Comparison of virtual machine backup solutions from Veeam, Acronis and Symantec. Backing Up Vmware Virtual Machines Copying a Virtual Machine

"There are sysadmins who don't back up and there are those who already do backups."
(c) From these your internets.

Good afternoon.

This article will focus on such a necessary and urgent issue in system administration as a means Reserve copy for virtual machines (VM). This article can rightly be considered a logical continuation of a couple of previous ones, which dealt with the deployment of hypervisor systems based on VMware and Microsoft products, respectively. This time the conversation is about how to set up a server that will be responsible for creating and storing backups vSphere ESXi and Hyper-V platform virtual machines.
Both options will be based on the free version of Veeam Backup & Replication. (hereinafter Veeam B&R). In my case, a regular PC with Windows 7 was chosen as a "backup server" (64 bits). About the bit depth of the OS in brackets is not mentioned by chance - from a certain version (probably from 7th or earlier) Veeam B&R ships as a 64-bit application, ditching 32-bit systems for Veeam Backup & Replication Server.
Full information with a list of supported server OS versions can be found in the manual for the latest release (at the time of this writing - v9), which in turn can always be found on the Veeam FAQ page.

Wanting to get a budget version of the project and the maximum possible gain in cost, as far as possible within the framework of compliance with license agreements, we will use the free version of the Veeam Backup & Replication package. This, in turn, will somewhat limit the working functionality of the package. Particularly in free version no access to the task scheduler and, for example, incremental copy mode (only whole full copies of the VM, instead of partial ones - according to changes between backup versions). If at the very least you can live without the second, albeit with reservations, then in the first case we will use the built-in Windows scheduler as an alternative.
Our scheduler will be launched by tasks based on executable Windows Powershell scripts, for which in the Veeam B&R distribution (starting from version 8 + update 3) There are necessary cmdlets, which is very good.

If you will be working with an ESXI hypervisor version 6 (as in this article), then the kb2068 update or a later version of the program itself must be installed over the installed Veeam B&R v8 - otherwise you will not be able to connect to ESXI (failed to login to "SERVER_IP" by SOAP, port 443, user "root", proxy srv: port:0 Unknown API version format: "dev").

VMware vSphere ESXi VM Backup

I believe there is no need to describe the process of installing Veeam Backup & Replication on a future backup server - it differs little from most windows installers, except for the long duration due to the installation of all necessary components, so let's immediately proceed to review the package from Veeam.

Installing, configuring and verifying Veeam Backup & Replication

After installation, launch Veeam B&R - administrator rights are required to run.

Rice. 01

After the first launch, the main window of the program will appear in front of you.
First of all, you need to add a new server to the configuration, for which we select the appropriate sub-item:

Add Server - VMware vSphere.

Rice. 02

The following steps demonstrate the process of adding a new ESXi server, in addition to the IP address, most of this is setting up a server administrator account (Credentials).

Rice. 03

On the next tab, add the ESXi administrator account itself (root)

Rice. 04
Server added.

Rice. 05

Upon completion of the addition, in the "VMware vSphere" node, in the list of servers, we will see our new hypervisor. By clicking on its name, you can see a list of virtual machines hosted on the server and their brief description.

Rice. 06

Before further configuration steps, perform a test backup of the virtual machine, for which, in the list of VMs, right-click on any of them and give the VeeamZIP command.

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A dialog will open with a choice of the location of the future archive with the VM image. Choose a location and confirm the changes.

Rice. 08

After that, the process of creating a backup copy of the entire system of the remote virtual machine to the selected storage will be started.

Rice. 09

Upon completion of the process, an archive with a backup copy of our VM will be written in the designated directory (file with *.vbk extension).

