Doug Hazelman here and I wanted to share with everyone just what a great year 2010 was for Veeam. As we move into 2011 and continue our upward trend I’m sure more great things are around the corner but I really believe that 2010 is one of the years that will go down in Veeam history as being one of the best.
SureBackup and vPower
We started off the Spring of 2010 with our big announcement regarding SureBackup. This announcement was important for us because we knew that it was going to take some time to understand just what Recovery Verification was all about.
Back in October, Carl-Fredrik (@Cape200) sent the following Tweet:
VEEAM should really give every VMware VCP a full copy of their complete catalog! If I had gotten that I would have made them some money! via
This got us thinking, should we do this? I talked to a few people, including who has a popular blog called and . They agreed that this would be a great idea for the community.
After discussing the idea internally we got the ball rolling, everyone agreed it was a great idea. Of course it’s taken us some time to get the announcement out there, one of the reasons is that we wanted to wait until we released Veeam Backup & Replication 5.0.1 since it fixed several minor issues. With 5.0.1 released and the on the horizon, we decided to go ahead and make this our 2010 Holiday gift.
From our official press release:
Veeam Software, innovative provider of VMware data protection, disaster recovery and VMware management solutions for virtual datacenter environments, today announced that Veeam Backup & Replication™ v5 with vPower™ is now available free to all VMware vExperts, VMware Certified Professionals, and VMware Certified Instructors. Any vExpert, VCP or VCI can receive a free two-socket software license (valued at approximately $1,800) for non-production use, including training, evaluation and development.
Ready for your NFR key? Simply visit this link and register and you’ll be on your way to trying out the best products for managing and protecting VMware infrastructures.
Update: Maish has blogged about the holiday give on his Technodrone blog:
Veeam released the new Backup & Replication v5 in October. The release date was marked by a Live Launch event webinar on October 20 that drew in almost 1500 attendees. The feedback that we have gotten so far has been outstanding and will provide us with the information we need to continue to improve.
As we have stated before, no other product possesses the capabilities that are available in Veeam Backup & Replication v5 with vPower. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago we found a dissatisfied Symantec customer who claimed that Veeam Backup & Replication v5 could do for him what Symantec couldn’t. We couldn’t resist and offered him the chance to try Veeam Backup & Replication. All we can say for now is so far so good!
In addition to being agentless, Veeam Backup & Replication v5 provides numerous advantages over legacy solutions such as Symantec Backup Exec, and has capabilities that Backup Exec is missing:
Backup Exec lacks instant VM recovery and therefore cannot eliminate the need to extract the backup and copy it to production storage when recovering an entire VM.
Backup Exec (agentless) lacks granular application-item recovery so it cannot provide a way out when a user accidently deletes important emails.
Backup Exec does not provide instant file-level recovery from an image-level backup, to any point in time, on any OS and file system, in seconds.
Backup Exec does not have the power to verify the recoverability of its backups.
Backup Exec does not offer image-based replication and as a result it is not able to offer affordable near-CDP.
Backup Exec DOES charge extra for deduplication, which seems to be an essential capability for any backup tool, seeing as how data volume is growing every day.
Multiple backups are needed for different recovery scenarios with Backup Exec, whereas Veeam only needs one.
We recently looked at a price comparison of Veeam Backup & Replication v5 with Symantec Backup Exec 2010 and were shocked at the results. Besides not providing all the functionality, Symantec Backup Exec can cost upwards of 4 times more and still has 5 times less functionality than Veeam Backup & Replication v5.
*EMEA MSRP for the following configuration: 4 dual-socket ESXi servers connected to a SAN and hosting 1 Oracle server, 2 Microsoft Exchange servers, 4 Active Directory domain controllers, 2 SQL Server VMs, and 2 SharePoint Portal Server VMs.
Want more proof? You can read a to get a detailed look into Veeam Backup & Replication v5 with vPower and until December 24, you can switch from Symantec Backup Exec to Veeam Backup & Replication v5 and get a 25% discount.
Are you satisfied with your current backup solution? Are you willing to pay over 4 times more for 5 times less functionality?
