Veeam Backup 2.0

[Grove12]

Has anyone had a chance to play around with Veeam Backup 2 yet? It seemed as if the major gripe within Vmware communities was performance/backup speed. According to the website, it's "5 times faster." There are also a few other appealing new features, like the ability to archive using 3rd party apps. The demo video looks pretty impressive, but I haven't downloaded a trial yet. Right now I'm using Backup Exec with scripts that invoke VCB, but we're shopping around for a better solution. vRanger seems to be the app of choice, but at a glance it looks like Veeam Backup 2 has all the same features, if not more. Could this dethrone vRanger if the performance is really improved? Thoughts? Just curious.

[beckhamk]

You should download and try it. We have a FC san and had also been using BackupExec. BE works fine, but restores are a pain especially for file levels (as we always did full vm backups much faster).

Anyway VeeamBackup v2.0 is much improved faster, and better reporting and job status info. First full backup will always take the longest to run then the next runs much less. For example we use to backup 3 web server vms (full backups) nightly compress using BE, 3 days compressed would run us about 105gb each. Each of those jobs running under BE took almost 2 hours each to run. Now we took those three vm's backed them up in one job and veeam is also saving us some nice diskspace plus times so far a 3 days retention was a 103gb file and two 10gb files, better than BE. Also Initial backup job using low compression 1st run took around 3 hours, each incremental job for all three vms is about an hour.

I strongly recommend this product and I see it only getting better. I know vRanger was out for awhile and is ok, i feel VB blows it out of the water IMHO. Feel free to ask me any other questions.

[Gostev]

beckhamk, thank you for your words about our product.

Grove12, if you are interested, please PM or email me and I will provide you with more information on how our product compares to vRanger Pro. While at a glance it may look like features are all the same, Veeam Backup has better implementation of all features, and it also has additional uniquie features that vRanger Pro simply does not provide (e.g. file-level restore directly from full backup image). As for performance, one of our customers has reported 2 times better backup performance than with vRanger Pro. There is post about this on Veeam forums.

[kix1979]

Actually, vRanger Pro does have the ability to restore files from a backup of a VM, regardless of the type (ie. Full or Differential),

Thomas H. Bryant III

Director, Advanced Technology & Products

Vizioncore, Inc.

VMware Communities User Moderator

[Gostev]

Actually, vRanger Pro does have the ability to restore files from a backup of a VM, regardless of the type (ie. Full or Differential),

Thomas H. Bryant III

Director, Advanced Technology & Products

Vizioncore, Inc.

VMware Communities User Moderator

Hi Thomas, I think you've missed the key word in my post, and that is "directly"...

With Veeam Backup, restoring one Word document from backup file it will take:

From 20GB VMDK - 3 seconds

From 500GB VMDK - 3 seconds

Can you please give us similar estimations on how much time the whole file restoration process will take with your file-level restore implementation?

[Grove12]

Either way, both products seem comparable as far as functionality and

now performance. I appreciate all comments on this topic. In my

estimation, the one thing vRanger has going for it is that it's proven.

Veeam 2, however, has caught up quickly and it's only a matter of time

before it's a major player. Keep listening to your users Veeam!!

[kix1979]

Hello Gostev,

It can be as low as seconds as well, but it depends on the format in which you store a backup. If it is a compressed archive stored out on a NAS share or something, sure it can take quite a bit of time to restore (as one would expect), but again as with any software configuration "it depends" based on how the customer has implemented the solution and their infrastructure configuration. It's the same concept as how a customer can use VCB and it takes 10 minutes to backup a 10G VM, and another customer can have the different results and backup a 10G VM in 2 minutes. It all depends on configurations

Thomas H. Bryant III

Director, Advanced Technology & Products

Vizioncore, Inc.

VMware Communities User Moderator

[Doug_Hazelman]

I did hear from a vRanger customer that file-level restore of 1 file on a 600GB VMDK took 19 hours...the same file took about 2 minutes to recover with Veeam Backup. Part of the issue with the vRanger restore process was trying to find a LUN with enough space to recover the entire 600GB VMDK, then the time it took to recover the VMDK before finally being able to mount it and recover the 500Kb file. Veeam Backup does not require these steps, that's why the file-level recovery is thousands of times faster, independent of the configuration.

[Gostev]

Thomas, sure - I understand that. But still, what is the estimation for 500GB disk file under the best possible conditions?

vRangerPro manual says that during file-level restore, the archive extraction step is pretty slow (1GB per minute maximum, is that right)?

Also, since you are a moderator on these forums, can you explain why all the latest posts in this thread (starting from 4th post) are hidden from the public view, and are only seen to registered users???