The speed of the process largely depends on the size of the VM file system (occupied disk space), characteristics of the backup server and hypervisor (disk system, network interface speed), and on the architecture of the network through which this operation is performed.
In my example, SATA-II disks and gigabit network controllers, both on the backup server and on the hypervisor, between them there is a switch - also with 1GB / s ports, network patch cords of small length and are crimped accordingly for work on this standard bandwidth (analogous to "rack" cross-connect connections).
Among other things, I can recommend that all VMs running on VMware products install the VMware Tools package in the guest OS to optimize the operation of all interconnected services and utilities within the VMware infrastructure.
We go further.

Create a Scheduler Job in Windows PowerShell

After we have made sure that there are no difficulties in manual mode, we proceed to add a task to the Windows Task Scheduler. But before that, let's create the actual executable object itself, which will be our task - a powershell script.
You can create a script from scratch, or you can use a ready-made one that you can borrow from the blog (also in Russian) one of the developers from Veeam. From the latest recommendations - the powershell version should be starting from the 3rd, in order to avoid possible problems in the operation of cmdlets with the old version (if necessary, update before starting creative research). You can find out the current version by typing the command in the powershell console:

In my lazy case, I took ready-made scripts and edited the fields I needed, leading to the required values.

Below you can see what my script looks like after the changes (file named VeeamZIP2.ps1). Changed fields with my values are highlighted in red.

# Author: Vladimir Eremin # Created Date: 3/24/2015 # http://forums.veeam.com/member31097.html # ##################### ############################################ # User Defined Variables # ################################################### ############### # Names of VMs to backup separated by semicolon (Mandatory) # example from V. Eremin: # $VMNames = "VM1", "VM2", "VM3" $ VMNames = "win_xp1", "zabbix" # Name of vCenter or standalone host VMs to backup reside on (Mandatory) $HostName = "192.168.55.100" # Directory that VM backups should go to (Mandatory; for instance, C:\Backup ) $Directory = "d:\backup\arch\veeam-esxi\" # Desired compression level (Optional; Possible values: 0 - None, 4 - Dedupe-friendly, 5 - Optimal, 6 - High, 9 - Extreme) $ CompressionLevel = "5" # Quiesce VM when taking snapshot (Optional; VMware Tools are required; Possible values: $True/$False) $EnableQuiescence = $True # Protect resulting backup with encryption key (Optional; $True/$False) $ EnableEncryption = $False # Encryption Key(Optional; path to a secure string) $EncryptionKey = "" # Retention settings (Optional; By default, VeeamZIP files are not removed and kept in the specified location for an indefinite period of time. # Possible values: Never , Tonight, TomorrowNight, In3days, In1Week, In2Weeks, In1Month) $Retention = "In3days" ##################################### ############################ # Notification Settings #################### ############################################## # Enable notification (Optional) $EnableNotification = $False # Email SMTP server $SMTPServer = "" # Email FROM $EmailFrom = "" # Email TO $EmailTo = "" # Email subject $EmailSubject = "" ######### ################################################### ####### # Email formatting ######################################## ########################## $style = "" ################################################# ################# # End User Defined Variables ########################### #################################################### ######## DO NOT MODIFY PAST THIS LINE ################ Asnp VeeamPSSnapin $Server = Get-VBRServer -name $HostName $MesssagyBody = @() foreach ( $VMName in $VMNames) ( $VM = Find-VBRViEntity -Name $VMName -Server $Server If ($EnableEncryption) ( $EncryptionKey = Add-VBREncryptionKey -Password (cat $EncryptionKey | ConvertTo-SecureString) $ZIPSession = Start-VBRZip -Entity $VM -Folder $Directory -Compression $CompressionLevel -DisableQuiesce:(!$EnableQuiescence) -AutoDelete $Retention -EncryptionKey $EncryptionKey ) Else ( $ZIPSession = Start-VBRZip -Entity $VM -Folder $Directory -Compression $CompressionLevel - DisableQuiesce:(!$EnableQuiescence) -AutoDelete $Retention ) If ($EnableNotification) ( $TaskSessions = $ZIPSession.GetTaskSessions().logger.getlog().updatedrecords $FailedSessions = $TaskSessions | where ($_.status -eq " EWarning" -or $_.Status -eq "EFailed") if ($FailedSessions -ne $Null) ( $MesssagyBody = $MesssagyBody + ($ZIPSession | Select-Object @(n="Name";e=(($_.name).Substring(0, $_.name.LastIndexOf("(")))) ,@(n="Start Time";e =($_.CreationTime)),@(n="End Time";e=($_.EndTime)),Result,@(n="Details";e=($FailedSessions.Title))) ) Else ( $MesssagyBody = $MesssagyBody + ($ZIPSession | Select-Object @(n="Name";e=(($_.name).Substring(0, $_.name.LastIndexOf("(")))) ,@(n="Start Time";e=($_.CreationTime)),@(n="End Time";e=($_.EndTime)),Result,@(n="Details";e =(($TaskSessions | sort creationtime -Descending | select -first 1).Title))) ) ) ) If ($EnableNotification) ( $Message = New-Object System.Net.Mail.MailMessage $EmailFrom, $EmailTo $Message .Subject = $EmailSubject $Message.IsBodyHTML = $True $message.Body = $MesssagyBody |ConvertTo-Html -head $style |Out-String $SMTP = New-Object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($SMTPServer) $SMTP.Send ($Message) )

