Item: Veeam Data Platform
Rating: 9
Author: Jonathan Armstrong

Overall Satisfaction with Veeam Data Platform

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Veeam is core to how our business ensures we can remain resilient when recovering data or systems due to everyday mistakes or malicious activity. Our disaster recovery plans are all built around using Veeam to ensure we minimize the time needed for recovery. The ability to integrate Veeam into our on-premise virtual infrastructure and traditional computer systems makes it the optimum choice for our company.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Data reduplication to keep the size of our backups reasonable.
Multiple copies of data stored across different mediums.
The ability to restore systems to different infrastructure platforms.
Ease of use for training people of varying skill levels.

Cons

Easier guidance on how to access Veeam support right from the GUI.
More testing on upgrade pathways to ensure success.
Projected data usage for cloud based storage.

Workloads

Virtualized workloads
Endpoints and physical servers running Windows & Linux

Future Workloads

Cloud-hosted VMs within AWS or Azure
In addition to back up, we also replicate some of these workloads
In addition to back up, we also snapshot some of these workloads

Key Features

Application-centric recovery using Veeam Explorers (for Exchange, SQL, Sharepoint, etc)
Capacity Tier to store data within object storage for longer term retention
License portability as your environment needs change
Immutable storage to protect against ransomware
“Instant” recovery or portability between platforms (physical > virtual > cloud-hosted)
Failover or recovery scripts/plans for orchestrated recovery

Most Used

Application-centric recovery using Veeam Explorers (for Exchange, SQL, Sharepoint, etc)

Number of Workloads Protected

It varies, but most of the time, we have 50-60 workloads that are protected by the Veeam Data Platform. I'm always working towards identifying workloads that are important to our business and integrating them into our Veeam backup system. I really like having one platform that does all of our backups and having a central console where I can see if our backups are running well.

Return on Investment

When Veeam is running well, I don't need to babysit it at all; I just read the email reports and am done.
When it doesn't work, Veeam consumes entire days getting everything working again.
Veeam has significantly improved how we test new software by enabling easy duplication of existing resources to different platforms.

Needs Assessment

When I first started at this job, I was using a backup solution that required daily rotation of hard drives that I had to store at home. This wasn't ideal or very secure, and I didn't like it. Sure, it was better than the old tape system that the business had before, but it wasn't much better, and worst of all, there was no way to test it automatically. Sure enough, when I needed to restore old data, it was difficult to use, and I couldn't find some of the data. It turns out the old system had some errors, and some of the rotated hard drives were starting to fail, but the system didn't warn me. Veeam really changed all of that for us with much more robust systems that make me more confident in the integrity and consistency of our backups.

Cloud Capabilities

When Veeam first launched immutable backups with Azure, it was exciting. I got right on to it; it wasn't perfectly documented at the start, and getting it to work was difficult. But now it is much easier, and Veeam has made even easier methods for accessing cloud immutable storage. We've never had to use the immutable storage, but I'm very happy it exists and is there if we need it.

NAS Backup

We do not back up any unstructured data. So, I cannot comment on how we have benefited from this capability. I understand how this works, and it could be of great benefit to any company that wants to backup a NAS appliance in a similar manner to how you back up a virtualized workload. Having all your backups in one place ensures consistency for the business.

Alternatives Considered

Acronis Disaster Recovery Service, Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, Dell Data Protection Suite and Dell ObjectScale

When I read the sentiments of professionals who work with data backup systems, I realized that everyone has good things to say about the functionality of Veeam. I do not hear many people praising other products the same way they do with Veeam. It feels like Veeam invests money into their product, and some of the other products I've seen demonstrated do not feel like they have the same level of investment.

Key Insights

Do you think Veeam Data Platform delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Veeam Data Platform's feature set?

Yes

Did Veeam Data Platform live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Veeam Data Platform go as expected?

Would you buy Veeam Data Platform again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

I've been using Veeam for years, and it has been very consistent. Once it is set up and working, it keeps working. The biggest disruptions to Veeam have always been the upgrades. Veeam tells me about cool new features, and I upgrade, but then the upgrades seem to not install correctly, and I run into huge problems and have to contact support. You are guided to email-based support, and they don't respond and resolve issues quickly, which leads to a lot of stress. Then I remember to look up the support phone number, and that always leads to getting issues resolved. So, in summary, the product is great, but I wish they would push harder to get customer support tickets resolved quickly. It is very stressful not to have Veeam running when it is so essential to our business.

Veeam Data Platform Feature Ratings

Comments

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Veeam was the right choice for our company.

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