Need offsite backup solution for SBS 2011

[sortmypc]

One of my clients are wanting an offsite backup solution for one of their SBS 2011 Servers. They want to be able to to backup around 600GB of system image. Convert it to a virtual disk, (not decided on hyper-v or vmware yet). Then move it across the internet via highspeed broadband to another site, where there will be another server running either esxi or hyper-v. Once a full image is taken, the system will then increment backups. First of all, we haven't used backup exec since 2010 as we have been using competition services, mainly cloud. But our client prefers this option. Before I cost this solution for them, I need to know if it is at all possible? The purpose of this solution is the minimal downtime option. If the sbs box dies, the hyper-v/esxi box can be brought on site and switched on. 

Can this be done?

Thanks

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

We can do physical to virtual (P2V) in parallel of after running a Backup to Disk job - however this is not really designed to keep doing incremental updates to an existing image, and also almost certainly only tested with LAN/WAN links and not web/cloud links.

best suggestion if going down this route is:

a) do some research on P2V and B2V with Backup Exec

b) Build a proof of concept test environment using an internet/vpn link and leave it running for a couple of weeks to check it.

You could also look at 2 media servers (1 at each site) running Deduplication with Optimized Duplication between them followed by a convert to virtual at the remote site - however you would need to check that P2V/B2V is supported when the backup set is already a duplicate between media servers (in the early versions of BE that provided deduplication P2V/B2V at secobdary location definitely was not supported I am just not sure of current status) and again the Web/Cloud link performance will be critical to the sucess of the solution. So again this would need a full proof of concept test to orve that you meet requirements.

You might find that another customer or partner on these forums has already configured something like this so may be able to answer from their experience.