Rapid Recovery LAN-Free SAN (4032903)

The goal of SAN backups or 'LAN-Free SAN' backups is two fold:

1. To isolate the backup traffic off to a separate network
2. Improve the performance of the backups by using the path of least resistance.

With LAN-Free SAN backups, you configure the core server with a separate network card or fiber channel card that has access to the VMware datastores, where the .vmdks for your virtual machines reside. Keep in mind this requires that you utilize shared storage for your ESXi datastores, this does not apply to local ESXi host storage. This also requires the Rapid Recovery core to be installed upon a physical server, this will not work if the core is running within a virtual machine. The datastores will have to be presented to the ESXi hosts via iSCSI or fibre channel.

The process for a LAN-Free SAN backup differs from a standard network (NBD) backup in that the data is no longer read through the ESXi host. The .vmdk is read directly off of the storage itself, which in most cases provides a performance boost over NBD backups. The api calls to VMware to retrieve VM information, take a snapshot and close a snapshot, which will still utilize your primary NIC. However the data transfer from the .vmdks will be transmitted over this separate link and will come directly off of your storage.

For LAN-Free SAN via iSCSI:

It is required to use a separate dedicated network adapter to isolate the iSCSI traffic.

1. On your core server, choose and configure a dedicated NIC with a static IP address to be used on your iSCSI network.
2. On the Rapid Recovery core server open up an elevated command prompt and type in diskpart
3. At diskpart type in automount disable (This is to prevent Windows from mounting and starting the process to prepare the volumes for Windows)
4. Type automount scrub, hit Enter and exit diskpart.
5. Using the static IP of the NIC assigned to the iSCSI network, mask the luns on the iSCSI storage array, so that they are presented to your Rapid Recovery core server. 
6. Open Control Panel > iSCSI Initiator (if asked to enable choose Yes)
7. Click on the Discovery Tab and click on Discover Portal
8. Add the IPs of the storage array network adapters where your datastores reside, click OK (if there is more than 1 then you will have to add each one 1 at a time)
9. Click Apply
10. Now the utility will default to Targets. Listed under here should be the iSCSI targets from your storage. You should be able to chose the ones that contain your datastores and click 'Connect' to join them to your Windows instance. This just makes the connection, it does not mount, modify or change anything on the storage.
11. If you open up Disk Management on your core you should see the luns that have been presented to the core.

For LAN-Free SAN via FC:

1. On the Rapid Recovery core server open up an elevated command prompt and type in diskpart
2. At diskpart type in automount disable (This is to prevent Windows from mounting and starting the process to prepare the volumes for Windows)
3. Type automount scrub, hit Enter and exit diskpart.
4. Verify and make note of the WWN of the HBA on the Rapid Recovery core host.
5. On your fiber switch, configure the zone to allow the HBA on the Rapid Recovery core host access to the FC storage array.
6. On the storage array, mask the luns to allow the RR core host access to the necessary datastores. It is recommended to present the luns to the core host as you have presented them to the ESXi hosts.
7. If you open Disk Management on your core you should see the luns that have been presented to the core.

By default the RR core is set to automatically check your available transports, a restart of the core service should not be required.

Note:  There is not a way to force Rapid Recovery to use the LAN-Free SAN option. By default the core will attempt a LAN-Free SAN transport, however if through the VDDK API communication it is determined the transport is unavailable or not detected it will fail over to NBD (network lan) transports.