“Wow – you guys are smart!”

“This is unique – it’s really cool. Very powerful.”

“I applaud you for this – this is a big push forward.”

“No one else is doing this!”

“This is very exciting stuff. You’re hitting on a need that’s currently not being met.”

“I wish I had had this a few years ago when I was in IT!”

“Leveraging the investment you’ve made in backups to do more”

Update: March 11, 2010 – “what you are doing is absolutely necessary and will take a lot of burden from a lot of people”

Notice that I have not said who said the above, I won’t quote an analyst without their permission and of course they’re a bit vague too…but it’s not just us that’s excited about what we’re getting ready to release. We have many more analysts to talk to and I’m sure we’ll get more quotes, many of them may even show up in our press release with the analysts who said them.

Check back for updates!

SureBackup is NOT a new product. We’re using SureBackup to describe a set of features, some are new, some are already in place. We’re going to be introducing other terms as well that will include new features as well as existing ones. All of these features will be delivered as part of Veeam Backup & Replication version 5.0.

So why all the fuss about SureBackup? Because in my view, what we’re going to be introducing is truly the most exciting technology I’ve seen in the past 10 years. Will it change the way you look at VMware backups forever? I think so, but I’ll have to leave that up to you. In fact, there are many, many uses for what we’re introducing and I know we haven’t even thought of them all yet.

Veeam Backup & Replication 5.0 is not a new platform, it won’t require a rip-and-replace for existing Veeam Backup & Replication 4.x customers. I’ve stated that before but I wanted to make sure everyone is clear on this as the last thing I want to do is prevent anyone from purchasing 4.x today.

While Veeam’s not going public until March 22, 2010, I do understand that our friends in the blogger community would like a “sneak peek” at what we’re announcing before the official announcement goes public.  To give people some time to write up their thoughts, I’m going to be hosting a special Blogger Briefing on Sunday, March 21. The intent here is to give those bloggers who are interested some advance information so that when we do go public on March 22 you will have had time to consider our new features. My current plan is 11AM but I can be flexible if that’s too early/late for people.

How do you sign up? You can reach me on Twitter or you can email me at doug /dot/ hazelman /at/ veeam /dot/ com. I’ll be sending out the details on the WebEx just before the meeting to those of you who ask to be included.

The following links are to blogs that have already mentioned our SureBackup announcement. If you’re blog is not on the list, send me a link and I’ll update this post.

Update – 1 March 2010 – Hint: “SureBackup – Removing the last obstacle of image-level backups”

http://www.vladan.fr/surebackup-what-new-upcoming-product-from-veeam/

http://virtualize.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/new-upcoming-product-from-veeam-surebackup/

http://virtualisedreality.com/2010/02/19/something-big-is-happening-at-veeam/

http://www.simonlong.co.uk/blog/2010/02/19/veeam-something-big-is-coming/

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1438-Veeam-SureBackup-The-countdown-has-begun.html

http://www.vmgu.ru/news/veeam-surebackup-announcement

So in looking around for solutions which best incorporated these new features I eventually came across Veeam. Utilising the thin provisioning feature to remove the overhead of no longer seeking out empty disk blocks and the unnecessary backing up of those empty blocks, Veeam also incorporates compression algorithms on the target backup device. Hence Veeam have a solution that not only reduces the amount of space used on the source host datastores but also the target backup storage device.

Of course WE believe that Veeam has the best solution for vSphere 4.0 and it’s good to see others out there recognize that fact. With Veeam Backup & Replication 4.1 not only do we fully support the vStorage API for Data Protection and the VDDK but we also fully support ESXi, for both Backup AND Replication. As I’ve been talking to partners over the past few weeks at VMware Partner Exchange and even our friends at Mirazon, they’ve indicated that Changed Block Tracking is perhaps the BEST reason customers should upgrade to vSphere 4 and our customers agree: Insane Backup Speed.

