VEEAM - Versions....

[garethEds]

Hi Guys,

 

We have a new HyperV2012 setup and are looking at backups before we take the system live in a few weeks. We have found Veeam and have read some bts on here but there seem to be a few editions.

 

We have been quoted on standard and evaluation editions.

 

What do you guys use out there? Is Veeam okay? Could we use the free version? Are there other products?

 

Cheers

 

Gareth

[kmount]

Veeam rocks, it's easily my favourite life line in the last couple of years.

 

Depending upon how many CPU sockets you have in your environment (if it's 6 or less) you might be better with Veeam Essentials so you get Backup & Replication and also Veeam One (Monitoring).

 

If you have Exchange in your environment you may want to look at Enterprise over Standard as enterprise includes some more bells and whistles around 1 click file restores, restoring exchange items directly back into mailboxes etc.

 

Version 7 is coming out soon and there's talk of it helping bring more functionality to the HyperV editions which is long overdue now.

 

In short, if you can afford it I'd go Enterprise, be that Enterprise through Essentials, or Enterprise on B&R.

 

EDIT: There is also a cloud edition that supports copying of backups up to the cloud, but this is licensed in a slightly different way so unless you're looking at cloud backup I wouldn't look at this yet.

Edited May 17, 2013 by kmount

[sparkeh]

Just started using Veaam and am so happy with it.

I agree with Kim, if you can afford it, go for Enterprise, the differences are listed here: Edition comparison

For us the price difference wasn't really that much between standard and enterprise and well worth the extra.

[zag]

Agreed that Veeam absolutely rocks!

 

Get the 2 socket essentials version and buy as many as you need. We bought 3 of those for 6 virtual machines. Cost about £800 I think so great value.

[maark]

Have only used the free edition but that is great and backs up virtual hyper v machines better than dpm - has already saved me a load of hassle by doing a restore after a botched upgrade.

[rich_tech]

Hello,

 

I have been trialling the product at our site with @garethedmondson on our new hyper-v platform and it is very impressive software.

 

Can you automate backups on the free edition ? (I see the option to switch between the views on the program) or does that require purchase of the full version ? What devices do you back your VMs up to also ? At the moment I have one of our smaller specced servers as the backup server.

 

We do not run our own exchange server, that is run and maintained by our LEA, so that part is probably not needed for us.

 

We wonder as to what version we need to order also if we go for the full product as the licensing is tiered to processors, our machine specs in our virtualisation platform are - 2 x HP ProLiant DL380e Gen8 servers with 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2407 0 2.20GHz (basically 2x Quad Cores) and 96gb RAM installed into the machines (SAN is to be ordered soon)

Edited May 17, 2013 by rich_tech

[sister_annex]

Been using VEEAM for the best part of three years (since v4) and quite honestly it is the one of the easiest pieces of software I have ever had to use. We backup around 50 servers a night with source size of 10.1 TB - these all happily complete in around 3 hours with CBT over the network. (we do reversed incremental).

 

We have standard edition (18 sockets) all hyper-v.

 

The backup server itself (the one that runs veeam) can be a virtual but the proxy/ storage servers are probably best being a physical server with lots of storage. Our backup server runs the veeam software and the acts as backup (off-host) proxy and backup repository (we have a dual quad box with 16Gb RAM and just under 12Tb of storage capacity)

 

They also have VEEAMZip which is great for one off backups (like when SIMS gets an upgrade).

 

VEEAM does require you to use SCVMM (2012SP1 if you're setting up 2012 hyper-v hosts) for it to hook into the hyper-v hosts

[rich_tech]

It didnt ask specifically for SCVMM when I installed, it asked me to choose the option for how our VM setup is configured (we have it as a stand-alone clustered platform) SCCM is a bit of a contentious issue with our LEA I believe (Schema needs updating I think we were told to allow sites like ours to run it - SCCM does interest me a fair bit personall)

[sister_annex]

SCVMM is just the virtual machine manager and although it can be incorporated into SCCM (I think) it does act as a standalone product (and is pretty good for managing VMs)

 

I always thought it (veeam) required SCVMM (we run SCVMM2012Sp1) it may be the particular version you are using...

Edited May 17, 2013 by sister_annex
clarification

[sparkeh]

I always thought it (veeam) required SCVMM (we run SCVMM2012Sp1) it may be the particular version you are using...

Nope no requirements for SCVMM that I can see, certainly not for Backup & Replication Enterprise that we use.

[Tall_Paul]

Another vote for VEEAM and VEEAM One here.

 

Both fantastic tools. Can't wait for tape support in v7 then it will be bye-bye Backup Exec.

[sister_annex]

Nope no requirements for SCVMM that I can see, certainly not for Backup & Replication Enterprise that we use.

 

Well there you go I stand corrected

 

Still a marvelous piece of software

[rich_tech]

So am I right in this that our servers would come under "Tier B – 1-12 Cores" - in the pricing that I am looking at for it ? or does the processor licensing only apply to the box that you are installing VEEAM onto ?

 

Also, do you run VEEAM also on each of your hosts or do you run it on ANOther server, like I am doing at present and backing up remotely to that box? (I ask because I was a little bit wary of installing the software direct onto our platform initially here)

[sister_annex]

Veeam License per processor in the hyper -v host you wish to back up, so for example we have 9 hyper-v hosts with two quad core processors in each machine. Therefore we require 18 licenses.

 

Veeam uses agents to do most of the leg work you install the veeam application on a server, this is the application that schedules jobs installs the agents etc. There is also the backup repository stuff which can be installed separately but we don't do this.

 

Veeam installs a small 'agent' on each host which it uses to do the scanning and processing of each host, we have never had an issue with this.

[sparkeh]

@sister_annex what product/version are you using? Ours is agentless.

[gshaw]

Essentials with Veeam ONE is worth getting if you can, nice simple monitoring of your hosts that you can leave running in your office. The product itself is great, being able to drag back your VMs and even run them straight off the backups is so useful

[zag]

Veeam doesn't use agents, that's why its so amazing

[rich_tech]

The Veeam I got off their website does install small agents onto the servers from what I have seen, they are fairly small, I avoided installing it full program wise onto either host here, because of the SQL server it wanted to install and I did not want our hosts being impacted by that running on them, so I assume we would install it onto our "backup server" and not the hosts ? (I think I am starting to confuse myself here)

 

Can any of you tell me where you got your Veeam from then ? we have a quote here that looks like this from one supplier, which I suppose means that both machines are in Tier B as they have 8 cores installed with the 2 processors, no mention of Veeam One -

 

Veeam Backup & Replication Standard for Hyper-V - Education Only Tier A @

Veeam Backup & Replication Standard for Hyper-V - Education Only Tier B @

 

OR

 

Veeam Backup & Replication Enterprise for Hyper-V - Education Only Tier A

Veeam Backup & Replication Enterprise for Hyper-V - Education Only Tier B

 

Tier A – 1-6 Cores

Tier B – 1-12 Cores

 

 

Hopefully lunchtime can cure my headache about this

Edited May 17, 2013 by elsiegee40
Requested by poster

[sister_annex]

Veeam Backup & Replication 6.5.0.144 (64bit) - Standard Edition

 

I suppose when I say agent it is not an agent in the way say Symantec BE works. The agent is more for scanning and processing the hardware.

 

There is a good answer on the spiceworks community which I thought about stealing lol Does VEEAM have an "Agent" appliance instead of installing on a Guest? - Spiceworks