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Licensing with VM and Sharepoint addins

narcispy
Level 2
I have a question would rather ask this here then spend forever on the phone with Symantec since someone probably knows this offhand.  We are currently running the latest Symantec Backup Exec version out and are looking to expand our infrastructure to add multiple (atleast 2) Sharepoint Portal Server sites and we are using VMWare Infrastucture 3 Enterprise currently.  I have 2 questions that deals with the licensing for this product.  First off, what would be the best way to backup these virtual machines, just backup the actual datastore and when we need to restore simply restore the entire VMWare server?  Or should we create snapshots for each one of these VMs and back it up with the extra backup agent they sell?  Another question is how do they charge for this agent, is it per physical machine or per virtual machine?  Secondly, I guess this depends on how the first part is backed up, if we are backing up and restoring the entire virtual machine then this question would be irrelevent, if not, how does the licensing go for the Sharepoint backup agent, is it per farm or per Sharepoint site?  Just a few questions about this hopefully someone out there can help.

Thanks
1 REPLY 1

teiva-boy
Level 6
The Agent for VMware Virtual Infrastructure is licensed per physical host, with unlimited guests.  There is no "agent," per say, Symantec is leveraging the recommended method from Vmware in using VCB (native technology from VMware) to backup the virtual machines.  Once the license key is entered, the 12.5 install can now talk VCB, which in turn will talk to the VC or ESX host.

The Sharepoint agent is licensed by sharepoint server.  If you have a separate SQL installation from the Sharepoint farm, you will need an Agent for Windows to backup the Windows installation for the SQL box.  The SQL license is part of the sharepoint license (at least they give you that...)

If you are virtualizing Sharepoint, the agent for VMware will cover your OS installation.  But you will lose the benefits of the sharepoint agent and the GRT functionality it provides.  But then again, just restoring the entire VM, can get you the individual files, just like GRT I guess?