[V13] Veeam Linux Appliances: Agent installation, Third party software support

[albertwt]

Hi Veeam Team,

With the recently released Veeam Software Linux Appliance for Veeam Backup & Replication 13 [https://www.veeam.com/products/data-pla ... a-download],

Is the installation of agents for infrastructure visibility, utilisation monitoring, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), and Vulnerability Management and Patching supported?

Any help and explanation would be greatly appreciated.

[Gostev]

Hi, Albert.

No, generally we do not support installing any 3rd party software on a software appliance.

While in some cases reasonable unavoidable exceptions will have to be made (such as drivers for some newest hardware), the no-support statement is especially true for intrusive software such as real-time threat monitoring. Because the presence of such software has been a constant pain in Customer Support for our Windows-based software (and is in fact one of a few main reasons for creating a software appliance).

I like to refer to software appliance as "Pre-build, Pre-hardened and Predictable" with the latter specifically thanks to the appliance being completely self-contained. While with intrusive 3rd party software, it becomes completely unpredictable.

Thanks

[albertwt]

Thank you, Anton, for confirming and clarifying this matter. It makes more sense to avoid any issues when installing the third-party agent on the Linux appliance.

Concerning disk space utilisation and uptime monitoring, I assume that the Veeam Linux appliance can be monitored using Veeam ONE.

However, if the client does not have a Veeam ONE license, what solutions can be implemented to prevent disk space or uptime issues?

[Gostev]

For end users, you're right that our solution for backup server monitoring is Veeam ONE. So this is THE solution to implement for clients for whom monitoring is important enough in their data protection strategy. Veeam ONE is included in all but one edition (Foundation) so most of our customer do actually have a Veeam ONE license... some may just not realize that it is included in their Veeam Essentials license.

For managed clients where you act as an MSP, we also offer Veeam Service Provider Console.

[sdv]

@Gostev,
Customers that have Enterprise Plus are now part of Veeam Data Platform Foundation edition (or secure foundation) and there is no Veeam ONE for them.
Meaning, as you say, they can't properly monitor the VBR environment.

For those customers - what other monitoring solution w/o third party installations allowed to monitor the appliance properly? Powershell / API's perhaps?
Or should they stick with Windows + VBR V13 + their own monitoring solution (for cpu/disk/mem etc) ?

Come to think of:
- Will there be VBR software for Linux (not specific appliance)? E.g. the customer can use third party tools as they like (e.g. monitoring) and harden has they like?
- Do customers need to move to the appliance within a few years (V14 ?)

[Gostev]

Sure, PowerShell is still available to use with VSA, I just can't imagine building and maintaining their own monitoring solution will be cheaper than paying that delta between Foundation and Advanced to get access to Veeam ONE (among other things).

1. There might but not for general public as we will need to replicate and maintain such customer's environment (Linux flavor, their custom hardening settings and 3rd party software) in our QA labs and test every next version against it to ensure compatibility. These added costs can be absorbed for high 7-digit deals but not for smaller customers.

2. There are currently no plans to discontinue installable software for Windows.