As you can see from the example above, I only changed a few fields:

$VMNames = "win_xp1", "zabbix"

names of virtual machines from the list in Veeam B&R

$HostName = "192.168.55.100"

ESXi hypervisor IP address

$Directory = "d:\backup\arch\veeam-esxi\"

directory for storing archives of virtual machine images

$EnableEncryption = $False

disable archive encryption

$Retention = "In3days"

automatic deletion of the virtual machine image archive after the period of time specified in the variable has elapsed.

Here you can set your value. - possible options are listed in the script comments.

$EnableNotification = $False

Here I turned off e-mail notifications because I have not yet planned such a function for myself. Optionally, you can customize this if required.

When all options are defined, it is necessary to check the operation of our script.
Launch CMD Console on behalf of the administrator and run the command:

Powershell –file “c:\bin\VeeamZIP\vmware\VeeamZIP2.ps1”

If everything is set up correctly, you will see the script running:

Rice. 10

Rice. eleven

After completing this step, we proceed to the next step.

Adding a Task to the Windows Task Scheduler

Run as administrator "Windows Task Scheduler".
Right-click on the "Task Scheduler Library" folder and select "Create a simple task". We give our task a name: "VeeamZIP-test" and set the properties of the new task.

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Describe the nature of the task if necessary

Rice. 13

Set a schedule for a new task

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Let's set the actions to be performed for the task.

Rice. 15

Pay attention to this step, namely, how the command and its arguments are distributed in form:
- in my case, the scheduler agreed to execute my script only with this method of filling in the fields (Separately 2 lines: "Program ..." and "Add arguments ...").

Rice. 16

Rice. 17

Rice. 18

Rice. 19

After setting up the task, we will force it to run outside the schedule for debugging.

It should be noted that the VeeamZIP mechanism does not start working immediately, but after a certain period of time necessary for the service procedures for preparing the copy job. Keep this in mind while waiting, while performing checks on the operation of the backup.

Rice. 20

It should work the same as in the previous example, with one difference - the process will be launched in the background, without launching any windows on the screen.
For this reason, you can track its successful launch in several ways, including:
— creation of a new archive file of the VM image in the storage;
- for debugging purposes - recording events in the log of our task.

Below is a typical peak of activity on the lan-pci interface while downloading VM images from ESXi to the Veeam B&R server:

Rice. 21

Captured VM image archives in the destination directory (backup storage).

Rice. 22

It remains to make sure that the backup works both in manual mode and according to the appointed schedule.

I would like to say a few words about the types of licenses.

For the operation of the above backup method, the following conditions must be met for the software used:
Backup server OS - Windows 7 x64 sp1/ Server 2008R2 / 2012 or newer;
Veeam Backup & Replication (Free, not lower than v8 + obligatory installation of the latest updates, but not lower than upd v.3);
VMware ESXi 6 (it will probably work with v5.5) Essential Kit or higher (more extended license). Free (ESXi Freeware) version blocks the ability to create VM backups.

