Backup Exec 2014 Technical White Paper - Protecting VMware Environments

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The series of Technical White Papers we are currently publishing are updated papers on the release of Backup Exec 2014. They are designed to introduce Symantec partners and end users to key technologies and technical concepts that are associated with the Symantec Backup Exec. The information within a Technical White Paper will assist partners and end users as they design and implement data protection solutions based on Symantec Backup and Recovery products.

This white paper is intended to assist partners and end users as they design and implement Backup Exec 2014 in VMware environments and make related decisions.  The business value of Backup Exec 2014 in VMware environments is also covered.

This white paper includes the following topics:

• Business Value
• Underlying Technical Principles
• Virtualized Application Protection
• Virtual Machine Recovery Options
• Improved Usability for Virtual Environments
• Backup Exec Management Plug-in for VMware
• Example VMware Configurations
• Performance Recommendations
• Notes and Best Practices

Virtualization technology has been widely adopted by organizations of all sizes to optimize critical IT assets, such as data and application servers. As a result of this virtualization trend, companies are looking for efficient and effective ways to back up and recover their virtual servers and the critical applications that many of these virtual machines host, such as Microsoft Exchange®, SQL Server®, SharePoint®, and Active Directory®.

Because virtual host servers are used by many companies to virtualize production servers, the loss of a production virtual host can cost an organization more than losing a standalone physical server, since a single virtual host can be responsible for multiple virtual servers.  A lost virtual host can impact productivity for hours or days while the IT administrator struggles to recover or repair the virtualization infrastructure.

Market leaders in virtualization technology include the VMware vSphere platform and the Microsoft Hyper-V platform. Modern backup and recovery solutions designed specifically for VMware and Hyper-V environments are critical to helping organizations quickly recover in the event of a disaster, whether it occurs at the virtual host level, the virtual machine level, the application level, or the file/folder level.

Backup Solutions Designed Specifically for Virtual Environments

Administrators responsible for the backup and recovery of virtualized environments understand the frustration and difficulty associated with backup technologies that are not specifically designed to protect virtual infrastructures. Administrators who rely on legacy, misfit solutions to protect their virtual resources face several challenges, such as the following:

• Performance impacts from agent-based backups inside virtual machines competing for resources
• Downtime resulting from having to shut down virtual machines to protect them completely
• Slow file-by-file backups that repeatedly capture redundant data in each virtual machine
• Lengthy restore processes of an entire virtual machine to recover a single file
• Separate backups for virtualized applications like Microsoft Exchange®, SQL Server®, and SharePoint®
• Lack of ability to leverage different data transport paths depending on the needs of an environment
• Storage management problems from storing backups of large virtual disk files, such as VMDK files

Backup Exec 2014 and key virtual features, such as Backup Exec’s integrated V-Ray technology, are designed specifically to protect virtual environments and solve the problems listed above.

Integration with the Latest Virtualization Technology

A significant advantage of Backup Exec 2014 in virtual environments is direct integration with the VMware virtual platform. This integration enables advanced functionality built specifically for the optimized protection of VMware environments.

VMware vSphere Integration

Backup Exec 2014 integrates with VMware’s vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) to eliminate important challenges associated with the backup of VMware virtual machines and to provide faster backup performance with less overall storage consumption …..

To read the full White Paper please download from the link below.