What is the difference between Unitrends and Veeam?
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I have heard this question asked a few times today here in SpiceWorld London.
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Two different products that do similar things? Veeam focuses on the software/VM backup specifically. Whereas Unitrends focuses on a universal backup and appliances. Although it looks like with their recent announcement that may be changing.
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One of the really big differences is focus. Veeam's focus is pure software. Unitrests has pure software but they are very big on all inclusive appliances as well. They are the first big player in the "one throat to choke" backup space since they provide all software, hardware and support.
The other big difference is that Veeam is targeted on virtual backups only, they do not address applications or operating systems, only hypervisors (HyperV and VMware ESXi.) Unitrends focuses on broad support of nearly any operating system or hypervisor (HyperV, ESXi as well as XenServer) and also some applications like MS SQL Server. So Unitrends is very useful in a physical server situation.
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Yup, Unitrends has been heavily focused in the physical appliance, with integrated software and storage, while they offer software-only options. They also, AFAIK, hold the record on supported OS's. Veeam is software protection of virtual, primarily.
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Yes, the number of supported OSes to backup is enormous. And I think they have the record for the most hypervisors too (with three.)
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@art_of_shred said:
Yup, Unitrends has been heavily focused in the physical appliance, with integrated software and storage, while they offer software-only options. They also, AFAIK, hold the record on supported OS's. Veeam is software protection of virtual, primarily.
Does Veeam not offer things like Exchange or SQL backup? That seems like a fairly big downside to that solution.
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Unitrends is a lot more fully featured, but compared to Veeam it is quite a bit more expensive for the paid options.
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@coliver said:
@art_of_shred said:
Yup, Unitrends has been heavily focused in the physical appliance, with integrated software and storage, while they offer software-only options. They also, AFAIK, hold the record on supported OS's. Veeam is software protection of virtual, primarily.
Does Veeam not offer things like Exchange or SQL backup? That seems like a fairly big downside to that solution.
They do hypervisor backup. They focus on the niche and do it really well, but it is all about backups at that one layer.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
Unitrends is a lot more fully featured, but compared to Veeam it is quite a bit more expensive for the paid options.
They really are two quite different products. Both backups, but in very different ways, different approaches.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
@art_of_shred said:
Yup, Unitrends has been heavily focused in the physical appliance, with integrated software and storage, while they offer software-only options. They also, AFAIK, hold the record on supported OS's. Veeam is software protection of virtual, primarily.
Does Veeam not offer things like Exchange or SQL backup? That seems like a fairly big downside to that solution.
They do hypervisor backup. They focus on the niche and do it really well, but it is all about backups at that one layer.
Yet they can restore brick level with "Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange"
Unitrends can restore mailboxes and databases but without Kroll On-Track, you can't brick level restore. -
@nadnerB There is actually a way to do item-level Exchange restores from directly within Exchange. It's tricky, and Unitrends doesn't "support" it, aka: figure it out yourself, as it's a MS function and not a Unitrends function. But, you don't actually NEED Kroll for that.
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@art_of_shred said:
@nadnerB There is actually a way to do item-level Exchange restores from directly within Exchange. It's tricky, and Unitrends doesn't "support" it, aka: figure it out yourself, as it's a MS function and not a Unitrends function. But, you don't actually NEED Kroll for that.
Well, that's not in their documentation (for reasons outlined above) and I couldn't find any information on it when I needed it.
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@coliver said:
@art_of_shred said:
Yup, Unitrends has been heavily focused in the physical appliance, with integrated software and storage, while they offer software-only options. They also, AFAIK, hold the record on supported OS's. Veeam is software protection of virtual, primarily.
Does Veeam not offer things like Exchange or SQL backup? That seems like a fairly big downside to that solution.
@scottalanmiller said:
The other big difference is that Veeam is targeted on virtual backups only, they do not address applications or operating systems, only hypervisors (HyperV and VMware ESXi.)
Unfortunately, this is not accurate. Veeam does focus only on virtual servers only. While they focus on VM-level backups, they do not ignore enterprise applications. They have tools to item-level restore:
- Exchange Server
- SQL Server
- Active Directory
In fact, a tool like their Veeam Explorer for Exchange doesn't even require Exchange to be mounted. You can use this tool to recover items as long as you have access to the MDB files for Exchange 2010 and higher. They have a separate tool for Exchange 2007 which I use right now temporarily.
During a complete meltdown, you can actually spin up the failed server using the backup file until you can recover and move it to it's final destination.
Veeam natively handles both backup and replication. The two are not necessarily dependent on each other and can play into your D&R plans. You can have instant failover and failback. Licensing of these features are always on the source machines, not the target hosts. So if you just have one box, you can drop in a cheap one and replicate to it without requiring additional software.