RyanW, if you are reading this then please know that we are out there looking for you! Just a couple of weeks ago on October 21 you told Symantec on their Backup Exec forum that you were having problems with your current Backup Exec solution () and that you were a little frustrated. You also wrote on their forum:
“Anyone? If this is the way the Agent for VMware is, I need to find a way to get a refund and remove my license. I'll pick up VEEAM V5 which does all of this without an agent on the servers and has granular restore capabilities without buying additional agents (such as the SQL and Active Directory agent). That's just ridiculous!”
So where are you RyanW?
We are looking for you!
We want to find you and give you a chance to switch to Veeam v5! In fact, we want to give you "Veeam Backup & Replication v5 with vPower" as a gift – yes, for FREE - just because of who you are, the very RyanW who told Symantec how it is and what Veeam v5 with vPower is all about. Thank you for thinking of us! And thank you for spreading the good word that v5 is a great product!
RyanW, if you see this, please email us at RyanW@veeam.com and we would be excited to meet you! We hope to find you soon!
Today Veeam hosted a webinar titled “Running Exchange on VMware”. Most of the focus of course was on backup and recovery of Exchange once it’s been virtualized. As I was preparing for the webinar (with a lot of help from ) I realized that the information would also make a good blog post. Below are the main points of backup and recovery for Exchange and how Veeam Backup & Replication v5 addresses them.
From the Microsoft perspective, there are :
In order to be compliant with Exchange Server, VSS based backup applications must follow three basic requirements to ensure the integrity and recoverability of shadow copy backups. If these requirements are not followed, Microsoft ... will not be able to troubleshoot backup and restore issues.
Rule 1: Exchange must be backed up exclusively through the Exchange VSS Writer.
Rule 2: Backup should not be relied on until the backup application has completed integrity verification.
Rule 3: Restores to original location must be done exclusively with the Exchange VSS Writer.
Rule 1: VSS Aware Backup
Veeam implements proprietary Microsoft VSS integration, instead of relying on VMware Tools VSS integration components.
Fully automated and transparent (no agents to deploy/configure/update/monitor)
Supported directly by Veeam, not VMware (no finger pointing)
No limitations of VMware Tools VSS: supports transaction logs processing, all ESX(i) and Windows versions, dynamic disks, IDE disks, VM without UUID, etc.
More information:
Veeam Backup v5 FAQ:
VMware VSS limitations:
Rule 2: Verify Before You Rely
SureBackup Recovery Verification
Great flexibility (supports custom scripts)
Choose method of verification that is sufficient for you: remote run eseutil or isinteg on test VM (no stress on production), log on to test mailbox via HTTPS and query test email message
Keep in mind DC dependency!
Exchange must see DC to be able to properly boot in the isolated environment. SureBackup Application Groups take care of this for you.
Rule 3: VSS Aware Restore
Restores to original location must be done exclusively with the Exchange VSS Writer, and in correct sequence:
Boot up Exchange VM with mailbox stores dismounted
Tell Exchange VSS Writer to perform restore from VSS snapshot
Mount mailbox stores
Veeam implements these Microsoft requirements
Most image-level backup vendors do not do this, they just boot VM normally like there is no Exchange present
Perform a test restore to check your current solution and look for these events on the restored Exchange server, if they don’t exist your vendor is not following Rule 3:
If transaction log files are not pruned after backup, the log files accumulate until they fill all the available disk space. The Exchange VSS Writer implements transaction log pruning capabilities, however VMware Tools VSS is NOT a backup application and cannot know if backup was completed successfully. Thus, it cannot process transaction logs by design.
Any application “riding” on VMware Tools VSS instead of providing proprietary VSS integration will not truncate logs.
Some solutions do provide transaction log pruning, but perform log pruning right after the snapshot is taken.
This approach is actually worse than no pruning at all: if backup does not complete successfully, you will not have a good backup, and your transaction logs will be gone. You will not be able to restore in case of disaster.
To check your current image-level solution, perform test a backup to check (on a test Exchange server, not production)
Perform backup, wait for the job to complete successfully, ensure transaction logs are actually pruned.
Perform another backup, but this time reset the backup server while the job is running (after virtual disk copy starts). Transaction logs should NOT be pruned.
