Veaam or Backup Exec 2012

[Badaz52]

Hi,

 

I'm wondering if anyone could give me some advice. We are moving to a virtual solution over summer with 3 VMware essentials plus agents. We are currently using backup exec 12 which is obviously useless for virtual machine backups.

 

Veaam is much cheaper than backup exec 2012 but is it good enough as a product. I'm getting mixed reviews.

 

Cheers

Adam.

[SDM01]

Have you looked at AppAssure Software. Has recently been bought out by Dell but can't hold that against them

[Tallwood_6]

Looks quite interesting whats the pricing like for AppAssure?

We have been looking to replace backup exec 12.5 which will do VM backups (or just snapshots) but as i found out a couple of weeks ago it doesnt do restores from a VM snapshot very well.

The new interface and reviews for backup exec 2012 do make it look more appealing than previous versions but veaam also seems to get high praise and the interface and setup looks even more straightforward!

[teejay]

Ideally you want both, Veeam to do the live backups of the VM's to disk and then Backup Exec or some other backup software to archive off onto tape or some other backup software.

[Duke]

Go with Veeam, I'd rather stick a fork in my eye than use Backup Exec (having used BE since its Veritas days and Veeam for a couple of years). Unfortunately, as teejay said, a combination of both will give you the best level of protection. You can get around this though by using Veeam's application-aware backups and a script for SAN replication to ensure your backups are kept safe.

[Tallwood_6]

Umm as nice as veeam looks its lack of support for a tape autoloader and the fact we still have one physical server which we would also like to backup with an all in one solution could mean we have to look at backup exec 2012 or similar

[glennda]

Umm as nice as veeam looks its lack of support for a tape autoloader and the fact we still have one physical server which we would also like to backup with an all in one solution could mean we have to look at backup exec 2012 or similar

 

What is running on the physical machine? Would windows backup suffice?

[Tallwood_6]

Its a 2003r2 DC but I'd like to aviod fudging something specfically for this server. Currently we have a 2003r2 storage server running backup exec 12.5 connected to an LTO 4 autoloader which backs everything up to disk and duplicates to tape and works quite well with the exception of the VM agents (we haved windows and SQL agents running on the virtual servers and these are fine). I'd love to replace the backup server with a new 2008r2 Storage server box connected to an LTO 5 Autoloader running somthing that deals with both physical & virtual servers all under a single EASY to navigate interface.

[Badaz52]

Its a 2003r2 DC but I'd like to aviod fudging something specfically for this server. Currently we have a 2003r2 storage server running backup exec 12.5 connected to an LTO 4 autoloader which backs everything up to disk and duplicates to tape and works quite well with the exception of the VM agents (we haved windows and SQL agents running on the virtual servers and these are fine). I'd love to replace the backup server with a new 2008r2 Storage server box connected to an LTO 5 Autoloader running somthing that deals with both physical & virtual servers all under a single EASY to navigate interface.

 

Our new server setup will be 3 physical servers running a SAN, all 3 servers will be running vmware essentials plus. I have had a quote for Backup Exec 2012 and have beena advised that all I need is the software itself, 3 VMWARE agents for the physical servers and 2 application and database licenses for our exchange and SQL cover.

 

Please could anyone advise if this is all I will need? one company is telling me I need a vmware agent license for each server host I intend to backup and the other is telling me I only need a vmware agent for the physical server the amount of hosts is irrelavant.

 

Cheers.

[Duke]

I don't use Backup Exec to do my VMware hosts so this is a guess based on my experience:

 

• If you want to back up a virtual machine at the OS level (i.e. ignore the fact it's a virtual machine) and backup Windows (or Linux) and the files inside it, use Granular Restore Technology, etc., then you will need the Windows (or Linux) agents, and you will need an agent for each virtual machine you're backing up.
  
• I can't see any actual info from Symantec on what their VMware agent does or how it works (typical Symantec) but I would assume you only need one license per host.
  

 

Chris

[Badaz52]

I don't use Backup Exec to do my VMware hosts so this is a guess based on my experience:

 

• If you want to back up a virtual machine at the OS level (i.e. ignore the fact it's a virtual machine) and backup Windows (or Linux) and the files inside it, use Granular Restore Technology, etc., then you will need the Windows (or Linux) agents, and you will need an agent for each virtual machine you're backing up.
  
• I can't see any actual info from Symantec on what their VMware agent does or how it works (typical Symantec) but I would assume you only need one license per host.
  

 

Chris

 

Thanks for this, just found this information on Symantec's website which I think answers my question:

 

Backup Exec 2012, powered by V-Ray technology, features host-level protection allowing IT professionals to backup a virtual system in a single pass via the Hyper-V host, ESX, or vSphere server, rather than having an agent in each virtual guest machine. This “off-host” data protection method lowers data protection impacts on the hypervisor and virtual guests. Additionally, not only does Backup Exec 2012 protect virtual machines at the host level, the agents for VMware and Hyper-V are licensed per host, meaning an unlimited number of guests per host can be protected with a single agent for virtualization.

 

Quite impressed by this I had expected Symantec would try and cash in on this and charge per guest machine!

[smarties11]

Have a look at Backup Exec 2012 V-Ray edition. This might work out cheaper, as you license it per occupied socket in your virtual hosts (whether they be VMWare or Hyper-V) and then it covers unlimited data agents, application (exchange/sql/sharepoint etc) agents, dedupe agents within those hosts. List price is about £600 per socket and I'm sure there will be education discount to be deducted off this. I'm waiting for our quote now.

 

We were planning to buy Veeam, but this will actually work out cheaper than buying Veeam and upgrading our Backup Exec media server to 2012 - and potentially give us a better solution as we can then backup our entire virtual and physical structure in one hit, with a Disk-Disk-Tape backup.