![]() | This article contains content that is written like an advertisement .(May 2021) |
![]() | |
Original author(s) | Maynard Electronics |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Veritas Technologies LLC |
Initial release | 1980s |
Stable release | 22.2 / Oct, 2023 |
Written in | C, C++, C#, .Net, Python |
Operating system | Windows 2019, Windows 2016, Windows 2012 R2, Windows 2012, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 2008, Windows 2003 R2, Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server |
Platform | Windows Server, Linux, VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V |
Size | 2.4 GB |
Available in | English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese |
License | Proprietary commercial software |
Website | http://www.backupexec.com |
Veritas Backup Exec is a data protection software product designed for customers with mixed physical and virtual environments, and who are moving to public cloud services. Supported platforms include VMware and Hyper-V virtualization, Windows and Linux operating systems, Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Storage, among others. All management and configuration operations are performed with a single user interface. Backup Exec also provides integrated deduplication, replication, and disaster recovery [1] capabilities and helps to manage multiple backup servers or multi-drive tape loaders.
Backup Exec employs an automated installation process. [2] Installing Backup Exec 15 on a Windows Server 2012 R2 system takes around 30 minutes, according to reviews. [3] The installation wizard can be started from the Backup Exec Installation Media or the management console to push agents out to the physical servers, Hyper-V/VMware virtual machines, application/database systems hosting Active Directory, Exchange, Oracle database, SQL, and other supported platforms.
With its client/server design, Backup Exec provides backup and restore capabilities for servers, applications and workstations across the network. Backup Exec recovers data, applications, databases, or systems from an individual file, mailbox item, table object, or entire server. Current versions of the software support Microsoft, VMware, and Linux, among others. [4]
When used with tape drives, Backup Exec uses the Microsoft Tape Format (MTF), [5] which is also used by Windows NTBackup, backup utilities included in Microsoft SQL Server, and many other backup vendors and is compatible with BKF. Microsoft Tape Format (MTF) [5] was originally Maynard's (Backup Exec's first authors) proprietary backup Tape Format (MTF) and was later licensed by Microsoft as Windows standard tape format. In addition, Microsoft also licensed and incorporated Backup Exec's backup engine into Windows NT, the server version of Windows. [6]
In addition, Backup Exec's family of agents and options offer features for scaling the Backup Exec environment and extending platform and feature support. Backup Exec 21.3 is the latest version of Veritas’ backup and recovery software, released on September 6, 2021. [7]
Within the “backup” portion of the data protection spectrum, one Veritas product, Backup Exec, has been in the market for more than two decades. Since the early days of Microsoft’s journey to turn its Windows Server into the world’s dominant client-server operating system, Backup Exec has been one of a handful of technologies to protect it. As the WinSvr OS grew to become a platform of choice for application enablement and user productivity, Backup Exec’s media/platform support, application support, and internal operation evolved at a similar pace. [8]
Backup Exec has a long history of successive owner-companies. Its earliest roots stretch back to the early 1980s when Maynard Electronics wrote a bundle of software drivers to help sell their tape-drive products.
The core components that are contained in a basic Backup Exec architecture include the following:
Backup Exec Agents and Options expand the features and functionality of core Backup Exec server to support the most common server applications, including Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and SQL Server, Oracle, Windows and Linux clients, server operating systems, and the Hyper-V and VMware hypervisors. [2] Not all agents are agents in the traditional sense. For example, the Agent for VMware and Hyper-V is not carrying out the backup process. The agent is simply collecting meta data (takes a few seconds) so that Backup Exec can perform granular recoveries directly from storage at a point in the future - no mounting required.
Here is a list of Backup Exec Agents and Options: [12]
Agents | Options |
---|---|
Agent for VMware and Hyper-V | Deduplication Option |
Agent for Applications and Databases | Enterprise Server Option |
Agent for Windows | NDMP Option |
Agent for Mac (no longer supported BE16 [13] ) | Library Expansion Option |
Agent for Linux | Virtual Tape Library (VTL) Unlimited Drive Option |
Remote Media Agent for Linux (RMAL) |
Backup Exec and its options can be installed on a local computer, a remote computer, within a virtual environment, or on a public cloud "Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)" virtualization platform. [14] Today Backup Exec supports the Backup Exec server installation on 64-bit operating systems only. However, the Agent for Windows can be installed on 32-bit operating systems. Several methods are available for installing Backup Exec. [15] An Environment Check runs automatically during installation to make sure that the installation process can complete. If Backup Exec finds any configuration issues that can be fixed during the installation, or that may prevent Installation, warnings appear. [15]
Backup Exec can be installed using the following: [16]
Additionally, Backup Exec installation media also has a Remote Administrator feature which can be installed on a remote computer or workstation to administer the Backup Exec server remotely.
