Backups: Backup Exec vs. Veeam

danielanthony · 24 May 2012 at 15:54

Hello,

I'm looking at backup solutions for our virtual environments and although the hardware is sorted, backing up to disks rather than tapes, the software is causing me headaches.

The two I'm looking at are the latest version of Backup Exec and Veeam. The documentation from both of them does not make it clear which one is best, I want to do file level restore of our file servers and restore SharePoint/SQL/Exchange 2010 ideally without deploying agents. I also have Ubuntu, SUSE and XP VM's.

Does anyone here use either of these products and what is your opinion on them?

unclepablo · 24 May 2012 at 16:46

Hi,

Having used both products, in my opinion, once Virtualisation is involved Veeam leaves BE for dead.

Whilst I've not tried it, Veeam has the U-AIR (universal application restore) option on the Enterprise edition which offers Exchange/SQL/Windows item level restore options without the need of agents on the client VM's.

One of the other cool advantages of Veeam is the replication functionality. We used a standby ESXi server and replicate the VM's to it every hour. This gives a very quick RTO should the main VM environment have a major issue (heaven forbid).

You can also run VM's directly from backups, should your backup device be up to the demands, for instant restores.

Like I said, when I compare Veeam using disk backups/replications to Backup Exec onto tapes (which I know isn't what you said but is my prior experience) it's laughable to compare...

danielanthony · 24 May 2012 at 16:55

Thanks for the input! I've been told that BE has become more virtual aware in the latest release, and both the people at SoftCat and Dell have been saying BE > Veeam. However, a storage guy I know recommends Veeam and he does actual installs, plus from what you've said above maybe the margins are better on BE than on Veeam so that's why the pre-sales guys are trying to push it!

unclepablo · 24 May 2012 at 17:31

Hi,

Yes, it probably has but I think you are right to ask technical people's advise rather than salesmen! I wouldn't be at all surprised if BE has a better margin but I'll never use it in a virtual world unless it undertakes a sea change.

Just IMHO of course!

FYI - We partnered with Softcat in 2011 and they recommended Veeam if that helps :rolleyes:

.

knowlesy · 24 May 2012 at 20:06

Im sorry but im mortified you haven't considered DPM, that is if you have linux servers then fine not a problem. but Microsoft DPM is by far the best backup solution I have come across so far Ive used backup exec across a few SBS installations and the odd plain old file server and its naff to say the least Ive always had issue after issue. DPM is "the boss" imo and it integrates directly with all MS products then you could expand to MS SCE for better monitoring etc..... bare metal recoverys are amazing and if your running off hyperv even better!!

danielanthony · 24 May 2012 at 20:38

knowlesy said:
Im sorry but im mortified you haven't considered DPM, that is if you have linux servers then fine not a problem. but Microsoft DPM is by far the best backup solution I have come across so far Ive used backup exec across a few SBS installations and the odd plain old file server and its naff to say the least Ive always had issue after issue. DPM is "the boss" imo and it integrates directly with all MS products then you could expand to MS SCE for better monitoring etc..... bare metal recoverys are amazing and if your running off hyperv even better!!

Thanks, I should have made it clear in my OP that we are running vSphere 5 so I don't know how well DPM would manage with that. Plus, we have Ubuntu and SUSE machines which need backing up and I don't think DPM would support this either..?

knowlesy · 25 May 2012 at 11:19

danielanthony said:
Thanks, I should have made it clear in my OP that we are running vSphere 5 so I don't know how well DPM would manage with that. Plus, we have Ubuntu and SUSE machines which need backing up and I don't think DPM would support this either..?

You are correct for backing up linux machines etc DPM just dosn't. However Im not sure how well it works for virtualised linux box's in hyper-v. Something I need to try for myself.

DPM2012 works great for vmware the company I work for currently use it in house and its fantastic we also have a few other customers that use it as well and have very little issues with it. however as it doesn't natively work with linux so its out of the question

I have heard that veeam is fairly good at a lot of things however I never have personally used / looked at it.

droyden · 26 May 2012 at 14:36

We use veeam for our virtual estate ~95 vms now, and BE for putting the veeam weeklys onto tape (along with the couple of physicals we have left).

danielanthony · 26 May 2012 at 14:45

droyden said:
We use veeam for our virtual estate ~95 vms now, and BE for putting the veeam weeklys onto tape (along with the couple of physicals we have left).

So you would say Veeam is better for the VM backup than BE? I have no need to put anything on tape.

droyden · 26 May 2012 at 15:05

IMO yes, but tbh I havent used BE for VM's as we have veeam

The instant on recovery is great, it also has dedup and compression so my 4.1tb backup is actually 900gb or so. v6 also has the option to skip swap files etc which again helps with space. You can get a trial key and have a play about with it