A VMware VM is a set of files containing all of the necessary information about a virtualized operating system. These files include the primary configuration file (.VMX), which keeps VM settings, the centralized file for storing information about VM snapshots (.VMSD) and other. The data of the VM is contained in the .VMDK file, the VMware virtual disk format. By way of analogy with physical servers, each VMware VM can have one or more virtual disks, which mean that your VM can contain several .VMDK files or otherwise said, can contain several “hard drives”.

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VMware vMotion is a vSphere feature that allows you to move a running VMware VM from one host to another, with no significant impact on your production environment. VMware vMotion was introduced in 2003 and is now a part of almost all VMware vSphere editions, except for vSphere Essentials Kit, which is designed for small virtual environments.

There are a number of scenarios when VMware vMotion might be helpful, starting with pre-defined hardware maintenance when you need to move your VMs to another ESX(i) host for a short period of time without downtime, and to proactive migration of live VMs away from underperforming servers. If your vSphere licensing includes VMware vMotion, congratulations, you are one lucky virtualization admin! But what should you ... Read more

Working in a team with amazing, passionate and smart people is always fantastic. And working in a team with people that discover and solve real-life IT problems is even better…

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 is a free hypervisor from Microsoft that delivers all the functionality of its “big brother” Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V. The difference? It’s free (the difference is the way you license the virtual machines on the host) and it comes in the Core version. The Core version has a lot of advantages such as a smaller (attack) footprint, less patching and less resources needed but the downside is that it doesn’t have ... Read more

Today we announced the general availability of Veeam Backup & Replication v7 R2. This is an important release because Veeam is the first backup and disaster recovery vendor to support BOTH vSphere 5.5 and Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V hypervisors. In addition, v7 R2 also includes full support for Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows 8.1 as a VMware or Hyper-V guest, as well as support for installing Veeam Backup & Replication components on these operating systems.

vSphere 5.5

If you’re registered on our forums then you’ve most likely seen the “Word from Gostev” that’s sent out every Sunday evening. A few weeks ago Anton pointed out an important requirement with vSphere 5.5. Starting with version 5.5, the vSphere API for Data ... Read more

Windows Server 2012 has been released on 4 September 2012. This version has brought a whole new Operating System with many new features, enhancements and more. In fact, the changes are so large that many IT Pros are still struggling with learning all those new items within Windows Server.

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Last year, we wrote about a free tool for backing up virtual machines (VMs) in VMware and Hyper-V environments – Veeam Backup Free Edition. Veeam recently released v7, an updated version that delivers important new features and capabilities. In this article, I’ll point out some powerful features you’ll find in the new version of Veeam Backup Free Edition.

When I wrote the Infographic, Veeam Backup & Replication v7: By the Numbers; I made a distinct effort to ensure that Backup Free Edition was well represented. In fact, I counted 12 powerful features by Backup Free Edition:

VeeamZIP BackupVeeam Explorer for ExchangeVeeam Explorer for Storage SnapshotsVeeam Explorer ... Read more

In my role here at Veeam, I talk to a lot of people across different industries throughout the world. Virtualization is a great community in a sense where we can do that, and we can quickly gravitate to discussing similar topics. Luckily, Veeam helps solve problems for people when it comes to backing up VMs!

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Today is a big day here at Veeam. Today we released the seventh version of our award-winning Backup & Replication product. It’s hard to believe it’s only been five and a half years since we released version one. With the help of our Veeam ProPartners, we’ve been able to accomplish some truly incredible things in the past five and a half years, including:

#1 VMware and #1 Hyper-V BackupOver 73,000 paying customersOver 200,000 users of our free productsCoverage in 75% of Fortune 500 companiesFastest growing backup software of all time

 

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Q: If I use replication for a virtual machine does that mean that I no longer need to worry about backing it up?

A: The short answer is you should still back up the virtual machine! The reason is that all data protection systems seek to eliminate the two critical challenges of downtime, and data loss. Each problem costs the business lots of money. In the IT industry the goals of limiting, or even eliminating, data loss and downtime are referred to as Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) (for data loss), and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) (for downtime.)

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One of the best (or most challenging!) aspects of virtualization technologies is that it never stands still. I’d go so far as to say that it moves a lot faster than other technologies, and in a way pushes other technologies to advance as well. Read more