Backup Exec may install the additional products: [18]
Backup Exec installations can have one or more Backup Exec servers, which are responsible for moving data from one or more locations to a storage medium, including cloud, disk, tape, and OST device. The data may be from the local system or from a remote system. [19] There are two primary Backup Exec architectures:
1. Standalone Backup Exec configuration (Two-Tier)
A single Backup Exec server is assigned the standalone Backup Exec server role. Each server runs the Backup Exec software and the services that control backup and restore operations of multiple clients. Each Backup Exec server maintains its own Backup Exec database, media catalogs, and device catalogs.
2. Central Admin Server Option (CASO) configuration (Three-Tier)
Large environments may contain multiple Backup Exec servers responsible for backing up many different client systems. Backup Exec servers in large environments can run independently of each other if each server is managed separately. Separate server management may not be an issue if there are only two or three Backup Exec servers, but it can become unwieldy as the environment grows. Backup Exec can centralize the management of multiple Backup Exec servers using an add-on option called the Backup Exec Central Admin Server Option (CASO). CASO ensures that everything throughout the network is protected by a single system that can be managed from one console [2] and also balances the workload across all Backup Exec servers in the environment.
In a CASO environment, one Backup Exec server can be configured to be the Central Admin Server (CAS), while other Backup Execs become managed Backup Exec servers (MBESs) that are managed by the CAS. The CASO configuration simplifies the management and monitoring of enterprise-level environments.
Backup Exec includes the following features and capabilities:
Backup Exec does not have support for sending data streams from multiple parallel backup jobs to a single tape drive, which Veritas refers to as multiplexing. [51] Their NetBackup product does have this capability. [52]
Multiplexing can reduce backup times when backing up data from non-solid state sources containing millions of small or highly fragmented files, which require very large amounts of head-seeking using traditional mechanical hard drives, and which significantly slow down the backup process.
When only a single job is running, and the source server is constantly seeking at a high rate, the tape drive slows down or may stop, waiting for its write cache to be filled. These delays accessing data can cause the backup availability window to be exceeded, when multiple servers with slow transfer rates are being backed up one after the other to the tape device.
A workaround to this is to install temporary disk storage in the backup server to use as a cache for the backup process. This storage is split into hundreds of small 1-5 gigabyte data blocks. Backups to the data blocks can be done in parallel, and each of the separate disk-based backup jobs are configured to duplicate and append to tape when completed.
Backup Exec has the following licensing options: [53]
Virtual PC is a discontinued x86 emulator for PowerPC Mac hosts and a hypervisor for Microsoft Windows hosts. It was created by Connectix in 1997 and acquired by Microsoft in 2003. The Mac version was discontinued in 2006 following the Mac transition to Intel, while the Windows version was discontinued in 2011 in favour of Hyper-V.
In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "back up", whereas the noun and adjective form is "backup". Backups can be used to recover data after its loss from data deletion or corruption, or to recover data from an earlier time. Backups provide a simple form of disaster recovery; however not all backup systems are able to reconstitute a computer system or other complex configuration such as a computer cluster, active directory server, or database server.
Platform virtualization software, specifically emulators and hypervisors, are software packages that emulate the whole physical computer machine, often providing multiple virtual machines on one physical platform. The table below compares basic information about platform virtualization hypervisors.
Unitrends Inc., a Kaseya company, is an American company specializing in backup and business continuity.
A virtual tape library (VTL) is a data storage virtualization technology used typically for backup and recovery purposes. A VTL presents a storage component as tape libraries or tape drives for use with existing backup software.
Microsoft Virtual Server was a virtualization solution that facilitated the creation of virtual machines on the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. Originally developed by Connectix, it was acquired by Microsoft prior to release. Virtual PC is Microsoft's related desktop virtualization software package.
