Backup policies have strengthened security and replication but still need flexible long-term retentionThe support and compatibility are areas of concern. When it comes to Azure workloads, Veeam Data Platform has limitations with only MS SQL database and Cosmos, and no other databases are supported by Veeam Backup for Azure. The main challenge I noticed is that enterprise customers may have a requirement to retain backups for 10 years or 15 years with monthly and weekly backups. In Veeam Data Platform, we do not have customization or compatibility to retain specific data backups as monthly and yearly. The retention schedule is fixed. For instance, it is the first Friday of the backup or the last Friday of the month. If it is weekly, it should be one of the weeks. If it is monthly, it should be the last Friday. For yearly, it is the last Friday of that respective month in that year. However, this should not be the case. When a customer confirms, 'Please go and take an EOD backup and retain it for 10 years,' Veeam Data Platform does not support this sort of customization. I even raised a case with Veeam Data Platform and they clearly stated that Veeam Data Platform only accepts the GFS policy according to the retention defined, and there is no customization available. This is a significant limitation. I should have the customization to go and take a backup of a specific date, month, or year, but Veeam Data Platform does not allow this and restricts me to only the policy supported. For example, if I take any backup, I do not have an option to extend the retention. If a customer asks, 'Please take a backup,' and later requests, 'No, it is very critical. Can you please extend the retention for 15 years?' Veeam Data Platform does not support this. Veeam Data Platform does not allow me to extend the retention in the way other tools do. These are limitations I came across in my experience, and I feel these are minimal requirements. The same features are offered by other third-party backup tools available in the market. From the analytics point of view, I personally feel some challenges. Veeam Data Platform has two different products: VBR and Veeam Backup for Azure. As we are running on cloud platforms, if we are in Azure, we must go for Veeam Backup for Azure. If we need to create copy jobs, I must again come to VBR. However, Veeam ONE is not capable enough to integrate both platforms. For instance, if I am taking backup of workloads through Veeam Backup for Azure, I could not find an option to integrate it into Veeam ONE for reports and analytics. It is only limited to VBR. Whatever jobs we created in VBR are displayed there, but Veeam Backup for Azure does not integrate, at least from what I have explored, and it should not be this way. Veeam ONE should support all Veeam Data Platform products.
