Virtualisation systems management tools supplier Veeam Software has put together a new version of its flagship backup and replication suite, staking a claim that is first to market with a product that offers full native support for the new VMware vSphere 4 vStorage technology.
vStorage brings in some new features like thin provisioning, changed block tracking and support for virtual applications, and Veeam has spent 18 months developing the latest version of its monitoring software to address such developments.
“Development of full native support means our software can take full advantage of these functions, and dramatically improve VM back up and replication processes. It is much more than simply being compatible with the new vStorage release,” Ratmir Timashev, President & CEO for Veeam told us.
Management of aspects like thin provisioning where only used disk space is backed up and change block tracking where only changes rather than entire volumes are backed up is calling for some new approaches to systems controls in virtualised environments.
Veeam Backup & Replication version 4.0 builds on the VMware vStorage API to speed full backups and restore of virtual machines, and leverages VMware changed block tracking for fast incremental backups, the company said.
The vStorage API is a VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) replacement that enables local area network-free backups directly from storage area network storage, without affecting an organisation’s production ESX or ESXi hosts.
Likewise, Veeam’s support for virtual applications, or vApp in VMware parlance, leads to more flexibility when setting up back up jobs. “It means back up schedules can be set to back up or restore a whole virtual service as a single entity,” Timashev said.
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Veeam Backup & Replication 4.0 also includes a new Enterprise Management Server that enables enterprise customers to manage multiple installations of Veeam Backup & Replication through a single web console.
“The idea is to provide a single console for centralised management of multiple instances of back up servers across any number of sites.”
One additional feature included in version 4.0 which leverages new vSphere ESX4 functionality allows for near real-time replication.
This allows snapshots of virtual machines to be taken every five minutes or so, overcoming previous limitations and achieving better recovery point objectives.
Veeam has come out of the same group of founders and management team as were behind Aelita Software, a provider of a Windows Active Directory and change management suite which was acquired by Quest Software Inc in 2004 for $130 million.
Based in St Petersburg, Russia the business has its US headquarters in Columbus, Ohio.