EMC NetWorker is an enterprise-level data protection software product from Dell EMC that unifies and automates backup to tape, disk-based, and flash-based storage media across physical and virtual environments for granular and disaster recovery.
Quest Development Corporation was a privately held software development company founded by serial entrepreneur Kevin Azzouz at a newly developed technology center in San Luis Obispo, California. Azzouz began developing a storage management and backup platform after his early purchase of a Rodime hard drive failed in 1983 resulting in the loss of important data.
In computing. Physical-to-Virtual involves the process of decoupling and migrating a physical server's operating system (OS), applications, and data from that physical server to a virtual-machine guest hosted on a virtualized platform.
Single-instance storage (SIS) is a system's ability to take multiple copies of content and replace them by a single shared copy. It is a means to eliminate data duplication and to increase efficiency. SIS is frequently implemented in file systems, e-mail server software, data backup, and other storage-related computer software. Single-instance storage is a simple variant of data deduplication. While data deduplication may work at a segment or sub-block level, single-instance storage works at the whole-file level and eliminates redundant copies of entire files or e-mail messages.
NTBackup is the first built-in backup utility of the Windows NT family. It was introduced with Windows NT 3.51. NTBackup comprises a GUI (wizard-style) and a command-line utility to create, customize, and manage backups. It takes advantage of Shadow Copy and Task Scheduler. NTBackup stores backups in the BKF file format on external sources, e.g., floppy disks, hard drives, tape drives, and Zip drives. When used with tape drives, NTBackup uses the Microsoft Tape Format (MTF), which is also used by BackupAssist, Backup Exec, and Veeam Backup & Replication and is compatible with BKF.
Ericom Software, Inc. is a Closter, New Jersey-based company that provides web isolation and remote application access software to businesses.
In computing, data deduplication is a technique for eliminating duplicate copies of repeating data. Successful implementation of the technique can improve storage utilization, which may in turn lower capital expenditure by reducing the overall amount of storage media required to meet storage capacity needs. It can also be applied to network data transfers to reduce the number of bytes that must be sent.
On March 15, 2011, Symantec released Symantec Operations Readiness Tools (SORT), an updated version of Veritas Operations Services (VOS).
Wanova, Inc, headquartered in San Jose, California, provides software allowing IT organizations to manage, support and protect data on desktop and laptop computers. Wanova's primary product, Wanova Mirage, was designed as an alternative to server-hosted desktop virtualization technologies.
NetVault is a set of data protection software developed and supported by Quest Software. NetVault Backup is a backup and recovery software product. It can be used to protect data and software applications in physical and virtual environments from one central management interface. It supports many servers, application platforms, and protocols such as UNIX, Linux, Microsoft Windows, VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, Oracle, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, NDMP, Oracle ACSLS, IBM DAS/ACI, Microsoft Exchange Server, DB2, and Teradata.
Veeam Software is a privately held US-based information technology company owned by Insight Partners. It develops backup, disaster recovery and modern data protection software for virtual, cloud-native, SaaS, Kubernetes and physical workloads. Veeam Software was co-founded by two Russian entrepreneurs, Ratmir Timashev and Andrei Baronov. While Veeam's start was built on protecting data across virtualized workloads, it has significantly expanded to protect data across a wide variety of platforms from AWS, Azure, google Cloud, Microsoft 365, Kubernetes etc. Veeam's current CEO, Anand Eswaran, has been pushing Veeam's strategy to accelerate share in the enterprise with adding several layers to Veeam's partnerships. Veeam took over the #1 market share in the data protection category in 2H'22. The company headquarters is in Kirkland, Washington, United States.
Veeam Backup & Replication is a proprietary backup app developed by Veeam for virtual environments built on VMware vSphere, Nutanix AHV, and Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors. The software provides backup, restore and replication functionality for virtual machines, physical servers and workstations as well as cloud-based workload.
Veritas Technologies LLC is an American international data management company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company has its origins in Tolerant Systems, founded in 1983 and later renamed Veritas Software. It specializes in storage management software including the first commercial journaling file system, VxFS, VxVM, VCS, the personal/small office backup software Backup Exec and the enterprise backup software, NetBackup. Veritas Record Now was an early CD recording software.
MSP360, formerly CloudBerry Lab, is a software and application service provider company that develops online backup, remote desktop and file management products integrated with more than 20 cloud storage providers.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)