If you thought we would run out of awesome ideas for our solution, think again. We’re announcing the 7th feature in our Countdown to v7 today: Virtual Labs for Replicas (currently for VMware only).
Our customers and partners have long been asking us to add “SureReplica” functionality - in other words, enable the SureBackup capability for replicas and not just for backups. However, we at Veeam saw a lot more potential for also using replicas to take advantage of resources that are currently being wasted. In v7, we’re taking the SureReplica feature request beyond automated replica verification to provide you with the full range of functionality you’re already leveraging with Veeam backups.
So, the subtitle for this blog post should be: Put Your Replicas to Work! Most of the DR sites out there are idle, waiting for a major disaster to strike. Instead of gathering dust while waiting for the worst to happen, Veeam is offering you a way to actually give those resources value beyond disaster recovery. This time we’re going further. Now we’re bringing all the powerful capabilities of Virtual Labs for backup (SureBackup, U-AIR, On-Demand-Sandbox) to your replicas too.
First of all I should update you on how Virtual Labs for Veeam Backup & Replication actually works today in a VMware vSphere environment:
A dedicated host for the job is assigned.
A Standard vSwitch is created on that host.
A Proxy Appliance (routing engine) gets connected to that vSwitch and to the subnet of the Backup Server, copying the production network at the backend.
The requested virtual machines are brought online from within your backup files using vPower technology.
As part of our run up to v7 of Veeam Backup & Replication, we’re announcing a number of new features that will be part of this big release. The latest announcement expands on a v6 feature that solved a big problem for many organizations, you won’t believe what we have in store here!
This new feature centers on self-service for virtualized environments. On demand self-service is one of the key tenets of any public, private, or hybrid cloud. The point is that if a user can service their own needs there will be greater efficiency, greater satisfaction for the user, and less cost to the business. Everybody wins! So how does this apply to the world of modern data protection? The answer, in two words, is 1-Click Restore.
Since version 6, 1-Click Restore has made it easy for users to recover lost or corrupted files. In version 7, we’re extending 1-Click Restore to include self-service recovery of individual VMs!
We’ve already announced four great new features coming in Veeam Backup & Replication v7. And, we’re not done yet! We’re proud to announce the fifth new feature in the Countdown to v7—Archive to Tape!
If you’ve been using Veeam for a while, you know our focus has been on helping customers realize the full potential that virtualization provides for a modern IT infrastructure. Thus far, we’ve not supported writing backup files to tape natively. However, we heard you in the Veeam Forums, on Twitter and at events, and Veeam Backup & Replication v7 delivers Archive to Tape, giving you options for archiving your backups—disk, cloud and tape.
The new tape support is a great way to make Veeam backups portable and take them offsite. Much like Veeam Backup & Replication Cloud Edition, which allows easy offsite backups to more than 15 different public storage providers, tape support answers the question “How do I get my backups offsite in a cost-effective manner?”
Tape is dead?
If you believe the media, it is. But, based on customer feedback, we know this isn’t true for everyone. Whether dealing with compliance rules, internal policies or if you simply need to archive backups using tape infrastructure you’ve already invested in, these challenges can be solved with our Archive to Tape.
If you haven’t heard, we’ve been making some noise regarding Veeam Backup & Replication v7 already. The first of these was the announcement that v7 will offer enhanced support for vCloud Director, made last month at VMware Partner Exchange in Las Vegas (be sure to see our . We are now ready to introduce the next milestone in building up to v7, a plug-in for the vSphere Web Client for Veeam Backup & Replication. How cool is that!
We can now bring more information about the Veeam backup infrastructure into the Web Client. Good information about the status of Veeam Backup & Replication will be available right inside the vSphere Web Client, and in fact this is quite usable data. We’ve had attribute settings for a long time to clearly set a VM to being backed up as a way to self-indicate its protection status; but this is a great way to see it within your vSphere administration space.
We’ve produced a quick video introducing the features of our new plug-in, which you can see below:
Our customers love Veeam Backup & Replication! We get all kinds of positive comments about how easy it is to set up, configure, and operate. We hear about how powerful it is in backup and recovery operations. All of this goodness comes at a very affordable price point.
Powerful, Easy-to-Use, and Affordable. That’s Veeam!
I have been a System Engineer for some years and one of the scariest traditions was Holiday Season patching. In short it means that a lot of companies still think its ok to keep the systems an entire year running and do ALL patches (firmware, OS, software) in the week between Christmas and New Year. More often than not that did not turn out to be the best experience as 'something' will break. I cannot recall a single holiday season that the patching projects went actually better than planned. What I do recall are the Christmas or New Year's eves that we were troubleshooting or recovering from previous versions.
So how can Veeam save your bacon?
There are 3 stages in the process: preparation - execution - recovery. Of course we can't really help you with the execution of your patches. But what we can do is help you prepare and if anything goes wrong we are your best friend to get you back home faster than anyone else.
