VeeamBackup & Replication is a comprehensive data protection and disaster recovery solution. With Veeam Backup & Replication, you can create image-level backups of virtual, physical and cloud machines and restore from them. Technology used in the product optimizes data transfer and resource consumption, which helps to minimize storage costs and the recovery time in case of a disaster.
Veeam Backup & Replication provides a centralized console for administering backup, restore and replication operations in all supported platforms (virtual, physical, cloud). Also, the console allows you to automate and schedule routine data protection operations and integrate with solutions for alerting and generating compliance reports.
Veeam Backup & Replication is a proprietary backup app developed by Veeam for virtual environments built on VMware vSphere, Nutanix AHV, and Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors.[3] The software provides backup, restore and replication functionality for virtual machines, physical servers and workstations as well as cloud-based workload.[4]
Veeam Backup & Replication operates both the virtualization layer as well manages physical machine backup. It backs up VMs at the image-level using a hypervisor's snapshots to retrieve VM data.[5] Backups can be full (a full copy of VM image) or incremental (saving only the changed blocks of data since the last backup job run).[6] Backup increments are created using the built-in changed block tracking (CBT) mechanism. The available backup methods include forward incremental-forever backup, forward incremental backup, and reverse incremental backup. Additionally, there is an option to perform active full and synthetic full backups.[7]
Veeam Backup & Replication provides automated recovery verification for both backups and replicas. The program starts a VM directly from a backup or replica in the isolated test environment and runs tests against it. During the verification, the VM image remains in a read-only state. This mechanism can also be used for troubleshooting or testing patches and upgrades.[8][9]
Veeam Backup & Replication supports software-defined storage technology. It allows organizing a scalable backup repository from a collection of heterogeneous storage devices. Backups can be stored on-premises, transferred to off-site repositories via the WAN,[10] saved to tape media for long-term retention, or sent to cloud storage. Cloud storage support is available on an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model. Veeam's technology, Cloud Connect, provides integrated and secured backup to the cloud through Veeam-powered service providers.[11][12]
Veeam Backup & Replication is storage-agnostic, but it also has specialized storage integrations with some storage systems such as Cisco HyperFlex, EMC VNX, EMC VNXe,[13] HP 3PAR, HP StoreVirtual,[14] Nimble,[15] NetApp,[16] IBM,[17] Lenovo Storage V Series.[18] In addition, through a separate Universal Storage API and plug-in, Veeam also provides storage integrations with INFINIDAT [19] and Pure Storage.[20] It uses storage system snapshots as a source for backups and recovery of VMware VMs with disks residing on storage volumes.[21][22] Veeam Backup & Replication also have build in direct NFS agent which allows to access NetApp snapshots directly from NAS storage bypassing hosts for backup, restore & storage scan operations.
Along with backup, Veeam Backup & Replication can perform image-based VM replication. It creates a "clone" of a production VM onsite or offsite and keeps it in a ready-to-use state. Each VM replica has a configurable number of failover points.[23] Image-based VM replication is also available via Veeam Cloud Connect for Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS).[24]
Veeam Backup & Replication decreases backup files size and data traffic with built-in data deduplication and compression. There is support for deduplicating storage systems such as EMC Data Domain,[26] ExaGrid[27] and HP StoreOnce Catalyst and NetApp Cloud Backup (AltaVault).[28] Using deduplicating storage appliances as backup repositories allows achieving greater levels of deduplication ratios. Veeam Backup & Replication also provides built-in WAN acceleration to reduce the bandwidth required for transferring backups and replicas over the WAN.
Built on a modular scheme, Veeam Backup & Replication allows for setting scalable backup infrastructures. The software architecture supports onsite, offsite and cloud-base data protection, operations across remote sites and geographically dispersed locations.[29] The installation package of Veeam Backup & Replication includes a set of mandatory and optional components that can be installed on physical or virtual machines.[30]
Veeam Backup & Replication is positioned as a part of the Veeam Availability Suite bundle (which includes Veeam ONE for monitoring, reporting, and capacity planning), but can also be installed as a standalone product. It is available in three editions based on the level of provided functionality. The product is licensed by the number of CPU sockets, or through annually or upfront-billed subscription licenses on a per-VM basis. As of Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 4 (U4), Veeam is now using Veeam Instance Licensing (VIL) to lower complexity of license key management. Essentially, VIL allows for a single license key, or instance, to be deployed on most Veeam products - from Backup & Replication server to Veeam ONE to Windows and Linux agents. The number of instance keys consumed per machine will vary by license edition (standard, enterprise, or enterprise plus) and the software you are enabling.[33]
Veeam Backup & Replication is a software product developed by Veeam Software to back up, restore and replicate data on virtual machines (VMs). First released in 2008, this data protection and disaster recovery technology is part of the Veeam Availability Suite.
Veeam Backup & Replication takes a novel approach to backing up VMs. It operates at the virtualization layer, interacting with other software like VMware vSphere or Hyper-V that manage VMs without installing agents within each VM.
Veeam creates backups by instructing the virtualization software to take snapshots of VMs. These snapshots capture the whole VM state, including configuration, memory and virtual disks. The snapshot can then be used as a temporary copy for Veeam to work.
At a block level, Veeam can retrieve data from the VM disks and copy only the blocks that have changed, as the last backup will have been copied. VMware's Changed Block Tracking enables this, helping to minimize data transfers and accelerating backups. Before storing the data in its proprietary format in the backup repository, Veeam compresses and duplicates the data.
Veeam's Instant Recovery can boot a fully functional VM directly from a backup file in minutes. This approach helps reduce downtime during disaster scenarios. Veeam also supports application-aware restores for specific data types, such as Structured Query Language database transactions.
Veeam replicates VM backups to a secondary location to accommodate quick failover to a replica VM whenever a potential disaster occurs at the primary site. Veeam seamlessly integrates with different storage targets, including backup appliances, on-premises storage and cloud storage options. It also offers wide-area network acceleration features that enable efficient transfers.
The free Community Edition lets users back up a maximum of 10 VMs, physical servers, workstations and network-attached storage instances. Veeam Backup & Replication Community Edition provides core functions included in the paid version of Veeam Backup & Replication: backup, recovery and replication.
A fundamental Veeam Backup & Replication Community Edition limitation is the 10-instance restriction, which makes it only suitable for personal use cases or small environments. It also lacks advanced features like enhanced security functions, more granular control over scheduling and backup jobs, and support for large workloads and deployments.
Organizations with more than 10 VMs or large environments are better off paying for an option such as Veeam Backup & Replication Enterprise Plus. The free edition is useful to test Veeam's functions and features before committing to a paid plan.
Veeam Backup & Replication Console is essentially a command center for seamless management of backups. It's a separate software component IT teams can use to interact with the server and manage the entire backup infrastructure.
Users can configure backups for physical servers and VMs, schedule and monitor backup processes, and initiate recoveries from the Veeam Backup & Replication Console. They can also manage repositories, monitor the overall health and performance of the environment, and replicate backups to a secondary site.
Users can install Veeam Backup & Replication Console on a different machine for remote access and install as many consoles as needed. Multiple administrators can make changes without conflicts and manage backups simultaneously. This makes it a crucial tool for organizations leveraging Veeam to secure enterprise data.
Explore top troubleshooting tips for Veeam backup failure and read about the differences between replication vs. backup and synchronous vs. asynchronous replication. Learn why replication is a key technology for disaster recovery and check out the differences between hardware replication vs. software replication.
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