Veeam Backup & Replication
and the Cisco C3160 high-density storage server proved to be a robust solution that
meets the performance needs of todays modern data center. The testing objective
was to determine the best RAID and job configuration for Veeam Backup & Replication
in combination with Cisco C3x60 servers in a real-world environment. Test results
determined that a single C3160 server node achieves 1,100 MB/s throughput while
leveraging Veeam deduplication and compression. Test results also showed linear
scaling as we added addition jobs and concurrent tasks until reaching the 10 Gbit/s
backend Ethernet configuration limit.

Testing Environment and Setup

The performance test involved the following components

VMware ESXi 5.5
60 VMs, each with > 60 GB used disk space
1 Cisco C3160 storage server with Windows Server 2012R2

RAID controller with 4 GB BBWC

12 cores and 256 GB RAM

2x 480 GB local SSD in RAID1 for OS, 28x NL-SAS disks for a backup repository

Veeam Backup & Replication v8, Update 2

Veeam proxy and repository servers in combination
Different backup target tests included:

One RAID60 target (2x 11+2): One large Veeam repository with all available
disks and two spare disks, built with RAID60 on the internal RAID controller
of the C3160 server. Configured as a single backup repository to simulate
an environment requiring much space Note: One failed disk will influence
all jobs and remaining disks and rebuild will take more time.

2015 Veeam Software. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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1+1=3
Cisco + Veeam
Better Together

The need for backup will
always be necessary for most
of the customers data. Too
often, IT administrators must
invest heavily in both time
and money to determine an
optimal setup for a backup and
recovery solution. With Veeam
and Cisco UCS c3x60 hardware,
customers get a validated, tested
solution, optimized for excellent
performance. Cisco delivers the
UCS C3x60 platform for backup
repositories with an UCS Server
configured for high-performance
backupall based on standard
x86 hardware with up to 56 disk
drives in a 4U rack space. Veeam
delivers a backup and recovery
with integrated disaster recovery.
Our jointly-tested, validated
design is documented in a publicly
available Reference Architecture
to ensure a valid, and scalable,
setup that very easy and quick
to deploy and configure.
Bjarne Madsen,
Consulting Systems Engineer,
Cisco Systems

Multiple RAID6 targets (1x 12 + 2, 1x 11+2): Two RAID6 Veeam repositories

with different multiple disks to maintain one disk as the global hot spare.
Configured as independent RAIDs. Note: This delivered better performance
than RAID60 with two different Veeam repositories.

In this simulated environment, we performed a series of tests that took a deep look
into the C3160 RAID configurations. The tests used RAID60 and RAID6 configurations
to observe the performance behavior during disk failures and to record performance
differences between each configuration. The tests concluded that the RAID6
configurations performed better compared to the RAID60 groups.
The following table shows the tested RAID configurations for the C3x60 with Veeam:

Disk Count
14

28

RAID Layout
1x RAID6 (11+2 Disks)
1 Global HotSpare

2x RAID6 (1x 11+2 Disks,

1x 12+2 Disks)
1 Global HotSpare
1x RAID 60 (2x 11+2)
2 Global HotSpare

Comment
When starting with a C3x60
and the minimum amount of disks.
Best practice with the best balance
of performance/protection is to use
the RAID6 configuration.
When a single large repository is
preferable, utilize a RAID60 configuration.
However, keep in mind that RAID60
choice will impact performance.

Results:
The tests showed that the best job-to-disk ratio is three concurrent jobs per 13 14 disks.
The tests used all available CPU cores for parallel processing tasks. With this ratio, this joint
solution reached throughput of 1,100 MB/s on a single 3160 node, even with networkbased backup mode. In the environment, the test reached the limit of the 10 Gbit/s Ethernet
backend, and the server node had more than 60% of CPU and RAM resources remaining.

While performing the different tests, we saw a linear increase of the throughput when
adding more disks, CPU cores and/or concurrent tasks. A fully loaded C3x60 server

2015 Veeam Software. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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1+1=3
Cisco + Veeam
Better Together

About Veeam
Veeam provides Availability
for the Always-On Enterprise by
leveraging virtualization, storage,
and cloud technologies to deliver
recovery time and point objectives
(RTPO) of less than 15 minutes
for all data and applications.

with 24 cores, produced much higher throughput results.

Based on our test results, Veeam and Cisco recommends a 40 Gbit/s and direct SAN
backup configuration. We also expect to reach throughput up to 2.5 GB/s per C3x60
server, when fully loaded with the maximum of available CPU cores and a properly
configured 40GBit/s Ethernet and storage backend.

* Expected in a best case configuration with C3260

Conclusion
The test proved that Veeam Backup & Replication and Cisco C3x60 servers are a
well-matched combination to deliver outstanding performance for todays modern
data center. The C3x60 delivers a great, high-performance server that solves the
problem of data growth with high-density, built-in storage. It is an excellent option
to power Veeams low recovery time and point objectives (RTPO) with fast backups
and granular, item-level recovery capabilities. With Cisco UCS and Veeam working
together, customers will not only survive, but also thrive, in this era of data growth
to deliver the Availability for the Always-On Enterprise.

2015 Veeam Software. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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