BackupExec Agent Licensing Confusion

Answers to jargon-related queries:

a)On remote server, all you install is Remote Agent, a common software for all these applications. On media server, you add licenses for different agents.

b)Look at above and all you do is push "Remote Agent".

c) You are right. vstorage API is new. VCB still exists, but they might phase it out in later versions.

d) There is no question of preference. We use Vstorage API only and no VCB from BE 2010 onwards. For older version we used VCB.

Answers to queries about setup:

e) Looks good.

f) Its one Vmware Agent per ESX host, irrespective of number of virtual machines. In addition to this get Exchange Agent license per exchange server and similar for SQL and AD.

g) Even for Vcenter, license is per ESX host. The rule does not change.

h) Scheduled backups would fail.

i) AOFO is not required. It is optional. For Vmware agent backups, it would make no difference. For Exchange Agent/SQL Agent level backups, you may choose to use AOFO. You will need to go through documentation as there are pros/cons of using AOFO with agents. Avoid using it for older version of Exchange. Newer versions, would force it any ways. So, selection of AOFO can be safely ignored, unless you are backing up files on a Windows 2003 machine.

Hope this answers your question, mark it a solution if it does.

Thanks