Veeam prunes logs on successful backup by default and v5 provides advanced transaction log handling options as seen in this screen shot:
Granular Recovery Challenges
Typically granular recovery from an image-level backup was difficult, you had to restore entire Active Directory and Exchange servers to an isolated environment before your could restore any items. The process is time and personnel resource intensive. There are some 3rd party tools that mount the Exchange data store but these still require data stores to be extracted first (time and disk space) and there’s an additional licensing cost associated (usually per mailbox)
Agent-based solutions have existed for years that can back up the Exchange data, but that’s not the most efficient way to backup Exchange in a virtual environment. Additionally, if you combine agent based with image based, you are backing up the same data twice, taking additional resources and storage media.
Granular Recovery with vPower™
Veeam’s patent-pending approach fully utilizes the existing virtual infrastructure. The Veeam application group and virtual lab features automatically create an isolated environment and with vPower, you simply run the AD and Exchange servers directly from the backup files, no extraction necessary.
Veeam’s Exchange AIR (Application Item Recovery) Wizard utilizes Microsoft Exchange APIs and connects to both the production and isolated environments providing you with Exchange item-level recovery in minutes, not hours!
More Information
Microsoft on Exchange 2003 VSS Backup and Restore
Microsoft on Exchange 2007 VSS Backup and Restore
Application-aware image processing section of v5 FAQ
Today we publicly announced our very successful Q3 when we experienced extraordinary growth. Our total revenue bookings grew 88% in Q3 of this year when compared to Q3 in 2009 and new license revenue bookings increased 73%. Additionally we added 2100 new customers bringing the grand total to more than 15,000 customers worldwide. Veeam also hired 47 new employees, bringing our total number of employees to 301 worldwide.
Four Awards at VMworld 2010 That We Won in Q3
In Q3 we were fortunate to win “Best of Show 2010” award at the VMworld conference in San Francisco and we were the 1st company in history to win 4 “Best of VMworld” awards. We received the Best of Show for Veeam Backup & Replication™ v5 (what we call "v5") which judges called a “.” We also won Gold for New Technology with vPower, the breakthrough technology behind v5. For the 2nd consecutive year, Veeam was a finalist in the Virtualization Management category with Veeam ONE and a finalist in the Business Continuity and Data Protection category with Veeam Backup & Replication.
NEW Products in Q3
Veeam Backup & Replication v5 with vPower - at the end of August we demonstrated our new "v5" and vPower technology at VMworld San Francisco. This technology powers Veeam Backup & Replication 5.0 and overcomes the limitations of traditional data protection and disaster recovery software by running a VM directly from a backup file. vPower also enables these features that are innovative in the industry and which no other companies have in their products:
Instant VM Recovery: restores an entire virtual machine from a backup file in minutes and users remain productive while IT troubleshoots the issue.
U-AIR(Universal Application-Item Recovery): recovers individual items from any virtualized application, on any OS, without additional backups, agents or software tools. It eliminates the need for expensive special-purpose tools and extends granular recovery to all applications and users.
SureBackupRecovery Verification: Automatically verifies the recoverability of every backup and of every virtual machine. This features eliminates uncertainty and sets a new standard in data protection.
On-Demand Sandbox: Create test VMs from any point in time to troubleshoot problems or test workarounds, software patches or new application code. Eliminates the need for dedicated test labs and the overhead that extra VMware snapshots place on VMs.
Instant File-Level Recovery for any OS or file system: Recover an entire VM or an individual file from the same image-level backup. Extends instant file-level recovery to all VMs.
Our CEO, Ratmir Timashev, was quoted saying that v5 with vPower has taken VMware backup to a new level and it not only provides much better service at a much lower cost, it also offers compelling reasons to virtualize critical enterprise applications, including CRM, ERP and email systems which includes databases such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server and email systems such as Microsoft Exchange.
Free Edition of the Veeam Reporter - at the time of our highly anticipated "v5" release, Veeam also announced in August our new free version of the popular Veeam Reporter for VMware. Veeam Reporter allows VMware administrators to perform capacity planning, change management, and enterprise reporting and chargeback.
Veeam ONE - finally, in Q3, the company introduced Veeam ONE which is a comprehensive solution for managing the performance, configuration and utilization of VMware environments. It includes Monitoring, Capacity Planning, Change Management as well as Reporting and Chargeback. It is the only single solution that takes into account varying customer requirements and scenarios. The Veeam nworks Management Pack Plus and the Veeam nworks Smart Plug-in Plus are for companies using Microsoft System Center or the HP Operations Manager, respectively. These Veeam ONE offerings leverage and extend the management frameworks in which customers have already invested. is used in other monitoring environments.