Veeam was also very happy to win Gold in SearchServerVirtualization’s Product of the Year for 2009, further proof that yes, Veeam Backup & Replication is the best backup solution for vSphere 4.

Finally, I’d like to address Archie’s final note in his post:

So while Veeam are currently leading the way, the time is certainly ripe for more third party APIs to be developed and incorporated making VM backup nightmares a thing of the past.

Of course we do face increasing competition in this space. I don’t want to start a comment war so I should mention that both EMC Avamar and Symantec Backup Exec 2010 do now have support for the vStorage API for data protection. Some of our other competitors have also “announced” support for CBT for so far it’s just been talk and no shipping product.

Does all this mean that Veeam is just taking a break to let our competitors catch up to us? Of course not! Over the next few months Veeam is preparing to change the way you think about backups…FOREVER! I can’t disclose anything yet, but watch this space, the countdown has begun!

UPDATE: In case you’re wondering, the next version of Veeam Backup & Replication will not require a complete reinstall/re-architecture. SureBackup is an entirely new feature that will easily integrate in with existing Veeam Backup & Replication installations.

OpenBench Lab Report: Better Data Protection for VMware vSphere

By Jack Fegreus Managing Director openBench Labs.

System and storage virtualization introduces multiple levels of logical abstraction and resource redirection that can obscure and complicate important IT operations. Among the hardest hit IT operations are those associated with file-level data protection.
Read this white paper by industry expert Jack Fegreus to learn how you can:

• Minimize vSphere disk risk with backup and replication – combine backup and near-CDP-level replication to unify both data protection processes for IT with a synthetic backup process and consistent process wizards.
• Maximize backup performance with deduplication and compression – how you can reduce the footprint of full VM’s backups by 3 – 9 times with data deduplication, compression, and recognition of thin provisioning.
• Leverage full support for ESX and ESXi without VCB – fully utilize the new vStorage API or VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) when performing backup or replication, allowing SMB sites with or without shared storage to fully leverage ESXi, including the ability to replicate VMs to an ESXi host.
• Dramatically increase full and incremental backup speed and reduces storage requirements by utilizing new vSphere Changed-Block Tracking and thin provisioning.
• Higher RPO support via Virtual CDP with replication – leverage inline data deduplication and compression to provide near continuous data protection (CDP) with replication.
• Ensure transaction consistency at VM and application levels – ensure VM transaction consistency and Volume Shadow Services (VSS) for VSS-aware Windows applications such as Active Directory, SQL Server, and Exchange.

Download this white paper and learn how to ensure better VMware vSphere data protection through unified backup and replication.

http://www.veeam.com/go/better-data-protection-vsphere

5 Ways VMware vSphere Improves Backup and Recovery

By Eric Siebert

VMware vSphere™, the industry’s first cloud operating system, leverages the power of virtualization to transform datacenters into dramatically simplified cloud-computing infrastructures. VMware vSphere includes many new features and technological enhancements that can benefit you. While there are several reasons to upgrade to vSphere, this white paper focuses on how VMware vSphere and its vStorage technologies improve data protection and disaster recovery.

Read this white paper by industry expert Eric Siebert to learn how you can leverage vSphere to achieve:

• 30% average reduction in storage space
• 50% average increase in backup speeds when performing full backup
• 90% average increase in backup speeds when performing incremental backups
• 80% lower cost for near continuous data protection (CDP)
• Increased reliability

About the Author
Eric Siebert is a 25-year IT veteran whose primary focus is VMware virtualization and Windows server administration. He is one of the 300 VMware vExperts for 2009, author of the book “VI3 Implementation and Administration” and a frequent TechTarget contributor. In addition, he maintains vSphere-land.com, a VMware information site.

