Questions regarding Veeam Licenses & Hardware

[knsgvn]

Hello,

I currently backing up our VM environment to tapes and would like to have Veeam disk to disk backup solution but have a very limited budget. I have a few questions regarding licences and hardware, any response to this post would be greatly appreciated.

VM Environment with 2 host servers, 2 CPU socket each
VNXE SAN 16TB with about 50% space utilization
Future addition of 12 TB SAN for new project.

All of our VMs are running windows servers, with critical VMs such as Exchange, SQL and Web server

Questions I have are:

Do I need Essential bundle Enterprise or Essential bundle Standard version would be sufficient to backup critical servers as mentioned above?
Can I get away with Veeam licenses for just 1 host 2 CPU by VMotion all VMs to 1 the licensed host at the time of backup?
I found an affordable Thinkmate NAS server with specification below and it will be strictly use for backup. Windows 2012 OS and Veeam backup software will be housing this server. This server can be configure for Sata or SAS disk but SAS disk is too expensive and way over my budget. I this server doable?

LSI SAS2108 (ROC) [SAS 6, 8 ports] RAID 5 (*OS) -> 8 x 4.0TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 7200RPM - 3.5" - Hitachi Ultrastar 7K4000 (512n) RAid 5
- Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processor E5-1620 v2 3.70GHz 10MB Cache (130W)
- Intel C602 Chipset - Dual Intel Gigabit Ethernet - 6x SATA - IPMI 2.0 with LAN
- 4 x 8GB PC3-14900 1866MHz DDR3 ECC Registered DIMM
- Thinkmate RAX-2308 2U Chassis - 8x Hot-Swap 3.5" SATA/SAS - 500W Redundant Power
- 8 x 4.0TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 7200RPM - 3.5" - Hitachi Ultrastar 7K4000 (512n)
- LSI MegaRAID 9260-8i SAS 6Gb/s 8-Port Controller with 512MB Cache
- Quick-Release Rackmount Mounting Rails - 26.5" to 36.4" (Included) (MCP-290-00053-0N)

Regards,

Paul Nguyen

[Vitaliy S.]

Do I need Essential bundle Enterprise or Essential bundle Standard version would be sufficient to backup critical servers as mentioned above?

Yes, it should be enough, but please take a look at the features available in different editions for more info on available options.

There are some features available in the Enterprise edition only (for example, integration with EMC storage, SureBackup jobs, granular application item recovery for Exchange, SQL Server etc.), so I would recommend to use Essentials Enterprise edition bundle.

Can I get away with Veeam licenses for just 1 host 2 CPU by VMotion all VMs to 1 the licensed host at the time of backup?

You should have license keys for all source hosts where protected VMs reside. If you're ok with doing VM VMotion every time you need a backup, then it could work, but I assume you want to automatically backup all VMs on daily basis, correct?

I found an affordable Thinkmate NAS server with specification below and it will be strictly use for backup. Windows 2012 OS and Veeam backup software will be housing this server. This server can be configure for Sata or SAS disk but SAS disk is too expensive and way over my budget. I this server doable?

The specs look ok to me. Please take a look at existing topic with a similar question > Veeam Backup Proxy Server Sizing and Recommendations for backup storage, backup target