Veeam or Doubletake for 1 time migration

[bproteau]

This is a 1-time datacenter-datacenter migration of our ESXi 4.1 environment. I planned to use Veeam but, Doubletake has entered into the conversation.

To clarify, I understand the "in OS" agent based Doubletake methodolgy. They appear to be refering to a Doubletake solution methodolgy that is image based and competes with Veeam. I hadn't heard of that solution so, I wanted to know (1) does that exist? and (2) is anyone familiar with the differences and/or could provide a pros/cons list.

The growing consensus is that since we are likely using Doubletake for physical server migrations, it would make sense to use just one vendor for everything. I prefer to go with Veeam personally but, without some supporting comparison argument data, I don't think I'll win the argument.

[Gostev]

For 1-time migration, why not just use our free FastSCP product?

[bproteau]

I'm not intimately familiar with Veeam Replicator-Backup or the FastSCP product. There are 600 VMs migrating across 100 clients. We will have simultaneous migrations going. Cutover times will be all over the map so, we need a solid interface to manage the migrations for several engineers across different migrastion teams.

[Gostev]

Have each engineer install the copy of FastSCP and play with it. This product is particularly designed for datacenter migrations... we estimate it is now being used by over 170'000 virtualization admins worldwide to perform tasks like the one you are facing. Certainly #1 free VMware tool. If you ever attended VMworld before, and had done any labs there, you might have mentioned VMware had FastSCP installed on every lab desktop at one point

[bproteau]

Downtime is an issue so, we need to be able to start a replication with the VM up, trickle deltas continually until a cut-over oppurtunity. At that point we'll need to power down source VM, complete any final delta syncronization, and power on the destination. This can't be a power down, copy, and powerup scenerio. Is FastSCP still doable?

[Gostev]

No, for that you need replication jobs, which are only available with paid product. In fact, the next release that we are planning to release in Q4 this year (v6) provides the whole new job type that specifically aimed at providing efficient automated migrations with absolute minimum downtime possible, and no data loss. Unfortunately, I cannot really provide you with any technical details on that at this time, and until we make all the v6 information public, which just like Apple we like to do right prior to the release for competitive reasons.

For your plans down the road, we do have plan to add P2V conversions in out product in the future release. But, if you need solution for physical server migrations in the short term, then of course DoubleTake would be a better choice for you today (assuming they do have the solution that meets your needs, which I cannot really comment on).

Thanks.

[bproteau]

It appears that they may have be looking at a "furute release" of Doubletake. I don't personally see anything that does what Veeam does for VMs. If someone knows differently please comment.

So, if they don't have an image based replication. In that case, I will definately want to use Veeam Replicator. I don't want to have to build a destination VM or deal with an "in-OS" agent. The need for a single vendor was more of a convinience preference with all other things being equal.

[Gostev]

With a risk of this sounding like FUD, I have to mention that, while I remember that DoubleTake being very successful about 10 years (had to deal with their solutions in my previous life), they did not do very good last few years, and eventually got acquired pretty cheap by a portfolio company (over 1 year ago). Given these facts, I personally would not put high hopes into their "future releases", as in my personal opinion, it is unlikely to expect big investments into R&D given the circumstances. On the other hand, anything that is available today, should be fairly decent.

[Gostev]

One final note that may be important, if you are a service provider (which it appears you may be from your forum registration email ), then we do provide rental licensing through a special program. Might be a good fit for 1-time migration project! I do not know any details about this whatsoever though, so you are better of contacting our sales to learn more.

Here is a good place to start from:
Veeam ProPartner Service Provider Program

[bproteau]

Thanks for the heads up! Had not heard of that...not sure we qualify as a true service provider but, it's worth a look.