http://www.veeam.com/go/vmware-vsphere-backup-wp

How Virtualization Cuts CDP Costs by 80%

By David Davis Director of Infrastructure at TrainSignal.com

Until recently, CDP has been used only by the largest enterprise companies and only for their most critical data. For small and medium businesses (SMBs)—it was simply cost-prohibitive.
Thanks to virtualization, advanced disaster recovery methods that result in fast recovery and low system downtime are now available to all organizations, from the largest enterprise to the smallest business, for a very reasonable cost.
This white paper compares 3 different options of implementing CDP:

• “Legacy CDP” or Classic SAN-based CDP
• Software-based Server Replication
• Virtualization-enabled “Near-CDP”

Download this white paper and learn how to ensure business continuity and enable disaster recovery at an affordable price

http://www.veeam.com/go/vmware_vsphere_continuous_data_protection

So if you’re going to be at PEX, be sure to stop by the Veeam booth. Also, feel free to find me on Twitter as I’m sure someone will be organizing a TweetUp or 2.

Original Post:

This morning my inbox greeted me with an email from Eric Siebert and my Twitter search folder filled with statements about Veeam’s VSS claims. After my first cup of coffee I started to dig in and see what in the virtual world was going on…this first lead me to a blog post by EMC’s Scott Waterhouse where he states the following:

Therefore, final answer: if you need application consistent backups, you must do a guest level backup. An image level backup is simply not good enough. Even with a MS Windows 2003 or higher guest, even though VMware supports VSS. Yes you may do image level backups too, but they will only complement, no replace, guest level backups.

To be honest Scott was talking about VMware VSS here. I still don’t agree with his statement that for application consistent backups you have to do a guest level backup because there ARE solutions on the market today that provide application consistent backups from an image…of course that would be Veeam Backup & Replication.

What prompted some of the discussion (as far as I can tell) is that people don’t realize that Veeam uses its own VSS driver, not VMware’s. This has been the case since Veeam Backup and Replication 2.0, released in July of 2008. In fact, at the time, we pointed out how our VSS integration was different from the competition through a couple of blog posts: Is your backup really VSS aware? and VSS and VMware ESX: What your VMware backup vendor isn’t telling you. These posts really talk about VSS recovery and making sure that your VSS “backup” is truly able to recover properly. These 2 posts continue to be very popular on this blog…maybe pointing out that there is confusion regarding proper VSS handling when it comes to VMware.

That was all in 2008, what’s going on with VSS in 2010? Well, Veeam has continued to update its VSS integration to keep pace with the new releases of Windows Server 2008, both x86 and x64. Not all vendors have been keeping up with Microsoft though, in fact, looking at VMware’s VCB/VSS support table, it clearly states that they don’t support application consistency on Windows Server 2008, only file-level. So, any virtualization backup vendor that relies on VMware’s SYNC Driver and VSS for file and application consistency is not giving true VSS support for Windows Server 2008 (as Scott pointed out in his blog).

I’d like to finish up by answering Scott’s call for documentation:

Unfortunately, nobody has been able to provide a piece of definitive technical documentation (a white paper, or a support document, or relevant piece of text from an administration guide) that clearly describes the issue.

First, we have real users, using Veeam’s VSS today, that are talking about it in our forums, this is proof that they’re getting application consistent backups from Veeam’s image level process using our VSS:

by tsightler » 05 Jan 2010 14:22

Once again, Veeam fully support VSS aware snapshots of both AD and Exchange server when using the Veeam VSS Agent. Veeam doesn’t just “take a VM copy”, the Veeam VSS agent uses Windows VSS services to put these features into a proper, supported VSS backup state prior to taking the VM snapshot. In other words, a Veeam backup is indeed a “backup-aware copy of the Information Store and NTDS database”, and it uses the Windows recommended VSS processes to achieve this.

