What is our primary use case?
My focus is on the business continuity and disaster recovery planning aspects.
So, I am working on the consultation part. My customers used Veeam for backup and sometimes for replication.
How has it helped my organization?
Veeam Data Platform has simplified data management and protection strategies. Compared to other vendors, Veeam stands out for its simplicity, ease of use, and deployment.
So that's the main distinction of Veeam because nowadays, nobody hires a dedicated backup administrator. Not many companies do that. So, usually, there is one guy managing everything or a couple of guys managing everything all together. So Veeam made it a lot simpler.
Usually, with the other vendors, they are much more capable, but they require expertise, okay, such as dedicated expertise, not shared resources.
So, most companies, especially small and medium-sized companies, don't have the privilege to have a dedicated backup administrator. So they will have a general IT administrator administering their systems, etc. And then Veeam for these kinds of guys is just the jackpot because it just gets going. It does the compliance, and it does the backup, etcetera, and it's easy to use.
The recovery point objective relies on how Veeam offers different transport modes. However, there are integrations with various storage providers that can help reduce the RPO drastically. They also released their new continuous data protection feature, which can reduce the RPO to seconds, if not minutes.
For the RTO, since back in the day, Veeam has been famous for their instant Veeam recovery and their Veeam Explorers, which can help conduct the VM restore in minutes or conduct the application granular restore, etc. So, almost all the time, Veeam reduces the RTO drastically.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the immutable Linux repository. Before that, customers needed expensive storage appliances to protect their backups. Now, they can use a regular server with Linux for secure storage, maintaining immutability against accidental deletion or ransomware.
Moreover, Veeam Data Platform manages and protects data across multiple cloud environments amazingly. From the console, Veaam has an appliance integration with Microsoft Azure. They have integration with AWS. They have integration with Google Cloud, and I can back up workloads on-premise and restore them to the cloud. I can back up workloads on the cloud and restore them to the other clouds, etc. It's amazing.
What needs improvement?
Veeam has been rolling out a lot of integrations lately. But compared to the other backup vendors, they are a little bit behind on the application support.
Veeam does image-based backups, whether it be of virtual machines or physical workloads, and they are able to back up general applications like Active Directory, SQL, Exchange, or SharePoint. Sometimes, even Oracle and SAP.
But still, there are many customers using other types of databases that Veeam does not natively support. For example, in the Linux area, MySQL and PostgreSQL are supported, but with many limitations. Like, if a customer is running a Postgres cluster, Veeam does not support that.
If a customer is running a MySQL cluster, Veeam does not support that. But they support customers who have standalone instances of such workloads. So, I'd really like to see Veeam start to focus on supporting as many applications and scenarios as possible because that is the major difference between them and the other backup vendors.
So, supporting more applications and cluster scenarios is key. Especially cluster scenarios.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with the Veeam Data Platform since 2018, so about six years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Veeam Data Platform is stable if you're using the latest release what I mean by the latest minor release, not the major release. But whenever there is a new version of the software, just like any other software, it comes with its baggage of bugs.
So, with the latest minor release of Veeam, it's pretty stable.
I would rate the stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability depends. It depends on the environment. For example, in VMware environment, then Veeam is extremely scalable. However, for Nutanix environments, it's not as scalable.
For Nutanix, there's a component called the backup proxy that enhances backup performance. In VMware, I can deploy as many backup proxies as needed, bare node or bare cluster.
However, on Nutanix, I'm limited to one proxy per cluster. The architecture there is scalable within the cluster by adding CPU and RAM to the proxy, but there's no way to add multiple proxies in Nutanix.
I only deal with enterprise-level customers. But I have also worked with small and medium-sized businesses in the past.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support are very good. It's one of Veeam's key distinguishing points.
So long as you communicate the issues properly and you follow up with them, then you will have an amazing support experience. Even if you have a bad support experience, they have an option for you to talk to a manager so that you can escalate things.
How was the initial setup?
I would rate my experience with the initial setup a ten out of ten, with ten being easy. It's a very easy to deploy.
Anybody can download Veeam Data Platform and install it on the same day. Then, integrating it with the environment will depend on the environment.
Some environments are hard. Some environments are easy. Some environments are well-designed, so that's a different story. But in general, compared Veeam to other backup solutions, Veeam is the easiest to deploy.
What about the implementation team?
The time taken for deployment depends on the customer's environment. For example, if all the prerequisites are intact and the customer environment is fit enough, one week is enough to deploy Veeam anywhere.
So, it depends on customers. They are PIA when it comes to their environment, their details, etcetera. Maybe an implementation can take one year. But for others, it could get done in a couple of days. It depends. But from Veeam's point of view, it's easy. It's easy to configure. It's easy to work with, etc.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
From a distributor background, I've seen Veeam raise prices three times a year. With each new edition, they increase the price, making it hard to justify to customers.
Their licensing model is simple and per-machine based, which is better than that of other vendors. However, they recently added a capacity-based backup for five shares.
In general, my experience is that with every new feature or addition, there's a new price increase. In fact, last year, before I left the distributor, we increased prices a couple of times within the same quarter.
We have to justify it by mentioning added features and enhancements. Some customers accept it, while others complain about the rising price every year.
So, while Veeam's pricing isn't terrible even after the spikes, it's not stable.
It keeps increasing. Compared to other vendors, Veeam's pricing is good. But compared to the past five years, it's constantly increasing.
From my experience, all backup vendors should use capacity licenses, which control costs better. Veeam went for per-machine licensing to gain market share, and they succeeded. But that means they need to increase costs as they expand and add features. So, they have no choice but to keep raising prices.
What other advice do I have?
Thoroughly check compatibility. Veeam is amazing, but it has limitations. Even if someone says it works with your environment, double-check everything. Verify application versions and cluster support. This is the biggest challenge customers face. They buy Veeam and then discover unsupported cluster scenarios later because they didn't ask about specific versions or configurations.
For example, a customer would buy Veeam, and then later on, the customer would discover that "I have a Postgres SQL database, but it is a cluster. Then, Veeam will not support its cluster."
But during the initial phase, the customer didn't check that point.
I recommend all potential customers to carefully check compatibility with their existing systems, with all the details.
Based on my experience, it's been very solid. Moreover, Veeam is making many changes and improvements. I'd give rate it a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Just an update on the Veeam agent. With Update 2 for 9.5 and the GA of Agent 2.0 the backups of Exchange are awesome. Love using the Veeam Explorer for Exchange instead of the Symantec interface for restores. Works really well and seeing the agent in the console is great. Everything is on Veeam now and Veritas is out.