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Backup Exec 16 now on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace

Doug_Fletcher
Level 1
Employee

 

 

Veritas recently published Backup Exec 16 as an offering in the Azure Marketplace, Microsoft’s online store for public cloud system tools and applications. The Backup Exec 16 offer in the Azure Marketplace allows customers (and potential customers) to rapidly deploy a Backup Exec 16 server in the Azure cloud space.  Some of the potential use cases for deploying a Backup Exec server in the Azure cloud space include:

  • 60 Day Evaluation/Trial of Backup Exec 16
  • Protect Azure Cloud Resources (VMs and applications running in the Azure cloud space)
  • Protect ‘on-prem’ resources to Azure cloud storage

 

AzureMarketplaceBE.png

 

The Backup Exec 16 – Standard Azure Marketplace solution uses the “Bring Your Own License” model where Backup Exec is installed with a 60 day “Trial” license and you can choose to either install your own existing Backup Exec 16 license(s) or you can use the Backup Exec product for 60 days in ‘Trial’ mode.  The Backup Exec 16 – Standard Azure solution installs with the ‘Agent for Applications and Databases’ and the ‘Agent for VMWare and Hyper-V’ options enabled.  While running Backup Exec in ‘Trial’ mode, you can choose to install other Backup Exec options using the Backup Exec Install and Licenses utility.

 

Configuration Settings/Advice

 Configuration Page 1

azureBEConfig1.png

 Backup Exec server name

  •  Only alphanumeric, '-', and '_' characters are allowed, and the value must be 1 to 15 characters.

 Backup Exec server administrative username

  •  Only alphanumeric, '-', and '_' characters are allowed, and the value must be 2 to 15 characters

 Backup Exec server (administrative user) password

  •  Must be 12-72 characters and include characters from at least 3 of these 4 groups: upper case letters, lower case letters, numerals, special characters

Resource Group

  •  Must create new resource group or choose an existing empty resource group

 Location (Azure Region)

 

Configuration Page 2

azureBEConfig2.png

 Virtual Network

 Subnet

  • If you create a new virtual network you will also need to configure the subnet.

 Virtual machine Size

  •  Veritas recommends DS2_V2, DS3_V2, or DS4_V2 virtual machine sizes for the Backup Exec 16 Standard server.  The virtual machine size defines the number of cores and RAM the server will have as well as the maximum number of ‘data disks’ the VM can have configured. DS2_V2 VMs can have up to 4 data disks, DS3_V2 VMs can have up to 8, and DS4_V2 VMs can have up to 16 data disks. Each data disk is limited to 1TB size.  Azure data disks would typically be used by Backup Exec as local disk based storage for simple disk storage and deduplication disk storage.  Backup Exec can also be configured to use other Azure cloud storage using the Backup Exec Azure cloud connector.

Storage Account

  • You can use an existing Azure storage account if you already have one in the chosen region or you can create a new storage account.  When you create a new storage account you will have to select the ‘Performance’ configuration (Standard or Premium) and the Azure ‘Replication’ configuration (Locally redundant or Geo Redundant storage).

Azure Storage Account Performance Configuration

  • Standard uses magnetic drives and have the lowest cost per GB
  • Premium uses SSD drives, have higher performance, and cost more per GB

Replication

  • Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) provides 3 replicated copies of data within the same Azure datacenter
  • Globally Redundant Storage (GRS) provides 6 replicated copies of data across multiple Azure datacenters
  • Note 1 - that Premium storage (SSD) only supports locally redundant storage (LRS).
  • Note 2 – An Azure resource manager ‘delete lock’ will be placed on the Azure storage account associated with the Backup Exec server. This requires the user to explicitly remove the ‘delete lock’ before deleting the storage account. This is done to minimize the possibility of accidentally deleting the storage account because deleting the storage account will also delete all the storage/disks associated with the storage account.
  • More information on Azure storage accounts: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/storage-create-storage-account

 

Configuration Page 3

azureBEConfig3.png

 Public IP Address

  •  You can use an existing Azure Public IP address if you already have one in the chosen region or you can create a new public IP address for the new Backup Exec Azure VM.  As a general rule a static IP would be more appropriate for a Backup Exec server.
  • More information on Azure network security best practices: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/best-practices-network-security

 

Configuration Page 4

azureBEConfig4.png

All of the configuration options are validated and if the configuration is ok, then you can proceed to the next step which is to ‘Purchase’ the Backup Exec 16 Azure Marketplace solution.  You also have the option of downloading the Azure Resource Manager template that contains the configuration which can be used for command line deployment of Azure VMs

 

Configuration Page 5

azureBEConfig5.png

After clicking on the ‘Purchase’ button, the new Azure VM will be deployed and Backup Exec 16 will be automatically installed.  Once the new VM is up and running you will be able to use the remote desktop utility to connect to the server and to run Backup Exec.

 

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE

  • All Azure VMs are configured with a non-persistent “Temporary Storage” disk volume (typically drive D:).  Any data written to this volume is not guaranteed to exist after the server/VM is restarted.  Do not create any Backup Exec disk storage devices on the “Temporary Storage” disk volume.