We just did some data analysis and realized that 80% of our users with virtual environments are missing the boat. What? How can this be? What trick are 4 out of 5 Backup Exec users missing?
Honestly, I had to have Aidan Finley explain it to me. But once he did, it's a no-brainer and we're publishing some stupid-simple pictures for this next month.
If you have a VMware or Hyper-V environment, you shuould be using TWO things for the best possible perforemance and granluar recovery:
1. The Agent for Hypervisors. It works in both VMware and Microsoft environments and integrates with the hypervisor to provide backups. This means you can simultaneouly reduce load on your hypervisors and recover an entire virtual machine or virtual disk from any of the VMs on that host.
2. The Agent for Applications and Databases. Installed in each application guest, it gives you granular restoration powers for that application (Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, and Active Directory). It doesn't actually do the backup, but it works with the hypervisor to ensure both the application is protected and that all the housekeeping – like log truncation – these applications require.
Using both of these Agents – the Agent for Hypervisors and the Agent for Applications and Databases – gives you the best of all worlds; you get host-level protection, which reduces load on your hypervisor processors, disk, and memory, and gives you recovery from the entire virtual machine down to an individual file, Exchange Email, SharePoint document, or Active Directory object.
So simple, yet so commonly missed...
@backupexecdrew
