Backupexec V-ray

[Dkromm]

Can some one please explain to me how and what the V-ray is.

Right now I have an enviroment with 7 physical servers and about 12 VMs on ESXI 4.1.

I have the agents that are  needed no problem there I back everything up fine I can restore my VMS and run GRT on someone of them no problem ther either.

Now we are goign to virtualize our exchange server and want to implement a second Autoloader to help with the time. So I was told to either get a library extender license for my BE 2012 or get v-ray but I dont get what this v-ray is really for. Does it sit on my VM and then back them up or does someone have more info that actualy pretains to real world scenarios.

Thank you.

[pkh]

The BE V-Ray edition is a licencing scheme to help users who are highly virtualised.  You pay per virtual socket and you got all the VMware/Hyper-V licence and all the agents for databases and applications licences for free.   Otherwise, for each VM host, you need to buy either a VMware or Hyper-V agent and on top of that, for each application, like Exchange, SQL databases, etc. on each machine, you need to buy an Agent for Databases and Applications licence.  See the BE 2012 licencing guide

2012 Portfolio Licensing Guide

When you buy a second autoloader, you do not need to buy an additional LEO licence if it has only 1 tape drive.  You only need to buy LEO licences if there are more than 1 tape drive in a tape library.  This is not mentioned in the BE 2012 Licencing Guide, but it is mentioned page 6 in the BE 2010 Licencing Guide below

2010 Licensing Guide

[Backup_Exec1]

Hi

LEO license is only useful in case you want to attach and extra library to your media server ,As with base license you get one LEO free which cover support for N number for standalone drive and library with one drive connected to media server ,but in your case if you connect one additional library or an additional drive you would need an extra LEO license for it

Now about Vray , V-Ray edition is priced at per VM socket & allows you to backup as many applications/databases as you want. (Application databases means you can protect application like exchange,sql ,sharepoint ,Active directory running on virtual machine)

But if you are only going to have for now only exchange virtualized then you would need a virtual agent license for your ESX host by which you can protect N number of virtual machine on your ESX host and to protext application like exchange on virtual machine you would need a seperate license and single license for Application database.

Please check link below for more licensing details on same

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH178479

Thanks

[pkh]

 if you connect one additional library or an additional drive you would need an extra LEO license for it

This is not true.  See page 6 of the BE 2010 licencing guide

2010 Licensing Guide

[Dkromm]

Ok so if I understand this right,

Backup exec with V-ray is just another way of backing up that includes the agents to back up VMS.

Right now we just use the VMware agent for each server and back the servers up as a whole unit since if somthing goes wrong we just put the whole server back not indavidual parts. So V-ray would just allow us to put back the parts for each instead of the whole thing right? So we could restore just part of exchange vs the whole server.

So its like GRT for Exchange/SQL/AD?

PKH not sure what your saying as page 6 says buy a LEO? we would be attaching a whole hp autoloader so 8 mailboxes with 1 tape drive so would need a LEO right.

thanks everyone I hope I got this right.

[ClarkL]

In your situation as you already have purchased many of the agents required I don't think it would make sense to purchase the V-Ray edition in order to add support for the new virtual machine. I think simply adding the Agent for Applications and Windows Remote agent to your existing environment would be sufficient.

For my clients who have Backup Exec already, and have support contracts when we add virtualization or add new servers we purchase an additional agent.

For a new server installation with virtualization we purchase the V-Ray edition as it makes economical sense. It's a pretty significant savings when you're virtualizating Exchange, SQL, AD, File and Print on a two node Hyper-V cluster.

[pkh]

Backup exec with V-ray is just another way of backing up that includes the agents to back up VMS.

No.  The V-Ray edition is not another way of backing up.  It is a licencing scheme.  To backup a VM host, you need to buy either a AVVI/Hyper-V licence and on top of this, you need 1 Agent for Databases and Applications licence for each database/application on each machine.  If you have a lot of databases and applications, this can be quite expensive.  When you buy the V-Ray edition, you pay per CPU socket and you get the AVVI/Hyper-V licence plus an unlimited amount of Agent for Databases and Applications.  You got do your sums and see which licencing scheme is better for you.

You might want to read this blog

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/whats-included-backup-exec-v-ray-edition

a whole hp autoloader so 8 mailboxes with 1 tape drive

mailboxes??  I think you are refering to slots.

Just as with stand-alone tape drives, you can attach an unlimited number of tape libraries to your media server without further licences if the tape libraries have only 1 tape drive in them.  However, if you want to add more tape drives to the libraries, then you need 1 LEO for each additional tape drive.  So if you have a tape library with 2 tape drives, you need 1 LEO licence.  If you have 2 tape libraries with 1 tape drive each, then you don't need any LEO licence.