Protect Windows Server 2016 with Veritas Backup Exec 16!
So what does that really mean? If I install the released bits of Windows 2016 server, could I then install Veritas Backup Exec 16 on it and start using it immediately? Well, the answer is “Yes” ! Additionally, you can use Windows 2016 server to install Backup Exec Server and Agent, as well as options and components such as: Protection for remote Windows 2016 Server computers. Simplified Disaster Recovery (SDR), which recovers the entire windows 2016 server from a bare metal state. Backup and recovery of the latest Microsoft Hyper-V 2016 platform. Protection for resilient file system (ReFS) & Dedupe Volumes. Support for the current versions of Microsoft applications like SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange, and SharePoint Active directory for application item level GRT on Windows 2016. How did we go about supporting Windows 2016? Deploy Windows 2016 today, without waiting for backup to catch up! There is no need to take the old approach of waiting until late in the game to start implementing a new server OS. You can immediately start protecting Windows Server 2016 with Veritas Backup Exec 16. We have been actively working with Windows 2016 builds for quite some time now. We tested technical preview releases and prepared ourselves to support the final release. Testing on Windows 2016 Server began almost 10 months ago with validation of pre-release builds. We executed manual as well as automation test suites on each pre-release build. We executed over 1000 test cases (500 automated and over 500 manual) spread across features such as core Backup and Restore, Simplified Disaster Recovery, Hyper-V, and Microsoft applications such as Exchange, SharePoint, Active directory, and SQL server. We have qualified over 20 Windows 2016 Server pre-release builds with different configurations, such as Windows 2016 failover cluster, storage pools, and ReFS. Backup Exec 16 has been tested with all versions of Windows 2016 Server, such as Datacenter, Essentials, Standard, Storage Server and Hyper-V Edition. Automation helped us in a big way to qualify the pre-release builds. In addition, our manual test lab consists of over 30 test servers, on which every new build of Windows Server was installed and manual test cases were executed. How did automation help testing Backup Exec 16 on Window 2016? Providing support to new offering coming in market in a short time span is a challenging job. Without automation, repeating the test cycles on frequent early-access builds of an upcoming OS or application, is very difficult. To address this problem and provide maximum coverage, we utilize the automation labs of Backup Exec. We deployed Windows 2016 drops on an automation environment consisting of more than 100 virtual machines. We refreshed of the Windows 2016 build on at a one-week cadence on our setups, with a two-week cadence on the more complex setups Over 500 test cases have been running daily on Windows 2016 builds right since April 2016 till Windows RTM. We were not only able to catch potential issues in our product but also were able to identify and worked with Microsoft to resolve Windows issues. All builds with fixes were re-tested again by automation. We were successfully able to provide automation for various features of Backup Exec 16 mentioned below: Feature Names: Install, Migration ,Licensing and Upgrade Base functionality of Backup and Restore and BEMCLI support Disaster Recovery Hyper-V Exchange SQL MSFT-Active Directory Various supported Storage types AVVI CAS General UIEnhancing resiliency for Instant Recovery
Now not just instant, but also resilient. The Enhanced Resiliency for Instant Recovery increases the data and application availability of virtual machines that are instantly recovered. This improves business continuity in case the Backup Exec server or the Hyper-V server must be restarted.