Preparation: test your backups!
In version 5 Veeam added the vPower set of features. Among other things, this gives you the power to mount a virtual machine to the hypervisor from within the backup file. Once you are able to do this, you can run automated, scheduled tests to ensure this machine is recoverable. This is the Surebackup feature. You can group multiple machines (ie Domain Controller + Exchange) and if everything up to the application comes back online, you get the report that gives you the necessary green light. Think about this: some of your machines have not even been rebooted this year so you have no idea if this will go flawlessly, unless you tested this! If anything would go wrong, make sure you know how long you'll need to recover and get back on the table with the family.
Preparation: test your patches!
We are already talking about being afraid of recovery. What is better than fast recovery? NO recovery. How many times didn't you have to troubleshoot issues after a software patch? Because you have vPower you can also boot those virtual machines from within the latest backup file in a sealed environment and truly test your patches before doing it in production. This is the virtual lab feature within Veeam Backup & Replication. You could even do it 3 times to be really sure the actual patching day will just be executing what you already knew. You will be back home on time to cook yourself.
Preparation: run your final backups (even for free)!
Are you running a legacy backup? You want some backup for your backup? Try our free edition of Veeam Backup & Replication and make a VeeamZIP of your most important machines. During the holiday season you really don't want to rely on those legacy solutions to get you back in hours or days instead of minutes.
Are your backup windows too small, even with your current Veeam Backup & Replication configuration? Make sure you have evaluated your backup environment. The scale-out architecture with multiple proxies, the more powerful engines of version 6.5 and the extra levels of deduplication can really help you create that extra backup you want just before you start your patching project.
Recovery: INSTANT recovery!
So even if you did prepare yourself by testing if your machines are recoverable, even if you tested all patches in our on-demand-sandbox, firmware patches and so on can go really wrong from time to time. It's not the first time an entire storage array has to be re-initiated or hypervisor hosts need to be reinstalled. When something completely goes wrong you need to be able to go back in time as fast as possible. What if you could be back online in minutes without recovering everything first? Remember the last time you had to recover a 2TB SQL server? Imagine recovering your entire infrastructure. As already mentioned in the first paragraph: with you can boot VMs from within the backup files. Let the actual recovery to your production storage be handled afterwards in the background and go home, ENJOY THE FIREWORKS!
As the holidays approach us around the world, we at Veeam are happy to have a number of strategies that reach out to the core of the virtualization community. Just in this year, we’ve released Veeam Backup Free Edition, which has been a great hit. We also are continuing our commitment to the VMware and Microsoft virtualization communities with our NFR license program.
The NFR license program allows practicing IT pros with the VMware VCP, VCI, and vExpert designations as well as Microsoft MCP, MCTS, and MVP holders to get up to two CPU sockets of Veeam Backup & Replication. These CPU socket licenses are fully functional but are intended to be used in a non-production environment, such as a home lab.
A number of bloggers who have the VMware and Microsoft credentials have already taken part in this program, and so should you! If you are a VMware-certified IT pro, this page is where you register for the NFR licenses. If you are a Microsoft-certified IT pro, this is your page.
We hope that each of you enjoys this program and continues to develop your IT practice with a backup program for your lab that will enable your virtualization expertise to grow!
It is finally here! Veeam Backup & Replication 6.5 is now available! This release includes all of the great features we previewed at Microsoft TechEd, VMworld and other global events. A number of new features that make up Veeam Backup & Replication 6.5, including:
Veeam builds innovative software that helps a business to realize the promises of virtualization. Veeam’s products support virtual machines (vm’s) running in multiple hypervisor environments including VMware and Hyper-V. The changes and improvements to Windows Server 2012, particularly as they relate to Hyper-V, and to storage, are incredibly exciting! Let me give you a great example!
Veeam Backup & Replication Deduplication
In the virtual environment, just like the physical environment, backup is essential! Veeam Backup & Replication provides simple, fast, reliable backups of your running virtual machines. It uses API sets and the Microsoft VSS process to ensure application quiescence, and total reliability. The ever growing demands on storage seem to be a constant concern to the business. There is no doubt that backups of virtual machines could impose a significant load to a storage environment. Veeam has implemented both compression and deduplication features to help recover what would otherwise be a significant amount of data storage space used to store backups of vm’s. Veeam Backup & Replication uses what is known as a “per job” deduplication, meaning that the replication is implemented on a job by job basis. This deduplication alone can yield very significant data recovery percentages depending on the contents of the virtual machines.
SAN snapshots are the fastest way to secure your data, especially if you are using offloading API's like VAAI. So since it is fast and the timeframe is small, some people want to use san snapshots as a backup procedure. There are a few issues here; the first issue is that if you want a longer retention, you will need to keep all your snapshots online and this will take too much precious production data in your tier1 storage array. The second issue is that a lot of SAN products today still don't like working full-time on top of nested snapshotted LUNs.
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