As of the first half of 2016, the cost of licenses under the above scheme will be within 45 thousand rubles. (ESXi Essential Kit x 3 servers)+ 10 t. rub. on Windows 7 (8) .
Regarding ESXi, you can separately note that the Essential Kit license will allow you to access the functioning of the mechanism for backing up entire copies of virtual machines. If there is a financial opportunity to expand the license, say to Enterprise, partial copy mode will open for use (incremental scheme and a number of other useful and interesting options).
This mode is of course even more optimal, if you do not look at the final estimate. Moreover, if there are funds for full corporate packages of VMware ESXi, then apparently we can already talk about purchasing a full commercial version for Veeam Backup & Replication, which will open the way to using all the options of this software, including the scheduler. It is easy to see that this option makes you think about the advisability of using the backup technique described in the article and, obviously, is given for general orientation on the topic.
If you don’t have extra finances for extended licenses, then I suppose the use of the bundle described in the article looks more than optimal and budgetary.

This concludes the first part of the article on backing up virtual machines from the VMware ESXi 6 hypervisor to the Veeam Backup & Replication v8 server storage. The second part will look at setting up a backup server to work with virtual machines based on Hyper-V.

Good afternoon, dear readers, not so long ago, we discussed the process of cloning Hyper-V virtual machines, today we will analyze its main competitor, namely the ESXI hypervisor, in which we will also produce clone a VMware virtual machine. The process itself is not complicated, but it can cause a number of questions for novice system administrators, which I will answer in this article.

The principle of cloning

Cloning is the creation of an exact copy of a virtual machine, both with the same settings and with the necessary changes. It is very convenient, as for testing purposes, when you need to make the necessary changes, but you don’t know how the virtual machine will behave, by making a copy of it you will find out and you can avoid downtime of services. What cloning methods exist:

Copying the files of the virtual machine (in the off state), from the minuses, you need to re-create it in the inventory and slip the existing disk.
With VMware vCenter Converter Standalon e, this is an option when there is no vCenter Server. There the principle is simple, you install it in a virtual machine and make it a clone, as if it were a physical machine, everything is described in detail at the link above.
Veeam Backup Replication virtual machine backup tools
Using vCenterServer.

Below I will describe the first method and the last, the rest already have their detailed articles.

Copying VM Files

We find the required ESXI host, select the disk array (Datastore) you need and right-click on it, select "Browse Datastore" from the context menu.

We select the desired folder and from the context menu the item "Copy", then using the built-in explorer, move it to the desired location, you can call it such a cloning of the VMware virtual machine, for the poor.

Next, in a new location, open the folder and right-click on the file with the *.vmtx extension, this is the configuration file. In fact, that's all. Personally, I have to access file system ESXI using WinSCP , or you can also use the template 's OVA functions .

If there are snapshots in the copied VM, they must either be deleted before copying or copied along with other files, otherwise, when loading the new VM, there will be an error with a message about the impossibility to load files with snapshots.

Copying a VM with vCenter

For those comrades who centrally manage their infrastructure, this function is present during installation. Its advantage is that you can clone both a running and non-working virtual machine. Select the desired one and right-click on it, in the context menu we see the "Clone" item.

On the first window of the wizard you will be asked to select a location (Datacenter)

Specify the destination host, if it matches, you will see the message "Validation succeded"

If not, then you will see messages:

Device CD/DVD drive 1 used backing is fixable, you are told to unmount the ISO in the VM.
Network interface "adapter name" uses network "other name" - there is no such network type on the destination host, it's okay, you can switch it to another one after cloning.

In the next step of cloning, you will need the destination of the copy machine.

In the last step, you will be asked if you want to apply custom settings to the clone. Customization is additional setting, which allows you to set a huge number of settings. Selecting "Do not customize" will complete the clone wizard process.

Two methods can be used to create VMware backups in Handy Backup: internal and external.

