Backup to Vmware hybrid cloud service or similar

[kbeeby]

Hi,

Any plans to allow Veeam (standard edition) to backup to VMware's hybrid cloud service (or similar vCloud services) so you can simply power on a virtual machine in case of a disaster. In a similar way you can use Hyper-V recovery manager and Azure?

Thanks

Keith

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Keith,

That's an interesting concept that we will definitely keep in mind when discussing features for next versions/product editions. Can you please tell me if you've already purchased this service? If yes, then how do you use it? Do you have VMs on- and off- premise?

Thank you!

[dellock6]

Hi Keith, you wrote backups in the title, but from your description sounds more like replication.
Which one of the two you feel you would need most? Thanks for input.

Luca.

[kbeeby]

Hi,

Thanks for everyones replies

We are in process of evaluating the VMware hybrid cloud offer with a view to having the flexibility to move VM on and off premise as needed and disaster recovery, we already use Veeam

As for how I might see Veeam being used, first and foremost for backup in disaster recovery situation, but I could see it having additional advantages if we use backup in combination with replication for disaster recovery, and simply allowing to "power on' a VM within the hybrid cloud as needed thus giving us the smallest amount of data loss and the backup option as a fail safe.

Regards,

Keith

[dellock6]

Thanks Keith for the input, we will keep your ideas in mind.

Luca.

[Dave-Departed]

For now, I guess we could just do similar to what we'd do in Amazon Web Services, and host a VBR server in the VCHS, use Backup Copy Jobs and WAN acceleration to keep storage space/data transfer to a minimum, and then restore those VM files directly back into the VCHS infrastructure? I guess the bonus over AWS is that there'd be no need to do any conversion of a restored VMware backup from VMDK to OVA or anything?

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, the same concept should be used with VCHS, though I cannot confirm the it doesn't require conversion from VMDK to OVA. Based on the documentation I've read VMware suggests using vCloud Connector to migrate VMs to their cloud.

[dellock6]

I only tested VCHS during their beta period, but AFAIK it's a vCloud Director with additional automation and services, so the only two methods to import a VM into vCloud are those listed by Vitaliy, since only the service provider (VMware in this case) has direct access to the underlying vSphere.
This could also be confirmed by the fact they have a "bulk import" feature that is driven by a operator; that's because they can access vSphere, while a customer cannot. vCloud does not have the same APIs as vSphere, that's the reason for example why VBR needs to connect to both vCloud and vCenter.

[Dave-Departed]

Hmm ok, could be back to the drawing board on this one then... What cloud solutions are other people using?!

[dellock6]

Except the biggest cloud providers usually listed, I would also suggest to lookout for providers already using Veeam for their own backups.
It's still going to be maybe an operator driven restore, but in this scenario the procedure is easier, they only need to import your backup into their Veeam server and restore VMs into your vCloud tenant for example... Just a hint

Luca.