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Eduman's avatar
Eduman
Level 2
8 years ago

Remote agent re-use between physical and virtual servers

Good Afternoon All,

We are going to virtualise their environment in a few months. Following a server failure we've bought into BKUPExec 16 but I'm not getting much luck in finding the most cost efficient licensing options that'll cover us for 5 servers now and in the future.

My question is this:

Can we buy 5 remote agent licenses, use them for backups for the next 2 months, uninstall them from BKUP then re-use them on the incoming 5 virtual Windows Server 2016 servers?

Technically I can't see why not. I mean, I can install Office 2013 on a physical machines just as well as a virtual with not need for a Office Virtual 2013 License or equiv. My managers aren't too keen on buying a years worth of RA licenses for such a short time frame only to buy a second batch 2 months later.

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. I have tried Veritas directly but yet to have a reply, just keeps hitting voicemail.

Cheers,

Eduman

16
remote agent
Remote Agents
Virtual Server
Windows Server 2016
  • Colin_Weaver's avatar
    Colin_Weaver
    8 years ago

    Using the host as the BE server is fine BUT

    If using the Synology NAS devices in NAS mode (and not iSCSI/SAN mode) then workgroup security can cause problems with configuring access to a disk based backup targets over shares. In order of recommendatation  it is therefore preferable to use an iSCSI setup if you can, and then a domain security model if you can't and then trying workgroup security if that fails (unless you are already sure you can get workgroup security to work)

    You can continue to use remote agent backups in the way you currently do but you massively miss out on the advantages of Virtual Agent backups if you do.

    Although it is possible that workgroup security and Hyper-V agent backups would not be very easy to get working as well. (I am not really placed to confirm this point)

    Overall you should probably setup some kind of proof of concept of what you trying to do.

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  • Colin_Weaver's avatar
    Colin_Weaver
    Moderator
    8 years ago

    Yes you can - but really you should be looking at Virtual Agent backups after your conversion and not traditional agent based ones - which would need different licenses but give a MUCH better complete restore mechanism against your VMs

     

    Efficiency wise you should probably be looking at Capacity Edition Licensing which includes both virtual and traditianal agent activation

     

    As an aside don't make the Backup Exec server itself virtual unless you are not intending to use a tape library (SCSI, FC or USB passthrough not supported into a VM)

    • Eduman's avatar
      Eduman
      Level 2
      8 years ago

      Hi Colin,

      Thanks for the quick reply. The plan was to have the hyper-v host server as the backup machine using the exisiting Synology NAS boxes here as the backup destination.

      The host itself would be in a workgroup but of course the VMs would be domained. Would the host be able to backup the VMs using the standard remote agent(s)?

      Eduman

      • Colin_Weaver's avatar
        Colin_Weaver
        Moderator
        8 years ago

        Using the host as the BE server is fine BUT

        If using the Synology NAS devices in NAS mode (and not iSCSI/SAN mode) then workgroup security can cause problems with configuring access to a disk based backup targets over shares. In order of recommendatation  it is therefore preferable to use an iSCSI setup if you can, and then a domain security model if you can't and then trying workgroup security if that fails (unless you are already sure you can get workgroup security to work)

        You can continue to use remote agent backups in the way you currently do but you massively miss out on the advantages of Virtual Agent backups if you do.

        Although it is possible that workgroup security and Hyper-V agent backups would not be very easy to get working as well. (I am not really placed to confirm this point)

        Overall you should probably setup some kind of proof of concept of what you trying to do.