[kix1979]

Gostev,

The public facing side of the forums for non-registered users takes longer to update then for registered users, I think... I have ZERO control over how the forums work, as an moderator I am given very limited abilities such as locking a thread, moving a thread and editing a thread. There is no way for me or any other moderator to hide threads or make things go invisible, other then maybe moving the entire thread or breaking it off and moving that to a private forum. So I hope you are not trying to say I am intentionally hiding information or doing something for advantage of one company or another. As a moderator it's my responsibility to take off the Vizioncore hat as much as possible, other then to respond to posts about our company, but again still being a moderator first and an employee of Vizioncore second.

As for best case scenario, a file level restore is instant other then deciding some administrative options. So as a user, they would click File Level Restore for the backup job and then select a drive to mount it as. In the ideal scenario, as is the case for many users, the mount happens instantly and they can then extract files from our UI or from Windows explorer and it will pull directly from the backup. This takes a few seconds to run through and click the buttons, but the extraction would occur at native disk speed. In general, and again this is ONLY my take, manuals should reflect both a typical and worst case expectation of a given scenario. This gives users the "worst case" it will take X amount of time, but in general you should see Y. I'll admit our manual seems to only have the X part, but we certainly can restore much faster then 1G/min, and many users have this experience.

Thomas H. Bryant III

Director, Advanced Technology & Products

Vizioncore, Inc.

VMware Communities User Moderator

[Gostev]

Thank you for clarification on the public view. I have just did some testing without being logged on to the forums, and found that this is the only topic with such issue. I am able to see the most recent post in all other topics, except this one. I will wait for a few hours more, and then escalate this issue to forum administration.

As for the file-level restore with vRanger Pro, could you provide what you call "typical" estimation on how much time restoring a single Word document from 500GB VM archive would take. Not just the time required to mount the fully extracted VMDK (I realize that it's almost instant process), but also to extract the actual VMDK from backup before it could be mounted. I cannot imagine how the extraction of 500GB file could be "almost instant" because even simply copying such file from one place to another without any processing whatsoever takes a lot of time.

Also, do you have any comments on another concern mentioned above, and that is having to find 500GB of free disk space to be able to perform recovery of a single 20KB Word document?

[ElPolloLoco]

That sounds like a Pepsi challenge to me.

Who would win and restore a Word doc from 500GB VM faster ?

[kix1979]

Gostev,

If are you trying to imply that I am hiding this thread, you are incorrect and I don't appreciate the insinuation. Feel free to email Robert, John or any of the other VMware Communities staff (VMware employees) and they will tell you exactly what I have said, there is no need to wait a few more hours or to try and make it look as though I have done something to this thread.

As for the question asked about time for extraction, seconds. You are taking a file from inside an encapsulated partition system and copying it somewhere else. On locally attached disk it would be seconds, on a 128KB link to some remote destination... who knows. Beyond that, I'm not going to get into a long debate about FLR on the

forums here. This is not a place for two vendors to bash each other

out and nit pick every feature. I'd invite you to try our product and

see what performance you get, just as I would advise any client to try

before you buy.

I appreciate the questions,

Thomas H. Bryant III

Director, Advanced Technology & Products

Vizioncore, Inc.

VMware Communities User Moderator

[Gostev]

Thomas, note that I never said nor implied that you are responsible for the issue with this thread being hidden. It is you who said this twice already. And I also don't appreciate you trying to make me look bad. If you look above at my first post about this issue, I came to you asking for help as moderator of this forum. It is very sad that you could not work with other VMware forum staff to investigate this issue for me, and instead are having me to contact some other moderators. No problems though, I will do this.

Thanks for inviting me to see your product in action, in fact I did see it, and file-level recovery speed for typical VMs with large VMDK was not even close to instant - even on best hardware and local attached storages - because the extraction step used to take a VERY long time. In fact, the extraction performance was close to the one mentioned in the User Manual for vRanger Pro.

I appreciate your request to stop this discussion, I realize it is going nowhere because you avoid replying my questions. In fact I would never started this discussion with you, if you would not try to disprove my initial post about vRanger Pro file-level recovery implementation, and make me look like I don't know what I am saying.

Thanks.

[PJHarley]

I have had both Vizioncore vRanger Pro and Veeam Backup running side by side. In version 1.0 of Veeam Backup there were obvious drawbacks on usability and performance, however, once the trial license of the Vizioncore product ran out I was unable to get an extension.

When I was at VMWorld Europe earlier this year I spoke to both Vizioncore and to Veeam regarding the continuation of support for my evaluation of their products.

Vizioncore promised me that a local reseller in Switzerland would be in touch with me to help me with my evaluation but I never got that call and as I could not get the trial license extended I had to stop the evaluation of their product.

