What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case with Veeam Backup & Replication is to backup critical data. We would recommend that a person put on a Veeam backup service so that in a disaster recovery scenario you set what has to come back up first because that is going to be the critical information that has to go back up as quickly as possible. You can put anything on critical servers, but we recommend that you use it for critical data that it is going to be restored within a four hour timeframe.
Veeam Backup & Replication can be deployed as agent-based or you can set it up to replicate back to a NAS, some sort of device onsite, so that a copy of your data goes to the device onsite and another copy goes to a data center for a backup as well. Then, if that server crashes, the device that's at the location has the latest copy of the good data from where they get the backup.
How has it helped my organization?
Veeam Backup & Replication has most definitely improved our organization because it saves the IT a lot of headache.
What is most valuable?
Veeam Backup & Replication is a great alternative to what is out there. Some of the backups just allow an agent backup to the cloud. You can back up a thousand different ways, but this is a great way to keep a customer and a company in compliance in that they've got their data secure onsite and offsite. The data being transferred to the NAS at the customer's location and also the data being sent to the cloud is encrypted in transit and it's also encrypted at rest so that nobody is going to be able to hack into that. No one will have the keys to do that.
The dashboard is very, very easy to understand. We do demonstrations all the time with customers just to show them. If they've lost particular files because of a server going down, we can retrieve those files for them and quickly bring those files back up. So in a disaster recovery where you've got a location that's either been hit with a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake, or whatever the disaster might be, this company and customer has to be up, then this data is secured offsite as well, and can be pulled down either to a VM, a virtual machine, or to another physical server. It is just a matter of how fast your internet connection is.
What needs improvement?
Until internet connectivity becomes standard all over the country and all over the world, as far as minimum speeds, the main thing would be just making sure that your data is being transferred as quickly as possible, that the data transfers are seated correctly, and that the replication takes place and is monitored. The service can be managed or unmanaged, it just depends on the customer's IT ability as to how much or how little we can help.
There is always room for improvement on anything, but at this point I think it's perfect. But I'm sure there are other things that customers are wanting that Veeam could probably put in their next update or patch. But at this point I don't have any information on that.
As companies grow, it just depends on what their needs are as to what we can help them with as far as the recovery is concerned. Larger businesses with more than 300 VMs would be a perfect scenario for Rubrik. Veeam, I think is good up until 300 VMs. With other services that we have, it could be lower than a hundred VMs, but it seems that Veeam is in a good spot.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Veeam Backup & Replication for probably the last four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution runs very smoothly unless there is a server that goes offline on a customer's site that we don't know about, but other than that, the service is rock solid.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is pretty much straightforward. It's just like updating software. For anybody that has a little bit of sense about how to update services it is pretty straightforward and simple.
Our clients are a mixture of small, medium and large businesses and they are all over the country.
How are customer service and technical support?
I do sales, so I'm the one that is responsible for selling the sizzle. My IT folks, my engineers, are the ones that face Veeam the company. I would say that the majority of the companies that we deal with in backup and recovery are very, very responsive and I feel Veeam is the same way. It's a great software package, it is inexpensive and it does a lot of things that IT companies and people in general want to see.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use EVault software and Carbonite backups, it just depends on the customer. If you can tolerate 12 to 24 hours of being out of service, then we have other backup services that are right in the ballpark in pricing, but just older technologies. Nowadays everything is like McDonald's and I want it now. I want my hamburger now and I want my data now. It is getting to where customers want that faster RTO and RPO so that they can have their company back up and making money as quickly as possible.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty straightforward if you've got a person that knows how things go. Most midsize and large companies will have an IT person on staff that would understand that. If they don't understand it, of course our guys, our engineers, can train them for that and show them which way to go. But normally IT people are pretty familiar with dashboards.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to anyone considering Veeam Backup & Replication would be to definitely demo it and see what you think about it because you can't try it before you buy it, and see how it works in your environment. I'm not too sure if there are any trials that go on for a month at a time, but it depends on the customer. If they decide that this is something good for them, then we move forward with it and adjust as we go. But the majority of our customers know what Veeam is and have seen the product out there, because I send a lot of information out via LinkedIn and send emails to my customers about those services. It would just depend on whether it was an attorney's office, a hospital, whatever he is, but those folks would want to have their data as quickly as possible.
On a scale of one to ten, I would give Veeam Backup & Replication a 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Just an update on the Veeam agent. With Update 2 for 9.5 and the GA of Agent 2.0 the backups of Exchange are awesome. Love using the Veeam Explorer for Exchange instead of the Symantec interface for restores. Works really well and seeing the agent in the console is great. Everything is on Veeam now and Veritas is out.