Veeam Backup & Replication Review

By moving the Veeam server to a physical server and creating a Proxy server on each of the hosts we are able to leverage SAN based backup which is very fast.

Veeam is our primary backup system used with the DD2500 for the repository.  We use Veeam 9 Update 3 on a physical Windows 2016 server with Proxy servers deployed 1 per host in our HA Cluster.  We also use the Enterprise Plus licensing for Nimble Snapshot Integration for backups and this allows our backup window to be reduced.

With moving the Veeam server to a physical server and creating a Proxy server on each of the hosts we are able to leverage SAN based backup which is very fast. Jobs are completed overnight and never run in to the business hours.

Features with the most value are Instant VM Recovery, SQL Explorer and Exchange Explorer.  Allowing our Veeam Agents access to the repositories for backups is another big plus.

Physical backup is always where room for improvement could be but Veeam has always stated they are not going in that direction, however, with Veeam Endpoint Backup physical server backup is possible.

Stability has always been the best part of Veeam and never has there been an issue with this.

The scalability of Veeam is endless depending on your needs and there were no issues for us.

Customer Service:

Customer service is always been top notch and I rate it a 10/10.

Technical Support:

Technical support is 10/10. They are always fast with responding to tickets and help you in the best way possible. They even arrange discussions with Architects if you have questions on best practices or environment setup.

We still use Symantec Backup Exec but only due to having physical Exchange 2010 servers. Once we virtualize this will be decommissioned. Having Veeam Endpoint Backup may be the alternate solution to fast track this.

Initial setup was very straightforward and there never seem to be issues with Veeam.

We completed the implementation in-house using local resources.

ROI has been about 6 months.

Be sure as always to evaluate products, get licensing costs, etc.  Choose what is right for your business model.

No other options were evaluated as we knew Veeam was one of the better solutions for Virtual Backup.

Veeam is a great product and always works. The product setup is easy and learning of the product for someone technical is straightforward. I look forward to the improvements in this product as it progresses.