by donikatz » 06 Jan 2010 00:00

Obviously neither Tom nor Anton need my help here, but maybe some real-world testimony would make you feel more comfortable? Not only have I tested this, I’ve performed a *production* restore of a w2k3 DC with Veeam and it worked exactly and as simply as in the video. I’ve also done several *production* SQL restores without issue. Veeam also works well in our Exchange restore tests, although we haven’t had to do any in production (knock on wood). Although agent-based apps like Backup Exec may have more direct hooks for simpler granular restore (we still use BE for Exchange brick-level restores because our admins are more familiar with the process), Veeam is more than capable without the drawbacks of an agent. I hope to move away from BE altogether for Exchange this year; it’s just a matter of updating our runbook and training. Honestly, if there’s one area you certainly don’t need to lose sleep over with Veeam, it’s with Microsoft products. MS has well-proven APIs and Veeam makes great use of them; Veeam VSS is excellent. Heck, if only Oracle on Linux had VSS the way it does on Windows it would make my life a lot easier…

Next, I’ve taking some quotes from Veeam’s own user guide regarding the differences between using VMware tools quiescence (SYNC) and Veeam’s VSS driver:

Transactionally Consistent Backup

Veeam Backup & Replication 4.0 provides two techniques for creating transactionally consistent backup images — the Enable VMware tools quiescence and Enable Veeam VSS integration options. In contrast to restoring a crash-consistent backup, which is essentially equivalent to rebooting a server after a hard reset, restoring transactionally consistent backups ensures safety of data of applications running on VMs.
Please note that when you select both VSS integration and VMware tools quiescence options for a job at the same time, the VSS module will only be used for processing backed up and replicated VMs. However, if you use both VSS and VMware tools quiescence options and select the Continue backup even if Veeam VSS quiescence fails option for backup jobs or the Continue replication even if Veeam VSS quiescence fails option for replication jobs, all your VMs will be processed with VSS first, and in case of VSS failure (e.g., Linux VMs), VMs will be processed with the VMware tools quiescence option enabled.
This can be very useful when you have both Windows- and Linux-based VMs in one job, so all VMs will be processed in a transactionally consistent way using VSS or VMware tools quiescence option.

Additionally, we then go on to explain the VSS process as well as the systems supported by our VSS driver:

Enable VSS Integration

With the Enable VSS integration option selected, Veeam Backup & Replication 4.0 utilizes the Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) that ensures consistent backup of VSS-aware application running within your virtual machines (domain controllers, databases and other applications) without shutting them down. The Enable Veeam VSS integration option allows creating a transactionally consistent backup image of a VM, which, in contrast to a crash-consistent backup image, ensures successful VM recovery, as well as proper recovery of all applications installed on the VM without any data loss.
In the process of its work, VSS freezes all I/O at a specific point-in-time by interfacing with all VSS-aware applications and the Windows operating system. Consequently, there remain no unfinished database transactions or incomplete application files. Such backups, when restored correctly, result in fully functional applications.
The VSS works with Windows 2003, Windows XP, Windows 2008, Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 guest operating systems. Use VSS to back up 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows 2003, 32-bit version of Windows XP guest OS, 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 2008. Please note that administrator credentials are required to access the guest OS. Microsoft Windows VSS backup option requires that your guest OS has VMware Tools, and all the latest service packs and patches installed.

If anyone has any questions or further thoughts I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to comment below, hit me up on Twitter or shoot me an email @ doug /dot/ hazelman /at/ Veeam /dot/ com

Since we’re getting ready for our 2010 kickoff meetings we’ve had a lot of discussion about roadmaps and the Veeam philosophy on sharing product directions, specifically around Veeam Backup & Replication. We need to give something to our sales teams to share with partners and customers but at the same time we need to protect our intellectual property (IP) and also be able to react to an ever changing market.

We’ve also watched as other vendors and competitors have talked about their roadmaps and plans for the future and then continually missed their release dates or promised feature sets. Does this mean they’re lying to their customers? I would tend to say no because at some point they truly believe they’re going to make their release dates but then something happens and they miss it. Customers and partners are now left waiting and wondering when the next version will be coming out…the more times this happens the more and more customers will no longer trust you and start looking at other solutions.

