Licensing for Guest OS File Exclusion

[firefox15]

I work for an MSP that has a good number of small clients that use Backup Exec. As their infrastructure has become more virtual, we have been migrating them to Veeam. However, one of the big limitations for us is that the enterprise tier is required for Guest OS File Exclusion. For most of these clients, they just want to exclude WSUS data or some other large files that they don't need to backup, and this was easily done in BE.

It would appear that the only way to do this in the standard version is to create another virtual disk for that data and exclude the entire disk. This is a feature that is included in nearly every backup product that backs up at the OS level. I recognize that it is more difficult to implement when backing up VMs, so I understand the reason for making it available only in higher versions. However, for clients that are coming from file-based backup, it is hard to justify paying for enterprise licensing when they just want to exclude some files like they have been able to do in their previous backup software.

Has Veeam considered moving Guest OS File Exclusion from the enterprise tier to the standard tier, or is this a feature that Veeam strongly believes should remain in their current tier?

[jmmarton]

Are you sure about that? I don't have Standard or Enterprise handy to test, but guest file exclusion is a part of BitLooker and BitLooker is included in all editions.

https://www.veeam.com/backup-version-st ... rison.html
https://www.veeam.com/blog/save-backup- ... ooker.html

Unless someone chimes in here with information to the contrary, it should be there and so I'd recommend opening a ticket.

Joe

[firefox15]

Hi Joe. Guest OS File Exclusion is considered "File-selective image level processing" in the matrix. Unfortunately, it's only available in Enterprise and above.

[jmmarton]

Ah you're right. Sorry about that.

Joe

[Gostev]

Has Veeam considered moving Guest OS File Exclusion from the enterprise tier to the standard tier, or is this a feature that Veeam strongly believes should remain in their current tier?

This functionality is not available in Standard due to added support costs.