We are looking at both of the products in the subject line for our DR solution. I can read all the marketing material till I'm blue in the face, however I wanted to here from people who are using them in the real world with why we should take one over the other.
Veeam has Surebackup and vPower, which I found quiet cool. We liked Symantec as it's a one tool fits all (physical and virtual). Veeam also has to use third party to spool backups off to tape.
Any opinions either way would be appreciated!
Cheers
Brendan
Hi Brendan,
I have no handson comparison between the two products, but if the problem is only the tape offloading, there are many ways to workaround it even with Veeam like post-job scripting or others, but most of all in their public forums Veeam has confirmed they are working for tape integration in the next 7.0 version. It will not be a complete tape management solution like robotic libraries or other advanced stuff, but mainly aimed at backup file offloading, thus creating a coplete D2D2T solution.
Regards,
Luca.
Hey Brendan...
Just as Luca – I do not possess comprehensive experience with both products – so I will also be unable to provide info as to a direct comparison as well. I did do a little homework on the Veeam offering – and while it does look to be a very solid product – without knowing any additional specifics of your environment (other than it appears you need tape support to some degree) it is hard to make a recommendation at face value. So I’ll share what I happen to know about Backup Exec as it applies to my environment. Maybe you’ll take away something that’ll help you make a decision.
Full disclosure… I love Backup Exec – I have for many years.
For starters to answer your tape inquiry: I can, with a high degree of certainty, assert that Backup Exec handles tape with the best of them. Be it b2d2t or straight to tape - if you have a tape requirement, whether robotic or single – you will be in good hands with Backup Exec.
You also mention that you appreciate the “all in one nature” of V-ray tech / Backup Exec. The aforementioned statement rings true for me. Depending on your ratio of physical to virtual (or if you have a burden that includes physical at all) – Backup Exec is a good choice as you’ll only need one piece of software to take care of your load of servers. As an enabling technology, V-ray truly saved me a bunch of time – along with providing better protection than what I was previously accomplishing. Prior to V-ray, I was spending the better part of a full day backing up all the servers on my farm as individual VMWare-only jobs – and electing to do file-level full/diff agent backups for the remainder of the week. With v-ray, I am now able to base my weekly full/diff backup plan off of the full VMWare backups which now contain enumerated filesystem objects and app server data (exchange, sharepoint, sql, ad, etc.). V-ray was nothing short of a paradigm shift for how I approached my backups.
Another thing to consider: depending on how large your data protection burden is – there also exists a possibility that you might be able to fit into the new 3600 series appliance. Had I not had such oddball retention requirements coupled with data that doesn’t de-duplicate optimally, I would have likely converted my site over to it. The 3600 comes loaded with features that you’d normally have to pay a premium for with the standalone product and represents a pretty solid bargain IMO. Unfortunately, I’m stuck with a 4u-whitebox jam-packed full of cheap-o disks ready to facilitate quick restores – while the long term items are spooled to a tape library.
If you’d like to discuss further – we can certainly continue here – or you’re welcome to dm me some contact info on twitter @brandonmosak. I’m more than happy to drill deeper to help you arrive at a more informed decision from a Backup Exec perspective.
./brandonmosak
Veeam is a well known tool for vmbackups among vmware enthusiasts, in general everyone seems to like it, easy setup, easy restores.
I am am fan of backup exec but havent worked with v-ray. I am sure they made a good product and would be interested in trying a demo.
Veeam offers are demo as well.
Try both and see what works for you in style of use and price.
Syamantec has been in the backup game for a long time so they are usualy a great choice.
Hello everyone,
It was really interesting to go thorough your discussion about Veeam and vRanger.
Actually I did not try vRanger, but I tried Veeam. Everything was pretty well, but...TOO COMPLICATED.
Veeam does not have intuitive web interface and it is pretty annoying.
It is impossible to install Veeam on Linux ( pretty strange, because I was sure that such product will have cross platform deployment...).
After that I was trying to google smth like "Alternatives to Veeam".
And on the first page I found and interesting product, NAKIVO Backup&Replication.
I`ve never heard about it before so I started going through the forums before trying.
I was really surprised that many companies chose this product to protect their VI.
after that I decided to give it a try.
I`ve already done my primary tests and I can say that it looks really promising.
The price is really affordable, but the it seems to be really reliable product.
To my mind it is a good alternative to other backup products.
I`ll do my next post when I`ll finish all the tests.
Anyway you can have look NAKIVO Inc. | Home
Michael3434 wrote:
To my mind it is a good alternative to other backup products.
Of course it is, considering that you work for this company