Internal Method

A copy of Handy Backup is installed on a VMware virtual machine running Windows or Linux. Operating Handy Backup on a virtual machine is no different in principle from using a similar solution on "physical" computers.

External Method

Handy Backup runs on a VMware virtual machine server to copy images of specific VMware copies as normal files. Handy Backup uses a special plug-in to back up VMware machines and arrays, which works in "hot" mode (without stopping the VMware machine).

How to save a VMware virtual machine image

Copying a VMware backup image is done using a specialized tool. With the help of the VMware plugin settings, it can also be achieved to stop the copied VMware machine and then restart it for a "cold" copy.

Open Handy Backup and create a new task by pressing Ctrl+N or by selecting a menu item. Select a backup task.
On Step 2 select plugin " VMware Workstation".

Double-click on the line “New configuration” to select a configuration for accessing VMware.
In the dialog that opens, make a choice between the modes " Hot" (backup without stopping the machine) and " Enable suspend" (with stopping the virtual machine to get its exact image).

Next, select in the dialog the specific machine image to which this configuration will be applied.

Click "OK" and continue creating the task as usual.

The sequence of actions described above will stop and then restart VMware virtual machines without any additional intervention.

There is an excellent free script for backing up virtual machines on a VMWare ESXi server, and it works on free versions of ESXi 4 and 5 without installing any additional VMA gimmicks, etc. The only problem is that the instructions there are not entirely accurate, so I fiddled with this script for a long time so that it would still work in automatic mode ...

I will not describe in detail how to connect to ESXi via SSH, I will only describe the setup steps with which everything worked for me.

First, download the script from the link above and upload it to the server, you need to upload it directly in the archive! The easiest way to do this is through the vSphere Client. I have two disks on the server - machines work on one, and all sorts of iso-images and backups themselves lie on the other. The disks are called datastore1 and datastore2 respectively. All backups, script and configs are in the backup folder. Also note that the names of files and folders are case sensitive, so if the folder is called backup, and you write in a script Backup, then it won't work!

Upload the archive with the script here /vmfs/volumes/datastore2
Next to SSH cd /vmfs/volumes/datastore2- go to the directory with the script
Unpacking the script from the archive tar -zxvf archive_filename.tar.gz
Through vSphere, rename the unpacked folder to something simpler, for example, just backup
Now let's go to this folder - cd backup
Create a folder inside it to store individual configs mkdir BackupConfig
Now in BackupConfig drop the necessary individual configs for machines, if they are not needed and all machines need to be backed up with the same settings, you can leave it empty
Correct the variables in the configuration file through the vi editor, the main thing is the backup paths, i.e. Change the first line to this: VM_BACKUP_VOLUME=/vmfs/volumes/datastore2/backup, well, then see for yourself what else you need - vi ghettoVCB.conf
Create script StartBackup.sh(2 lines) - vi StartBackup.sh
2nd line, where the call of the script itself, you can remake for yourself
cd /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/backup
./ghettoVCB.sh -a -g ./ghettoVCB.conf -c BackupConfig -l ghettoVCB.log
Run chmod +x ghettoVCB.sh
Run chmod +x StartBackup.sh

Stage 1 completed! Now if you run StartBackup.sh, the backup will start. For the duration of debugging, you can change the 2nd line to something like this ./ghettoVCB.sh -a -g ./ghettoVCB.conf -c BackupConfig -l ghettoVCB.log -d dryrun- this will allow you to run the script and track the progress without copying the disks. To backup more efficiently and quickly, I recommend setting the disk type in the settings thin.

