One of the important functions of any server virtual environment is the ability to do backups and disaster recovery. Backup for the virtual server is a must for any network because you never know what the future may hold. You need to be able to respond to accidental file deletions, database corruptions, server failures, or even a complete melt down of the entire network environment. For the VMware environments, one backup for server solution stands out above the rest; Veeam Backup and Replication.
Veeam has a few different software solutions for the virtual environment but their Backup and Replication product has been a leader for the VMware backups. It has won a number of awards and has become an industry standard for VMware backups. This solution has some very useful functions that cannot be found in other products and takes some great advantages from virtualization to solve today’s business needs. Let’s take a closer look at what they have to offer.
Veeam Backup and Replication Features
Veeam Backup and Replication solution has a number of different cool features, but the foundation starts with their vPower. vPower is what Veeam uses for the base of the backup features. It utilizes the existing virtual environment to provide some interesting enhanced data protection. These include reduplicating backups into VMDK files, running the virtual machine from the backup, and creating a separate virtual environmental for disaster recover, troubleshooting, and testing.
These are some stand out options for a backup for server solution, something not many others can say they do. Let’s take a closer look on what makes vPower really work.
Enhanced Backup Verification
Veeam Backup and Replication obviously can create backups of the actual VMware guests systems. For example, it can create a hot backup of a windows server with Exchange within minutes by utilizing its own custom VSS integration. However, what Veeam does next is interesting. Their SureBackup technology kicks in and will actually test the backup during the verification process. This means it starts the backup VMware guest system in a simulated sandbox environment to confirm the OS is operational. This feature is amazing and raises the bar for backup technology.
Video: Demo Veeam Recovery Verification
Quick Virtual Machine Restore
The next interesting feature of vPower is what is called Instant VM Recovery. As you can guess from the name, it gives you the ability to restore the VM guest system without any extraction of the backup files. This feature is noticeable when reviewing the SureBackup verification process so it’s logical that the restore process can be done in a similar manner. Within a few minutes, you can have a full recovery of the virtual machine server.
Quick Database and Application Recovery
With the feature of not needing to extract the data from a backup, U-AIR (Universal Application-Item Recovery) allows you to pull data from applications. This could be from MS Active Directory, MS Exchange, MS SQL, or any other application with native management tools. Again, the backup is loaded in an isolated environment and the management tools can then be able to be used to extract specific data to the production VM server. Veeam’s Backup and Recovery restore process for U-AIR is wizard driven making it easy to work with.
Seamless File Backup and Recovery
The ability to restore individual files has also improved. Veeam’s Instant File Level Recovery does a completely independent index of all files from the VM backup image. For restoring, use the Veeam Enterprise Web Manager to do a search for the file/folder and restore from a web browser.
Video: Demo Instant Recovery and how it works
Enhanced Continuous Data Protection
With Veeam Smart CDP (Continuous Data Protection) plus the latest version of VMware vSphere 4 and vStorage, you can put together a near-continuous data production at a much smaller cost of a traditional CDP solution. Veeam reports it has the ability to replicated and fail over individual VMs, “roll back to a previous replica state, and replicate on-site for high availability and off-site for disaster recovery.” The replicate and fail-over process has a much more streamlined and improved than the tradition CDP.
Veeam has done a decent job on building these new suite of backup for server solutions. This new technology will also bring new standards for backup hardware as well since the ability to immediately restore and load backups into an isolated environment. In addition, it will force IT to plan for production and restore/testing/lab environments. This cost can be easily justified and is still cheaper than traditional old school backup and restore solutions. With Veeam’s vPower, this new suite of options will take the industry to new level of expectations and standards for virtual server backup technology.