I have to say, despite Veeam's, at that time, below par v1.0 product their pre and post sales support has been 2nd to none. Since the release of v2.0 I am now much happier to suggest it as a VMware backup solution. They have solved many of the performance issues and I have been able to restore files from unmounted highly compressed backups created by Veeam Backup v1.0, using Veeam Backup 2.0.

I have given feedback to Veeam with my findings and with suggested improvements to the product and I feel confident that they will listen to my suggestions.

Of course, performance and reliability of the product is important but if you hit a problem and need support, who then is the quickest to respond gets my vote. Veeam = Within the hour, Vizioncore = Never. 1:0 to Veeam.

Paul J Shadwell

CTO

Peak Partners SA

Geneva

[Gostev]

I am glad that Vizioncore has finally admitted that instantaneous file level restore (Veeam approach) has huge advantage over the current vRanger implementation. And now it is completely beyond my understanding why did you argue obvious things in this thread.

Quote from the latest Vizioncore newsletter:

This version (vRanger Pro 4.0) will also deliver near instantaneous restores of files, finally eradicating the reason for procuring file level agents.

Also, I must say I am very proud of our product - Veeam Backup, and I am glad that Vizioncore admires it so much. Because you have even added all other features Veeam Backup 2.0 has into your release plans, like increased speed and scalability, ESXi support, incremental backup and virtually all the other features which you guys have listed in vRanger Pro 4.0 announcements. The only difference is - we already have all of those features generally available, they are working, and our customers are using them now.

So good luck in trying to catch up with us (competition is always a good thing) and I can't wait to wait to see vRangerPro 4.0!

[vKenny]

Gostev, any information on a release date of vRangerPro 4.0 ? At the moment I can't find any information regarding the future release.

[Gostev]

Gostev, any information on a release date of vRangerPro 4.0 ? At the moment I can't find any information regarding the future release.

Hello, sorry for delay with my response, I thought someone from Vizioncore would pick it up and clear the confusion...

Actually I work for Veeam, not Vizioncore - so I am unable to answer this question.

You should probably contact your Vizioncore representative to get this information.

[Butcha]

I, as well as my organization, have been very disappointed with the vRanger product, in general and have decided to retire it. It just has proven to be a huge headache, especially considering the financial expense. When I came to this organization, vRanger was the only backup solution in place in my company's virtual space, and backups were mostly a crapshoot. I attempted to sort the problems out, but Vizioncore does not make researching their product easy. I truly cannot understand the lack of documentation that exists for their products, besides feature highlights and high level overviews presentations....lol. Even to this day, when I attempt to research an issue, mainly via Vizioncore's support forum, I am amazed at how many times I see the same exact suggestion for a wide range of issues from the forum's moderators: "Open a support case". HA! One of the beauties of an actual REAL SUPPORT community, like that of VMware for example, is that busy poeple, who probably dont have time to play email and phone tag with support all day, can actually find the solutions to problems ON THE VENDOR'S SUPPORT FORUM *WITHOUT OPENING A SUPPORT CASE. *A colleague and I had basically concluded that Vizioncore is using the community for Dev and QA purposes, hence the lack of documentation and the lack of answers. Just today, I recieved a request from an application group to have a file restored from a VM from a backup that vRanger made about a month ago. Do you think the procedure was a success? NO.....it wasnt. We could neither perform a file-level restore nor a complete vm restore.......both methods ran into different brick walls. LOL.....I know for a fact that many other vRanger customers experience these same issues, but instead of communicating the problems, even if it shines a bad light on vRanger, Vizioncore would rather handle these frailties "in house" instead of airing it all out on their forum. As a professional whose schedule is booked to the max, I can only make time to open support calls in the direst of situations.

To top all of this off, my management felt like total buttheads after I recently created a POWERSHELL script leveraging VCB to achieve 100% successfull backups across the board.......FOR FREE! Plus, the restoration of these backups is much much more reliable.

Vizioncore actually makes some cool stuff, though. I mean, I liked the demonstration of vFoglight, but the failures and lingering bad taste of vRanger, which had been in the environment for more than a year, actually prevented that product from even being considered.

[ealaqqad]

I have been a part of the team was comparing Veeam Backup & Replication vs VizionCore vReplicator last week & thought will share with you all the resulting comparison at:

VizionCore vReplicator (esxReplicator) vs Veeam Backup & Replication

This comparison was done with the latest of the two products :).

I hope this help some one, if it does please reward points.

Enjoy,

Eiad Al-Aqqad

System X & Storage Technical Specialist

"Physical Suck Think virtual Think VMware ESX"

Founder of