VMWare Backup Solution Comparison - Part 1

[#1]

Finally, I have some extra time to post our VMWare Backup Solution Comparison. Since I am not a journalist writing test reports, I apologize if my post is cluttered at times. Please feel free to ask if anything is unclear.

Initially, I would like to briefly list our requirements for a backup solution for VMWare:

a) Performance

At a minimum all incremental backups should be able to complete in a nightly window from 9pm to 6am (9 hours). Ideally, we also wanted to have the option to run full backups in that time window.

b) Central Solution

We wanted a solution that is easy to use and that can be executed from an existing server performing a backup over the network.

c) Reliability

The solution is critical to our business and so it had to be reliable.

d) Cost

We were looking for a small business solution with a reasonable initial price and low future cost.

After some initial research we had a list of potential candidates:

a) Backup Exec 2010 from Symantec

b) Veeam Backup & Replication 4.1 from Veeam

c) vRanger Pro from Vizioncore

d) PHD Virtual Backup (esxpress 4.0) from PHD Virtual

e) VMWare Consolidated Backup

[Former Member]

I know it's 5 years later, but I also have a client (SAP ECC + Windows + SQL Server) which would like to use VEEAM for their backup solution.  My findings after research were the following:

Veeam integrates with SQL Server, and can back up the SQL server database. Veeam cannot integrate with SAP (or DB13), therefore Veeam cannot guarantee that SAP will “understand” the SQL Server database after it is restored.

There are no SAP NOTES about VEEAM. From SAP forums I picked up that:

• Veeam does not support integration with SAP systems.
• Veeam backups work for OS recovery
• Data and Log backup of database are still needed for SAP Supported Recovery