Veeam VS SAN snapshots

[blodsbror]

Hi!

I am just wondering, what the main benefits/differences are, with using Veeam for VM snapshots with Hyper-V - as opposed to using SAN based snapshots with Dell replay manager 7 on our Compellent storage (which we have a license for) ? Replay Manager supports all of the main MS applications (Exchange, MSSQL etc), including granular restores. And as the Replay manager snapshots are being taken of local data, and stored locally - it would be extremely fast.

If we were to backup the data/snapshots on the SAN using NDMP (as snapshots aren't really backups), or even use a 2nd offsite Compellent for SAN based replication, I'm failing a little to see the benefit of using Veeam here ?

I'd be interested to hear some real world views here. Especially with Compellent owners

thanks!

[Gostev]

Hi Evan, actually I am curios to hear your own answer to this question. Can you explain what made you start looking at Veeam? I am sure you would not waste time registering on this forums and posting your question, if everything was working well for you today? Thanks!

[blodsbror]

Hi there

I have started to look at Veeam, as we are deciding which way to go for host level backups of Hyper-V (and perhaps ESX), and I hear good feedback about it. We are receiving a new SAN (Dell Compellent) shortly, which includes replay manager licenses. So I am in the process of adding up the pro's/con's of each solution to try to come to a conclusion, as to which can work better for us - and which is generally the better solution feature wise.

At this point, the answer isn't clear to me. Hence this topic, and asking around for people who may have been in the same situation, and have decided in a certain direction.

[Gostev]

From my side, I can provide you some "storage-agnostic" answers to why people chose Veeam over SAN snapshot based technologies (I assume Compellent is not so much different):

Recovery
1. Most of the existing technologies require installing agent in each VM to enable granular recoveries, and people hate dealing with agents, especially when they have hundreds of VMs to babysit them on. Veeam does everything without agents.
2. The recovery software is normally built for physical systems, so it normally does not VM recoveries very well, because it treats VMs as physical servers.

Backup
As you already mentioned, snapshots aren't really backups, so you do need to look for implementing real backup to 3rd storage. What are your options?
1. Buy another similar storage box and use SAN based replication. This is an extremely expensive option, and not a good solution from technical perspective. We've seen it too many times and with many storage vendors when SAN based replication would replicate corruption to DR storage (our best success stories come from disasters like that). True backups must be read-only, NOT participating in any sort replication/synchronization process with the production storage.
2. NDMP backup to tape addresses all of these concerns, but makes the recovery time unacceptable. Time to recover a failed VM with Veeam is less than 2 minutes, and I will let you imagine yourself how much time would it take to perform such restore from a tape backup.

Veeam enables you to create disk-based backups of your production data, thus enabling you to perform recovery on any level instantly, but we are 100% backup storage agnostic. For example, Windows or Linux server with JBOD makes an awesome backup repository for Veeam, and I will let you compare the price of that with another Compellent SAN. So, going with Veeam enables you to save a lot of money in both CapEx (much lower backup storage cost) and OpEx (faster, guaranteed recoveries from true backups).

Now, being a very mature product we also have tons of virtualization specific technologies those SAN based tools cannot even touch around both backup and recovery. For example, automated backup recoverability testing (when was the last time you tested full VM recovery of your entire environment, something you will need tomorrow if your SAN RAID controllers decides to corrupt all production LUNs). Or, self-service file and VM recovery through the web-portal. Check out all the major features our product provides here.

Hope this helps!

[blodsbror]

Great discussion, many thanks for the comments!. Just some further responses here..


1. Dell Compellent, with Replay manager doens't use agent's in each VM. One agent is installed on each host (in the case of Hyper-V). The same as Veeam.
2. The recovery software (replay manager) is built with virtual environment's in mind. (Hyper-v/ESX). And can be installed on a physical or virtual server.
3. Completely agree, and some good points there. When you replicate a SAN, you also replicate the corruption.
4. Quite some vendors provide NDMP to disk these days (and are storage agnostic). This is what we would use, however restores would be slower than Veeam I would imagine. But acceptable perhaps. (would need to investigate).

I think, the main points out of this - is the quicker restore times with Veeam + the extras, that SAN technologies don't provide (recovery testing etc). As I think when it comes to actual backup, and integration with hypervisors, - Veeam and replay manager are quite similar, and utilize VSS and ESX API's in a similar way.

I'll read more over the features as well of course. Many thanks

[blodsbror]

Just to add, it would be great to see more Storage Vendor's supported (on top of HP store Virtual and StoreServ), in addition to support for Hyper-V in this area. There are a few areas (from what I have read) where Vmware features, lead Hyper-V features with Veeam. So it would be great to see the gap closed: )

[Gostev]

I am sure that once you finally get and install Replay Manager, you will find is not as great as you may believe it is from its marketing materials... it is very important to test the solution in the lab before making any decisions. Same applies to Veeam! We like to say, "put us in the lab" and decide for yourself.

Hyper-V has native integration with storage snapshots for backup via Hardware VSS, and recovery from snapshots is much easier too - because unlike VMFS, NTFS is an open file system. So, the need for similar integration (as we do on VMware front) is not a high there on Hyper-V front, which affects our priorities.

[dellock6]

I would add to the benefits of recovery, Veeam can restore from a single image-based backup singles files, whole VMs or application items. This last one alone is something no storage-based recovery is able to do: exchange and sharepoint items for example. I read the opening post, but I'd like to see it live the application support of Replay Manager...

Another benefit of software-based backup: avoid hardware lock-in! If you buy an new storage, whatever it is, you need to buy AGAIN the licenses for all these features. With a software based solution, many storage can be acquired with only basic functionalities, and leverage on top of them Veeam. When you need to change your storage, you simply point Veeam to the new one.

[blodsbror]

Great point with no hardware vendor lock-in. This is absolutely important. That said, Veeam really only shines (when it comes to speed) when it works well with an off-host proxy and VSS hardware providers, I would assume. Especially when you are talking 150+ VM's. So being 100% hardware independent isn't totally true in this case, as the storage must support this, and if it does - also work reliably with Veeam at the same time.

[dellock6]

Well, these are requirements of a design, adn they are part of an overall design of the infrastructure, you already bought a fast storage because of Hyper-V design, not because of us
And to be fair, we have different backup methods to satisfy different needs, in terms of RPO and budget. If you need a small RPO, it's probably because your business has some requirements, and a budget for it. So you use that budget (among other things) for a fast storage and for off-host backup proxies.
If you say you need fast backups and then you design your backup solution in a non-optimal way, it's not a problem of the backup software, but of the design

[emachabert]

Hi,

I would be using both to provide maximum protection and agility:

- Compelent snapshot for point-in-time recovery during the working hours (remember snapshots are not backups)
- Veeam as backup solution for daily backups to a different storage (DAS,NAS or SAN based, but not Compellent), with backup synchronisation to DR site if needed. (remember the 3-2-1 backup rule)

Like Luca said, performance is mainly design related.

[rlspeeks]

You must have the Dell Replay Manager anyway to get the VSS hardware providers.