With Enterprise (both in Essentials and their high-end version which does WAN optimization) you get SureBackup Lab. This is super freaking awesome. Basically, you can craft a test isolated test lab and automate your backup testing in the lab. I have this setup for all my backup jobs. Basically what happens after each backup is that it will spin up the VM from the backup file (after spinning any dependency VMs like a DC first) verify that it can boot, NICs can be pinged, and any application-specific services and roles like Exchange, AD, and SQL can actually be verified. I have this setup and all my backups are verified EVERY DAY. One last thing is you can also use the SureBackup Lab for testing. I often, drop in some VMs when I want to do some testing of changes I want to do with productions VMs. The lab comes with a Proxy appliance that you can punch a hole in to get access to the isolated lab. I'm doing this now with our ERP software where I'm making some updates. I've given Accounting access so they can play their testing with real data, but in a safe environment.
Want complete insight into your virtualization environment? Disk IOPS, datastore latency, CPU utilization over time, etc. Well, they will give it to you for free VeeamOne. Paid version comes with a few more features. This is pretty awesome.
Got non-servers you'd like to backup too. Well, they have a free tool for that also now that will allow you to manage that within your backup console.
Sorry to post a wall of info, but these comments worried me and I felt the need to provide a better insight into Veeam. I've played with Unitrends and they have a nice product, I just don't feel like it comes close to this product and its flexibility. So it just backups VMs. Yeah, but the tools they give just rock.
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@DenisKelley said:
@coliver said:
@art_of_shred said:
Yup, Unitrends has been heavily focused in the physical appliance, with integrated software and storage, while they offer software-only options. They also, AFAIK, hold the record on supported OS's. Veeam is software protection of virtual, primarily.
Does Veeam not offer things like Exchange or SQL backup? That seems like a fairly big downside to that solution.
@scottalanmiller said:
The other big difference is that Veeam is targeted on virtual backups only, they do not address applications or operating systems, only hypervisors (HyperV and VMware ESXi.)
Unfortunately, this is not accurate. Veeam does focus only on virtual servers only. While they focus on VM-level backups, they do not ignore enterprise applications. They have tools to item-level restore:
- Exchange Server
- SQL Server
- Active Directory
In fact, a tool like their Veeam Explorer for Exchange doesn't even require Exchange to be mounted. You can use this tool to recover items as long as you have access to the MDB files for Exchange 2010 and higher. They have a separate tool for Exchange 2007 which I use right now temporarily.
During a complete meltdown, you can actually spin up the failed server using the backup file until you can recover and move it to it's final destination.
Veeam natively handles both backup and replication. The two are not necessarily dependent on each other and can play into your D&R plans. You can have instant failover and failback. Licensing of these features are always on the source machines, not the target hosts. So if you just have one box, you can drop in a cheap one and replicate to it without requiring additional software.
With Enterprise (both in Essentials and their high-end version which does WAN optimization) you get SureBackup Lab. This is super freaking awesome. Basically, you can craft a test isolated test lab and automate your backup testing in the lab. I have this setup for all my backup jobs. Basically what happens after each backup is that it will spin up the VM from the backup file (after spinning any dependency VMs like a DC first) verify that it can boot, NICs can be pinged, and any application-specific services and roles like Exchange, AD, and SQL can actually be verified. I have this setup and all my backups are verified EVERY DAY. One last thing is you can also use the SureBackup Lab for testing. I often, drop in some VMs when I want to do some testing of changes I want to do with productions VMs. The lab comes with a Proxy appliance that you can punch a hole in to get access to the isolated lab. I'm doing this now with our ERP software where I'm making some updates. I've given Accounting access so they can play their testing with real data, but in a safe environment.
Want complete insight into your virtualization environment? Disk IOPS, datastore latency, CPU utilization over time, etc. Well, they will give it to you for free VeeamOne. Paid version comes with a few more features. This is pretty awesome.
Got non-servers you'd like to backup too. Well, they have a free tool for that also now that will allow you to manage that within your backup console.
Sorry to post a wall of info, but these comments worried me and I felt the need to provide a better insight into Veeam. I've played with Unitrends and they have a nice product, I just don't feel like it comes close to this product and its flexibility. So it just backups VMs. Yeah, but the tools they give just rock.
Thanks for the breakdown. That was the info I was looking for.
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Hopefully the info helps. Yeah, I've discovered I've become a Veeam fanboy of late.
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Thanks for that info, Dennis. I'll admit I'm not very familiar with Veeam; I only have a basic understanding of how it works. Once again, I think the bottom line is that there's not a single best choice for backup solutions. Veeam seems to be a great choice in an all-virtual environment. Storage Craft has been great in an all-Windows environment (until last month when they released Linux protection). Unitrends is a great choice for a varied environment. Each has their strengths and each certainly has their weakness(es). Threads like this are great because everyone can defend their own best fit solution, and inform others in the process. We all come into contact with various, unique environments, so being well-rounded in your knowledge is a much better plan than simply being a fan-boy for a particular product.
