When it comes to data protection and disaster recovery technologies for virtual machines (VMs), Veeam Backup & Replication is one of the prominent vendors that offers such protection and recovery technologies. In fact, Veeam was among the first vendors to develop backup software tailored specifically for VMs as opposed to the existing solutions at that time which failed to recognize the difference between protecting physical and virtual machines.
We shall be taking a look further at Veeam Backup & Replication’s functionalities and how they work in protecting the VM.
How Veeam Backup & Replication works
Veeam Backup & Replication operates at the virtualization layer, interacting with other software like VMware vSphere or Hyper-V that manage VMs without installing agents within each VM. It creates backups by instructing the virtualization software to take snapshots of VMs which 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 the blocks that have changed, as the last backup will have been copied with the help of VMware's Changed Block Tracking which also helps minimize data transfers and accelerating backups.
Before storing the data in its proprietary format in the backup repository, Veeam compresses and duplicates the data.
Key features
Veeam offers the following backup options:
Full backups that take a snapshot of the entire VM at a specified time.
Incremental backups that take a snapshot of only the data that has changed since the previous backup.
Reverse incremental backups that create a full backup from a chain of incremental backups.
Other features of the system include:
Instant Recovery which can boot a fully functional VM directly from a backup file in minutes. This approach helps reduce downtime during disaster scenarios.
Application-aware restore for specific data types, such as Structured Query Language database transactions.
Replication of VM backups to a secondary location to accommodate quick failover to a replica VM whenever a potential disaster occurs at the primary site.
Seamless integration with different storage targets, including backup appliances, on-premises storage, and cloud storage options
Wide-area network acceleration features that enable efficient transfers.
Other software components
The Veeam Backup & Replication Console acts as a command center of sorts that facilitates the seamless management of backups. It is a separate software component IT teams can use to interact with the server and manage the entire backup infrastructure such as configure backups for physical servers and VMs, schedule and monitor backup processes, initiate recoveries, as well as 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.
Conclusion
Veeam Backup & Replication is a must-have solution for organizations with a considerable VM infrastructure, helping keep the data in your virtual machines safe and secure, as well as ensure the continued operations of the enterprise.
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