Configuring Cron (to automatically run a script)

Give permission to write to a file chmod +w
Add a line through vi to /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root
15 0 */3 * * /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/backup/StartBackup.sh
Launches at 00:15 at night every three days. My time zone is +4 Moscow, i.е. actually the script is run at 4:15 am, this will be visible by the date the log was modified through vSphere. Of course, you can choose another time and frequency.
Now you need to run two commands to restart cron
kill $(cat /var/run/crond.pid)
crond
Add with vi 3 lines to the very end of the file /etc/rc.local
This is necessary because after rebooting the server, the contents of the file from the 2nd point with the launch of our script will be restored to the previous state, so we specify in rc.local that after rebooting, the following commands should be executed - stopping cron, adding a line to automatically run the script and starting cron .
/bin/kill $(cat /var/run/crond.pid)
/bin/echo "15 0 */3 * * /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/backup/StartBackup.sh" >> /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root
crond
Now let's run the command /sbin/auto-backup.sh to make sure all our changes are saved.

A little explanation - why you need to create a script StartBackup.sh, and not just take and put its contents into /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root? There is some limitation on the size of this file and some of the lines in it simply will not work, although you can try to do it this way, at first it worked for me, but then, apparently, some patches came out and stopped. Moreover, it's just more convenient - if you need to change the backup schedule, then you just edit the file StartBackup.sh and there is no need to dance with a tambourine around cron with its restart and making the same changes to /etc/rc.local.

PS: Time passes, everything changes, the script itself changes, ESXi5 has already been released, so somewhere, something may no longer work 🙂

Appendix: Cron Syntax

The cron command looks like this:

1 2 3 4 5 /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/backup/StartBackup.sh

Where,
1: Minutes (0-59)
2: Clock (0-23)
3: Days (0-31)
4: Months (0-12 )
5: Day of the week (0-7)

A few examples:

Run at 5 minutes past midnight, every day
5 0 * * * /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/backup/StartBackup.sh
Launch at 2:15 every first day of the month
15 14 1 * * /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/backup/StartBackup.sh
Start at 22:00 every business day
0 22 * * 1-5 /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/backup/StartBackup.sh
Runs at 23 minutes after midnight and every two hours thereafter (2:23, 4:23… etc.), every third day
23 0-23/2 * * */3 /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/backup/StartBackup.sh

At the moment, there are several manufacturers of programs for backup storage, both paid and free.
We that free programs either inconvenient to use (difficult installation, constant threat of failure, lack of native interfaces), or they lack the most important backup options.
In this case, it is worth buying paid program, which, unlike the free one, will be fully functional with all the basic backup functions.
Below is a list of the best backup solutions according to experts:

Data Recovery with VCenter Server support

Veeam BackUp & Replication

These programs are the main backup programs used by most users:

Data Recovery With support vCenter Server

As already written in the past, this is the surest way to create a backup of the machine if you bought VCenter Server and no longer have the desire or the means to deal with this issue. This technology is quite easy to set up, a complete guide can be found at the following link:

This solution works both with and without VCenterServer, but it will not be possible to configure the backup by time. We'll cover all the main features just below when we compare all the products.

Veeam BackUp & Replication

This product is now quite popular, since the type of licensing of this product (licensed by sockets) for server rooms with low-power servers will be extremely beneficial. Below we will look at several configurations of servers and consider price characteristics. Also, this product supports the option of instant data recovery after a failure thanks to its vPower technology.

Also recently releases tools for backup in virtual environments. In addition, Symantec is the only backup solution that uses V2P technology (converting a virtual environment to physical servers). True, Vcenter has such technology, but no longer within the framework of backup technology

Despite the fact that Acronis tools are widely used in virtual systems, Acronis was originally created as a backup of physical machines, and the creation of special archives developed by the company itself in order to minimize the amount of backup. Acronis includes mechanisms for converting machines in all kinds of environments (V2V, V2P , P2V and P2P).

Detailed comparison of backup technologies. VMware vs Veeam vs Symantec vs Acronis

So, we have listed the main backup solutions, now let's compare them. We will compare by capabilities, licensing, options and estimated cost of products:

We will consider 2 types of servers:

Comparisons will be presented for one and fifty servers (ESX hosts).

