Host-based backup of VMware vSphere VMs.
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egroeg
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SAN based backup versus Backup Exec

Post by egroeg »

Hi all.

This is probably more of a sales question, but I have a customer using Dell EqualLogic and Symantec Backup Exec.

Their backups are relatively slow as they're bringing the VMs across the LAN.

I had a brief chat with them this morning to discuss the virtues of Veeam with direct read-only SAN access which from my experience has always been faster than traditional LAN backup.

My customer is quite fond of their Backup Exec environment and I am not an expert in Backup Exec at all - my customer also finds it hard to believe that BUE does not have a competitive option to Veeams "direct SAN backup" feature. As I am not an expert in BUE, can anyone tell me from the Veeam forum whether I am correct in saying this feature is unique to Veeam (in comparison to BUE that is) - I would like to open this up as an opportunity to put Veeam in here, but as my knowledge of the competitive product is limited, I need the correct information to do so.

Kind Regards.
Egg.
Cokovic
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Re: SAN based backup versus Backup Exec

Post by Cokovic »

Do you know which version of backupexec your customer is using?
Any agents he is using besides the VMWare agent? Like SQL agent, Active Directory Agent, Linux or Windows agents, Exchange agent?
How many esx hosts does your customer got and how many sockets per esx host?
patrickds
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Re: SAN based backup versus Backup Exec

Post by patrickds »

Backup Exec has the Agent for Vmware Virtual Infrastructure (AVVI in short);

In version 12.5 it used VCB framework, since version 2010 it uses the vSphere Storage api for Data protection, just like Veeam and other vMware targeted solutions, so it also supports LAN-free backups of virtual environment.

Since VCB is no longer supported on vsphere 5, and future major update versions of vSphere 4, BE 2010 would be required for lan-free backups for any relatively current deployment.
vStorage API also allows one step backups (with VCB you first had to export the VM before it was backed up, which caused longer backup windows), so minimum version of BE 2010 is kind of a must.

some Differences between BE and Veeam:
- for BE backing up vMware is an additional option with its own license (per host licensing), for Veeam it is their core functionality, and the product is built around that. (if you also need to backup physical servers, you will still need BE or another product next to Veeam)
- when backing up virtual applications like Exchange and SQL, to get granular restore functionality, BE would require application specific Agents on top of the AVVI license (more license costs), with Veeam they have built a solution that gives that functionality at no extra cost.
- Veeam does not do tape backups, and would require a 3rd party product to move its backup data to tape (like Backup Exec or CA Arcserve) if tape is an absolute requirement. (these days there are many ways to get backups off-site without tape)
- Veeam also does replication to a DR site
- Veaam has its instant recovery feature, with BE you have to perform a complete restore first

I can probably come up with more differences and pro/cons of each, but i think these are the most important.
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