Time, Features and Quality

These are the words our development lives by. Anytime someone asks for more features, it takes more time. Want it faster? Then features will get dropped. Of course development could achieve both but then they end up delivering a poor quality product because there wasn’t enough time to test all the new features (see the relationships here). Some might say just throw more developers at it but then of course there’s the saying: “9 women can’t make a baby in a month”.

The other issue of locking in feature sets too far in advance is what if there’s a great new feature that comes along that more and more customers are asking for and you promise to deliver? Do you ditch your previous plans and deliver the new feature? Do you wait until you deliver what you originally promised and then add the new feature? In either case, someone is going to get called a liar and that’s not good for customer and partner relationships.

It’s the History, not the Future

One of the things I learned early on in the software industry is “sell what you have”. If we don’t have features X, Y and Z today but we do have features A, B, and C then that’s what we’re selling. If I try and sell you X, Y and Z and promise you that we’ll have them at a specific time in the future, I’ve most likely just lied to you. But there is a fine line…if I know development has features X, Y, and Z “feature complete” and we’re now going through testing I’ll let you know. I still won’t tell you exactly when except for maybe something like Q1 or beginning of Q3. Again, I don’t want to lie to you, something may come up in testing that delays the product, something significant enough that it would put the quality at risk and we won’t knowingly release poor quality products to the market.

Rather than trying to sell the future, why not take a look at the history? The truth is, history tells more about a company than any roadmap promise of the future. History is verifiable, history is real. Roadmaps are the future, the future may change, history doesn’t. If a vendor is trying to sell you on the future and not on today, what does that say about the quality of the products or feature set they have today? Are they lying to you?

Others Promise, Veeam Delivers

Physical

On Dell.com today, I can purchase a R710 for $999 at street price. This will be my baseline for a physical server solution. Multiply this by 10, and we have a $10k price tag. To build a proper disaster recovery scenario in a physical world, you need to both backup and replicate your data from one physical location to another. The least expensive backup option I can select is Commvault, at $549 per server. The least expensive replication scenario I can find is a 5-pack of Double-take for $2499. So, at a very minimum, a physical server disaster recovery scenario is going to run you $10k +$5500 +$5000 = $20,500.

Virtual with SAN

Best practice for a disaster recovery scenario including shared storage is for there to be 2 equal SAN arrays on either side of your disaster recovery location. At a minimum, it is required to have 2 servers in your primary location for failover activities, and a single machine in the disaster facility for run-time operations. Once again, I went out to Dell.com to prove out Erik Dithmer’s hypothesis.

Although Dell markets a Virtualization in a Box config listed at $12,999, that configuration contains 3 R710 servers which only have a single socket, rendering most of the features VMware offers like Virtual SMP and CPU affinity fairly useless. So lets config this the old fashioned way. Dell offers the R805 online ($4500) as the “Virtualization” ready choice, so the standard configuration has dual quad-core Opterons and 8GB of memory, when coupled with VMware’s Memory overallocation capabilities, gives it the same performance as 16GB of RAM in physical systems. The shared storage component of this equation brings in the big question mark. Do I go with the MD3000i, iSCSI SAN on both sides for about $5000 each and add the $3500 per ESX server Commvault and $2500 per 5-VM Doubletake ($25,500 total) or do I go with two Dell Equallogic arrays, which have free replication software but would still need the Commvault (well over $25k).

So with the two scenarios side by side, Dithmer is correct that virtualization can in fact be more expensive than business as usual based on some assumptions.

