Symantec does at least one thing right: LiveUpdate

[cparker4486]

I'll speak for myself when I say this but of all the features of Backup Exec I think my favorite is LiveUpdate. It conveniently lets me know when an update is available, downloads, and installs it for me. On the other hand, Veeam requires their customers to check the forum or the Support homepage. This is a really inefficient and cumbersome way to do it especially when you consider the customer base: IT people with too many responsibilities and too many tasks.

Is there any chance this is planned for a future release?

[Yuki]

At least update notification that can be sent from Veeam server to a specific address. E-mail used to register with veeam for us is just that - general ordering e-mail that is not checked unless something is purchased.

[vClintWyckoff]

Maybe Symantec built in 'LiveUpdate' because their product requires updating so frequent whereas B&R does not and just works

[Yuki]

Ok, i know you like to beat up on Symantec and other (legacy type) backup vendors, but even Veeam has to release patches once in a while. Just look at the latest patch to the v6.5 - it's been recommended here in forums to a number of customers as something that could resolve some of the issues.

[Vitaliy S.]

On the other hand, Veeam requires their customers to check the forum or the Support homepage.

...or you can read weekly forum digest emails from Gostev Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

[m.novelli]

+1

something similar to "Live Update" would be a really nice feature

Marco

[chrisdearden]

I think we take the view that we assume the worst case and that the backup server is not connected to the internet. Patch updates are possibly only every 3 months and are always notified in Gostev's weekly digest , which perhaps should be easier for Veeam End users to subscribe to.

[m.novelli]

Good idea, I'm going to subscribe also the Steve Ballmer weekly digest to know the patches to manually download and install on my Windows / Exchange / SQL / Sharepoint servers...

Marco

[m.novelli]

Yup, I forgot that I manage for my customers also many other server-side software, now I need to build a small database to track all those weekly digest / customer name / base software version / patch to apply / applied:yes|no

Marco

[tsightler]

I think it is a very delicate balance. I've had probably an equal number of customers request this feature, as those that despise this feature in other products (and a few that specifically despise Symantec LiveUpdate which has a less than stellar security and reliability record). I think, as long as it can be completely disabled, that such a feature would be OK (at least a notification), but there are quite a number of places where "auto-update" style features like this are completely banned due to security reasons.

[cparker4486]

I'm finding the responses from Veeam staff to be a bit odd. I'm a BIG fan of B&R* but you guys are way too sensitive when it comes to being compared to Symantec's product(s). Seriously. These posts here are giving you sincere and constructive feedback and your responses have consisted of little more than rejection of ideas and jabs at Symantec's quality (which I readily admit is low, hence the title of my post).

The bottom-line is that implementing a feature that makes an admin's life easier does nothing but good for Veeam's reputation and customer satisfaction level. So why respond the way you have?

* To demonstrate how much of a fan I am and how good I think the product is, I'm actively trying to architect BackupExec out of my backup scheme as we speak.

[cparker4486]

I think it is a very delicate balance. I've had probably an equal number of customers request this feature, as those that despise this feature in other products

At the very *least* B&R should notify the user an update is available, provide a summary of the update, and a link to the download page. Would your customers reject even that?

[tsightler]

Yes they would reject that as they don't allow software that attempts to reach out of their network. They disable auto-updates on all software (very difficult with some packages). As long as it can be easily disabled I think it would be OK, ideally though, it would be a separate, optionally installed component. That would be OK in all cases since customers that reject it can simply choose not to install it at all.

[cparker4486]

Agreed. Thanks for the insight.

[dellock6]

As an example, our Veeam deployment lives in a completely segregated network, even firewalled towards vSphere except the required tcp connections between the two. Every task we need to do in Veeam requires at least a jump using a bridgehead RDP connection. In this cases a liveupdate feature would be useless.
For us, the actual email notification about new patches is ok, and I never heard any customer complaining about the lack of liveupdate, but for sure my customers are not the whole Veeam customers, so I can understand for others security il a lower priority and they do not mind having an update auto-checker.

Luca.

[Gostev]

In fact, we have discussed this feature with Tom during kickoff last week. This is certainly something we can implement in future if there will be sufficient amount of requests (unlike many other features, this has been a very rare request in the past 5 years). And this means a lot to me regarding actual need for this feature among our customer base.

Until now, we have not implemented this feature for the following reasons:

1. It is considered a best practice to make sure your backup server does not have internet access, because this makes it really easy to leak confidential data (and backups have it all). Most customers who are concerned about security of their data implement this best practice. However, without internet connectivity, update checking is impossible.

2. Software trying to connect to internet server is a big concern for certain types of customers, particularly US federal. We have a big presence there (I cannot name specific customers, but pretty much every US federal agency people would commonly think of uses Veeam B&R). For them, this would be unacceptable, so I though we would even need to disable this by default anyway. Tom has explained this in more details earlier in this thread.

3. Due to the quality of testing, we never really needed to push out urgent patches to the full customer base (may be unlike Symantec). Customers who are having issues usually open support cases, and they get notified on patch availability personally. While those unaffected don't even need to know about patches. On the other hand, we DO notify everyone (all the customers and prospects) about minor and major version releases already. You do not need to subscribe to anything to get those notifications.

4. Actual live update is considered a bad practice, because any mission-critical software always need to be tested in the specific environment before upgrading. However, simple notification about new version being available (just as suggested above by Chris and Tom) is fine. Thus, I think this will be the best way to implement this feature down the road, should this become a common request.

Hope this makes sense and explains why we do not currently have this feature in our product.

Thanks!

[darkhelmet]

I'm finding the responses from Veeam staff to be a bit odd. I'm a BIG fan of B&R* but you guys are way too sensitive when it comes to being compared to Symantec's product(s). Seriously. These posts here are giving you sincere and constructive feedback and your responses have consisted of little more than rejection of ideas and jabs at Symantec's quality (which I readily admit is low, hence the title of my post).

The bottom-line is that implementing a feature that makes an admin's life easier does nothing but good for Veeam's reputation and customer satisfaction level. So why respond the way you have?

* To demonstrate how much of a fan I am and how good I think the product is, I'm actively trying to architect BackupExec out of my backup scheme as we speak.

I feel the same way. Why does a reply need to bash Symantec, instead of giving a proper respons to a very simple question. It's getting old, pick a new kid to bully guys, let's say Unitrends, which has received numerous awards

[Gostev]

I feel the same way. Why does a reply need to bash Symantec, instead of giving a proper response to a very simple question.

Because it's fun? The response got plenty of likes, so it certainly was not a bad joke at least, I thought it was funny. However, on a serious note, he just could not give you "proper response" like I did above, because he is not a part of the Product Management team. May be I need to set a different nick color for the Product Management team members, so that we are easily distinguishable...

As for your second comment, it simply does not make any sense for us to spend energy and time on those dozens of wannabe-competitor companies with non-existent market share.