Consider the types of licensing for our technologies:

Veeam Backup & Replication is licensed per number physical processors (sockets) VMware ESX/ESXi server host;

Acronis is licensed per number server host VMware ESX/ESXi

Symantec is licensed by the number server host VMware ESX/ESXi

Products selected for comparison:

Vmware Data Recovery + Vcenter Server;

Veeam Backup & Replication Enterprise Edition;

Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery Virtual Edition;

Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server Virtual Edition;

Functions and features	Data Recovery+VCenter	Veeam	Symantec	Acronis
Data backup	+	+	+	+
Snapshots	+	+	+	+
Backup by time	+	+	+	+
Sending logs by e-mail	-	+	+	+
Reverting machines to a previous state	+	+	+	+
Centralized management interface	+	+	+	+
Full compatibility with Vmware solutions	+	+	+	+
Deduplication Mode 1	+	+	- 2	- 3
Incremental backup 4	+	+	+	+
Custom Parameters for Multiple Vcenters in LinkedMode	+	+	+	+
Recovery of individual data	+	+	+	+
Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)	+	+	+	+
Policy Management	+	- 5	+	+
Combination with vMotion, HA, DRS services	+	+	+	+
Support for storage types (Local, NFS, Share, iSCSI, Fiber Channel, NAS)	Local, NFS, Share, iSCSI, Fiber Channel, NAS	Local, NFS, Share, iSCSI, Fiber Channel, NAS, SAN	Local, NFS, Share, iSCSI, Fiber Channel, NAS, SAN, USB, DAS	Local, NFS, Share, iSCSI, Fiber Channel, NAS, SAN, DAS, cloud services
VCenter requirement	+	-	-	-
Ability to recover to another hardware platform 6	-	-	+	+
Working with SQL databases	-	+	- 7	-
Working with Exchange Server	-	+	- 8	-
Working with Active Directory	-	+	- 9	-
Ability to convert virtual environments to physical (V2P)	-	-	+	+
Ability to convert physical environments to virtual (P2V)	+	-	+	+
Vcenter availability recommendation	+	+	+	+
Instant disaster recovery	-	+	+	+
Bare metal restore feature 10	-	-	+	+
Protecting Template Files	-	+	+	-
Data replication	-	+	-	-
Recovery check 11	-	+	-	-
Working with multiple versions of ESX	The section goes by the first digit of the version	+	+	+
OS support		Copies the entire machine, no matter what OS is running	Windows, Linux	Support for most OS
Platform support	Only VMware	Only VMware	VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Xen, Physical	VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Xen, Parallels, Physical
Estimated cost for 1 server, rub.
2 processors 4 cores	50 000	60 000	100 000	70 000
4 processors with 12 cores	50 000	180 000	100 000	70 000
Estimated cost for 50 servers, rub.
2 processors 4 cores	180 000	3 000 000	5 000 000	3 500 000
4 processors with 12 cores	180 000	9 000 000	5 000 000	3 500 000

The deduplication mode allows you to save a backup of not the entire machine, but only the data that has changed since the last backup. This gives us 2 significant benefits:

Significant savings in space for backup data storage;

Saving traffic when servers are located at long distances from each other (geographical component);

The feature is available with the additional Deduplication Option;

The feature is available with the optional Deduplication option;

Incremental backup allows you to first back up the entire source directory and then "append" to it those files that have changed since the last backup. This function allows you to backup the machine without putting it into maintenance mode;

Feature available with optional Veeam Monitor software;

Symantec Restore Anyware technology allows users to migrate a system to another computer without having to reinstall;

If the machine files are lost, it allows you to create a new VM with the same characteristics and restore the old one to it;

After creating a backup, this technology checks whether it can pick up the car immediately after its failure;

Data Recovery with vCenter Server support

This package is very convenient if we have no desire to buy third-party products, and can be put into operation at any level of company development. Among the shortcomings, it is worth highlighting its small functionality compared to other backup systems.