The Third Option – Veeam Backup and Replication

Virtualization is the right option for so many reasons, a few of them including encapsulation, isolation, and portability. The ability to get a VM back up in running in minutes versus hours to rebuild a physical box is definitely the soft dollar value that most people know it is. But how do you accomplish these SLAs without requiring the large capital investment in shared storage? Or how do you leverage something like the Dell MD3000i, which comes in at roughly $5000 a piece in a proper DR strategy? The answer for me is Veeam Backup and Replication 4.1 with its virtualization capabilities. At a retail price point of $599 per physical ESX socket for unlimited VM backup and replication, you have the opportunity to get your disaster recovery scenario under control immediately. Veeam has the capability of backing up local storage, VMFS datastores on iSCSI and deliver those backups to pretty much any data storage site you can see. Veeam’s replication includes the capability of replicating ESXi to ESXi systems as well, so the security of ESXi can also be covered. So in the above scenarios, you can configure your hardware any which way you like for a DR scenario and still get accurate backups and replications.

Let’s take a look at the minimum virtualization configuration capable of accomplishing the DR strategy. Let’s use 3 virtualization capable systems with the R805 ($4500) plus 6 total sockets of Veeam Backup and Replication 4.1 ($3600). The primary location will have two R805’s, each configured to backup to each other’s local storage. The primary systems would also replicate to the DR location in case of site failure, and your data would be contained in two places. Mission accomplished, 10 VMs backed up and replicated for under $14,100. That is roughly $6,000 less than the 10 physical servers in a customers environment. It also takes no consideration for the reduction in energy usage, number of parts that might break, or any of the other environmentals of a data center.

In summary, Veeam Backup and Replication can save your SMB business significant costs when implementing virtualization.

Today Veeam released version 4.1 of our Backup & Replication product. It’s a milestone release for us because it now brings FULL ESXi compatibility to every one of our products. Why is this so important? From the industry view, VMware is pushing very hard for companies to adopt ESXi, it’s even been rumored that vSphere 4 is the last major release of ESX that will have a service console (COS), meaning that ESXi is the future for VMware. Veeam Backup and Replication 4.1 is yet another industry first by Veeam!

But it’s not just Veeam Backup & Replication…

All of Veeam’s products support ESXi, whether it’s reporting, monitoring or disaster recovery. Back at VMworld 2007 in San Francisco (yes, 2007, when ESXi was announced), Veeam R&D heard the message loud and clear that the COS is not the way VMware would like their partners to support ESX. With the VI API developers have a choice when writing software and for Veeam that choice is to move away from the COS.

What about ESXi Free?

Yes, we get the question all the time. While Veeam Backup & Replication did support the Free Version of ESXi for a brief time earlier this year, we no longer support ESXi Free for backup or replication. Some of our other products, however, do support ESXi Free, here’s a quick table of what is/isn’t supported by product:

2009 Holiday Giveaway Extravaganza

This year for the holidays we’ve teamed up with Rick Scherer over at VMwaretips.com and his 2009 Holiday Giveaway Extravaganza to give away some Veeam Software to some lucky winners. The contest is only open to US residents and the grand prize is an Iomega StorCenter Pro ix4-100 NAS Server. The contest is open from now until 11:59 PM PST January 3rd so be sure and enter to win.

vCalendars (2010 Edition)

If you didn’t get a vCalendar, written by Jason Boche, from Veeam at either VMworld San Francisco or the Dutch VMUG, have no fear, there are more on the way! While you can still order one from the Printer Owl, Veeam has placed another special order for both the US and Europe to be distributed at various events (VMUG’s, etc). Please read your Veeam newsletters for announcements on when and where we’ll be with more vCalendars!

Veeam Communities!

Veeam is lucky to have great community support for our products. Recently Veeam awarded our top forum members with special recognition as MVP’s. Besides getting a special MVP logo in the forums, we also sent them special edition Veeam t-shirts. Congratulations to our first Veeam Forum MVP’s

tsightler
TrevorBell
glemmestad
mdornfeld

UPDATE – The t-shirt design!

Want to know how else to connect with Veeam? Check out our new Communities page with links to all the ways you can stay connected with all things Veeam!

Happy Holidays From Veeam!