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@DenisKelley said:
@coliver said:
@art_of_shred said:
Yup, Unitrends has been heavily focused in the physical appliance, with integrated software and storage, while they offer software-only options. They also, AFAIK, hold the record on supported OS's. Veeam is software protection of virtual, primarily.
Does Veeam not offer things like Exchange or SQL backup? That seems like a fairly big downside to that solution.
@scottalanmiller said:
The other big difference is that Veeam is targeted on virtual backups only, they do not address applications or operating systems, only hypervisors (HyperV and VMware ESXi.)
Unfortunately, this is not accurate. Veeam does focus only on virtual servers only. While they focus on VM-level backups, they do not ignore enterprise applications. They have tools to item-level restore:
- Exchange Server
- SQL Server
- Active Directory
In fact, a tool like their Veeam Explorer for Exchange doesn't even require Exchange to be mounted. You can use this tool to recover items as long as you have access to the MDB files for Exchange 2010 and higher. They have a separate tool for Exchange 2007 which I use right now temporarily.
During a complete meltdown, you can actually spin up the failed server using the backup file until you can recover and move it to it's final destination.
Veeam natively handles both backup and replication. The two are not necessarily dependent on each other and can play into your D&R plans. You can have instant failover and failback. Licensing of these features are always on the source machines, not the target hosts. So if you just have one box, you can drop in a cheap one and replicate to it without requiring additional software.
With Enterprise (both in Essentials and their high-end version which does WAN optimization) you get SureBackup Lab. This is super freaking awesome. Basically, you can craft a test isolated test lab and automate your backup testing in the lab. I have this setup for all my backup jobs. Basically what happens after each backup is that it will spin up the VM from the backup file (after spinning any dependency VMs like a DC first) verify that it can boot, NICs can be pinged, and any application-specific services and roles like Exchange, AD, and SQL can actually be verified. I have this setup and all my backups are verified EVERY DAY. One last thing is you can also use the SureBackup Lab for testing. I often, drop in some VMs when I want to do some testing of changes I want to do with productions VMs. The lab comes with a Proxy appliance that you can punch a hole in to get access to the isolated lab. I'm doing this now with our ERP software where I'm making some updates. I've given Accounting access so they can play their testing with real data, but in a safe environment.
Want complete insight into your virtualization environment? Disk IOPS, datastore latency, CPU utilization over time, etc. Well, they will give it to you for free VeeamOne. Paid version comes with a few more features. This is pretty awesome.
Got non-servers you'd like to backup too. Well, they have a free tool for that also now that will allow you to manage that within your backup console.
Sorry to post a wall of info, but these comments worried me and I felt the need to provide a better insight into Veeam. I've played with Unitrends and they have a nice product, I just don't feel like it comes close to this product and its flexibility. So it just backups VMs. Yeah, but the tools they give just rock.
Awesome thanks. Might have to check it out.
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@art_of_shred said:
We all come into contact with various, unique environments, so being well-rounded in your knowledge is a much better plan than simply being a fan-boy for a particular product.
Obvious comment is well, obvious.
I was saying fanboy mainly in how much I'm floored by this product. I've handled many different ones and, yes, if my environment was different I might be using something else. I only posted mainly because of the post title and the other comments that were basically "it only backs up VMs.". To be honest, I've never (after close to 20 years in IT) gotten passionate about a backup software before Veeam. It's weird.It's both a floor wax AND a dessert topping.
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@DenisKelley said:
@art_of_shred said:
We all come into contact with various, unique environments, so being well-rounded in your knowledge is a much better plan than simply being a fan-boy for a particular product.
Obvious comment is well, obvious.
I was saying fanboy mainly in how much I'm floored by this product. I've handled many different ones and, yes, if my environment was different I might be using something else. I only posted mainly because of the post title and the other comments that were basically "it only backs up VMs.". To be honest, I've never (after close to 20 years in IT) gotten passionate about a backup software before Veeam. It's weird.It's both a floor wax AND a dessert topping.
I wasn't accusing you of being a fanboy. I was saying that it can come off that way sometimes, as people tend to champion what they are most used to. It's good to know the pros and cons of lots of stuff so you can be informed, which I imagine you are. If anything, I fit the "fanboy" persona a little more, as I know that my knowledge and promotion is slanted towards Unitrends. That's why I welcome good debate and see it as beneficial.
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@DenisKelley said:
To be honest, I've never (after close to 20 years in IT) gotten passionate about a backup software before Veeam. It's weird.
Same here.