Veeam BackUp & Replication

The most popular way to create backups in the VSphere environment. Multifunctional, can perform most functions, although a fair amount of additional parameters are options (VeeamOne, VeeamReporter, VeeamMonitor, etc.), which will increase its cost when purchasing the full package. But, nevertheless, the Veeam BackUp & Replication 5 program itself is a finished product used in many companies, both small and large. This program includes 2 modules: backup and replication. This product has a new technology, which is used as a test in many backup programs. VeeamBackUp & Replication5 allows you to start a VM directly from a backup. Veeam calls this technology vPower. This technology provides the user with the following benefits:

Instant recovery of virtual machines

Universal object recovery for any application (U-AIR)

SureBackup restore confirmation

The replication feature allows you to create mutable blocks every few minutes, which allows you to immediately switch to a separate replica in the event of a machine failure and restore the health of the machine. This feature eliminates the need for expensive hardware and products and provides an alternative to traditional end-to-end data protection.

Instant recovery after a failure

Starting a VM directly from a backup

With the help of replication technology, it is possible to create backups every few minutes without degrading performance

Ability to choose the path in favor of speed or reliability (RTO & RPO)

Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery Virtual Edition

Symantec, unlike Acronis, offers not only the consolidation of servers into a virtual infrastructure, but also the reverse transfer of virtual machines to a physical base.

Symantec is currently releasing a product for VM backup - Symantec BackupExec SystemRecovery VirtualEdition. This product includes the Symantec Management Solution environment, Standalone Client, and Recovery Disk. For a file server backup, we only need an SSR license, but for advanced features when using SQL databases, Exchange servers, etc. we need to purchase agents for these servers. As practice shows, for most companies it is not enough to create a single backup data store, so Symantec SystemRecovery provides the function of creating an external backup on an FTP server or an additional disk drive for improved disaster recovery.

Symantec has a number of its unique features:

Possibility of recovery on other hardware platform;

Ability to convert virtual environments to physical (V2P);

When using USB as a backup machine storage, Symantec recognizes it, determines its type, and intelligently acts on it to continue running backup jobs;

Symantec also uses the data compression function when using P2V technology, which allows you to save on traffic when converting machines at a distance (at the end of the conversion, the space occupied by the VM on the disk will be equal to the volume of the physical machine.)

Symantec agents are designed for certain types of servers (SQL, Exchange, DB2, ActiveDirectory, etc.), including OS, which allows them to recognize all the features of such servers and not only create a backup of the entire machine, but also maintain a number of individual characteristics for each of them (the agent for Exchange works separately with its mail databases, and the SQL agent restores the database structure almost instantly after a failure)

Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server Virtual Edition

Acronis has a VM backup product - Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server Virtual Edition. The solution uses a technology similar to Veeam's vPower - AcronisInstantRestore, which allows you to instantly restore a machine after a failure. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 AdvancedServer VirtualEdition allows organizations of all sizes to maximize the value of virtualization by protecting all virtual machines running on each individual physical server at an affordable, fixed price. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 AdvancedServer VirtualEdition not only supports VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V ® , Citrix XenServer and Parallels platforms, but also allows unlimited migrations between these platforms. Acronis offers to calculate the savings from their program, using the budget savings calculator using this program: http://www.acronis.ru/backup-recovery/roi-calculator.html.

But the capabilities of Acronis are not limited to this. Acronis has included another feature in the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 AdvancedServer VirtualEdition package, this is server consolidation to transfer systems from physical to virtual platforms, and with a built-in task scheduler. As a result, we have that this program performs 2 main functions:

Emergency System Recovery

Server Consolidation

Main advantages compared to other technologies:

The ability to work both with physical servers and in a virtual environment, which allows, at the initial stages of the company's development, to combine consolidation with high reliability ratings

Wide range of supported backup storage devices (up to optical devices and magnetic tapes)

Creating an Acronis Secure Zone partition on the same VM server, which allows you to restore the machine in a short time, and this partition will be protected by the regime deduplication on another server

The bare metal recovery feature will allow, in the event of a complete loss of machine files, to create the same machine and restore a snapshot of the previous one on it.

Support for most virtual platforms.

Support for most OS when installing a backup agent