Veeam vs. vSphere Data Protection

[george_park]

With EMC embedding Avamar Virtual Edition in VMWare 5.1 does anyone know if are they making any improvements to overcome current/past issues to challenge Veeam or is it the same old software?

[Gostev]

What is being added is the new VMware product which is based on some existing EMC Avamar technologies. Functionality level is similar to current VMware Data Recovery product (which is, in turn, now discontinued) - so still nowhere near Veeam in terms of features.

[JWester]

We are about to test Avamar for non-virtual backups since Veeam is doing fine for VMs.
I wonder how Veeam addresses the challenges of the included replication and backup in vSphere 5.1.

[Gostev]

It is important to understand that VMware Data Protection is NOT Avamar.

The following statement is incorrect:

With EMC embedding Avamar Virtual Edition in VMWare 5.1

In reality, VMware Data Protection a completely different, new VMware product that is built from scratch leveraging some existing EMC Avamar technologies.

I wonder how Veeam addresses the challenges of the included replication and backup in vSphere 5.1.

There are really no NEW challenges Veeam needs to address. vSphere has had basic backup capabilities included since v4, for two years now. VMware Data Protection has almost identical set of functionality and limitations comparing to VMware Data Recovery (for example, 2TB limit per appliance). In fact, VDP has LESS functionality that VDR had.

vSphere replication is very basic as well (scaled down from the one available with SRM). When even SRM one is no match to Veeam in terms of functionality - as it comes to VM-level replication.

I am actually at VMworld right now, and so have first-hand access to information about these new offerings. Even managed to talk to some devs behind those technologies to learn the internals. Always interesting to find out how marketing does not match the reality

[george_park]

Interesting.

Embedding really stems from the article appearing in CRN:
VMware To Embed EMC Storage Tech In vSphere, Could Shake Up Partnerships
http://www.crn.com/news/storage/2400059 ... htm?pgno=3
First paragraph:
"By embedding Avamar Virtual Edition into vSphere..."

Interesting that they appear to be getting it wrong.

The old issue with VMWare DP previously, IMHO, was that there was no real path forward for VMWare to build on it (plus, lets face it, Veeam is way better).
With VMWare DP using EMC tech but not Avamar I'm wondering how big a jump it will be to migrate from VMWare DP to [groan] Avamar. Looking at the VMWare press they certainly are making it seem like it's pretty cozy (not that actually migrating and using it would be easy):
http://www.vmware.com/company/news/rele ... 82712.html

Looking forward to your updates, always appreciated!

[Gostev]

This CRN article was published before the actual announcement, and was based on rumors. So yes, it is completely wrong.

The size of the jump did not change, it is exactly the same as it used to be with VMware Data Recovery. There is NO upgrade path. I guess I need to stress this yet again, but VMware Data Protection solution has NOTHING to deal with Avamar other than sharing some processing engine logic (particularly, dedupe). Overall however, it is a completely different, separate product with functionality set and limitations almost exactly identical to the latest version of VMware Data Recovery. In fact, VDP has feature loss comparing to VDR, for example, no support for NAS backup targets (something VDR could do).

I have been to a couple of session which talked about this new offering, and the messaging from VMware has been pretty consistent: basic solution to address basic backup needs of very small environments. And kept saying that customers should look for more advanced solutions from VMware partners. In other words, exact same messaging as they had for VMware Data Recovery past 2 years. No wonder, as 2TB limit on backed up data alone says it all.