For all these achievements and successes in Q3, we are sincerely grateful to our customers, partners and the VMware community!
Today we are going to kick off our highly anticipated Live Launch for "v5"! Our CEO Ratmir Timashev will be making this announcement with Doug Hazelman (). Ratmir already sent personal invitations to a number of our Veeam friends or our extended Veeam family in the VMware community because he wanted to be sure that they will join him personally at this very special Live event.
So today will be one of those special moments in our history. We have been working tirelessly on Veeam Backup and Replication v5 with vPower which is truly a breakthrough, innovative technology! And we genuinely believe that this is the start of something new in the backup and data protection industry.
During our 20 minute announcement, Ratmir and Doug will share some of our inside stories that we have never shared outside the company in the past. You will hear about the "change of plans" that happened in October 2009 when our visionary CTO and R&D team paused the development of what was to be v5 originally and instead came up with this breakthrough technology that you will be able to download and try today for the first time (right after our Live Launch event!). We will also tell you how this was a "top secret" for many months when nobody outside of R&D knew about the special project and how we found out about it internally. And Doug will have you convinced during the Live Launch that this is just a start – the release of v5 with vPower tomorrow is only beginning of what is possible next… Tune in and be part of backup history!
There've been some interesting blog posts lately about dedicated VMware data protection solutions such as Veeam Backup & Replication and whether those solutions will continue to thrive. started the discussion in his blog post "" This post caught the attention of Mr. Backup, , and he posted a response "", and then Jay posted a response to Mr. Preston "". All of this responding created yet another response by own "". With all of this talk about us, we figured we'd throw our own response into the fray.
All 4 blog posts make very valid points. The purpose of this post is not to call into question any of those points but to explain Veeam's position in the dedicated VMware data protection space. In fact, I wrote an article for Virtualization Review a few months back . The backup and DR space was very different in the age of the mainframe…then came Windows…now comes virtualization. Read more>>
It has been a whirlwind month for the Veeam Teeam coming off a great showing at VMworld 2010 in San Francisco. While Veeam was collecting more awards for the corporate mantle last week, there was some great knowledge exchange taking place by the Veeam technical team as well.
A good friend of ours, with VMware let me know about a blog post he had forthcoming following the public announcement of product general availability. Michael is the Americas Solution Specialist SE for business continuity and disaster recovery for VMware. He contributes to the at vmware.com.
Michael has been doing a good deal of testing with vCloud Director specifically in his domain of expertise. In his latest he describes some of his results. Specifically of interest to me is Michael's testing of Veeam Backup & Replication v4 and the native ability to protect VMs that have been provisioned by vCloud Director.
If you are using agent based backups already in your organization, you can continue to do that. This may not work for you depending on the security that you have enabled in your cloud. If you are using the vStorage API set for the backup it may or may not work for you. Currently, the VMware Data Recovery (vDR) product will not work when backing up vCD provisioned VM's. This should be fixed in the next release of vDR. But generally, your software should work. In my testing I used vDR v1.2 (which didn't work), Backup Exec 2010 R2 13.0 Rev 4164 (agent based and worked) and Veeam 4.1.2.125 (which worked).
So if you want to start testing the new vCloud family of products, know that Veeam Backup & Replication, which is built on a solid architecture using available APIs and best practices, has you covered both today and in future.
A big thank you goes to Michael White for the testing and acknowledgment.
To say was a success for Veeam this year would be an understatement. We had record traffic to our booth, record attendance at our party and to top it all off we took home a record 4 Best of VMworld awards from TechTarget’s , including Best of Show. At the booth we were doing live demos of our upcoming Veeam Backup & Replication v5 as well as our Veeam ONE Solution. Below is a collection of pictures and videos, thanks to everyone who helped make VMworld a huge success for Veeam! Of course we look forward to seeing even more people at .
Be sure to check our for a complete collection of pictures from the show floor as well as the Veeam party.
Our CEO, Ratmir Timashev, with our Best of Show award Read more>>
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