The Ultimate Guide to Veeam Data Backup and Recovery
Here at Prodatix, we like to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. This philosophy is why we got into the business of data protection and recovery. We’re always looking on the bright side of things, but we understand far too well why it’s crucial to prepare for the worst. And that’s what we help businesses do: prepare for the worst.
When it comes to data protection, backup, and recovery, it’s often unexpected events that can completely upend your business. Natural disasters, cyberattacks, equipment malfunction, and human errors all have the potential to slow down, delay, or in the worst cases, totally halt operations. This is why we partner with Veeam.
Veeam is the number one data protection, backup, and recovery software in the world. By using Veeam’s software and our expertise, we protect our customer’s data and their peace of mind. We understand not everyone is as much of a geek about data protection as we are though. That’s why we’ve created this guide. Read on to learn everything you need to know about Veeam.
What is Veeam?
Let’s start at the beginning. At its most basic, Veeam is backup software. But let’s dive into exactly what that means. To do this, we need to explain data backup in general. You probably understand that your company’s data needs to be backed up. Now, for a lot of people, this is where it can start to get a bit fuzzy.
For our purposes today, let’s use a fictional advertising firm as an example. We’ll call them AdPro. AdPro has 45 employees who work both remotely and in the office. Each day employees are creating pitch decks, creative briefs, sales collateral, excel spreadsheets, and dozens of other deliverables. They are creating these on their own computers.
Since their company follows best practices, each night all of that data is backed up (or saved) to both a local server (a physical server located at their office) and a remote server (located at an off-site data center). Veeam is the software that makes this possible.
You can think of Veeam as an air traffic controller. It tells the data where to go and when to go. It communicates with all the individual laptops and the local and remote servers. It tells all these devices when and how often to save data. It also is the software that allows you to restore your data in the case of an emergency. If a tornado demolishes your building, Veeam would be able to pull your data from a remote server to get you back up and running.
And while there is other data backup software on the market, Veaam is the best. Going back to our air traffic controller metaphor, you can understand why it’s important to use Veeam. It doesn’t matter how great your airports and airplanes are, if you don’t have someone communicating between them, you’re in for disaster. And when the stakes are that high, you want to be the best in the business.
Top 5 reasons to choose Veeam
- The most successful businesses in the world use Veeam. To be exact, 81% of fortune 500 companies use Veeam, including Facebook, Amazon, and Deloitte.
- It’s easy to use. Veeam is straightforward to deploy, easy to manage, and designed to integrate effortlessly into your environment. And Veeam doesn’t require a steep learning curve.
- It protects all your data, no matter the form. With Veeam, you only need one platform to protect all your data in every form and application:
- The Cloud. Examples include Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, AWS, Azure, and Kubernetes.
- Software as a Service (SaaS). Examples include Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, and Salesforce.
- Apps. Examples include Microsoft, Oracle, SAP HANA.
- Unstructured Data. Examples include NAS and Share.
- Physical. Examples include Windows, Linus, macOS, AIX, and Solaris.
- Virtual. Examples include VNware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, and Red Hat Virtualization.
4. It’s flexible. Veeam is software-defined and hardware agnostic, providing the ultimate infrastructure flexibility. Veeam offers deep integration, which improves backup and recovery efficiencies.
5. It’s the clear market leader. Analysts consistently recognize Veeam as the best. Veeam ranks number one across Gartner Peer Insights, G2 Crowd, and Trust Radius.
How does Veeam work?
Veeam works with partners, like Prodatix, who sell, set up, and implement Veeam. Let’s go back to our fictional example of AdPro. Veeam would be loaded onto AdPro’s server. It would then communicate with every device on AdPro’s network. Veeam’s software would tell the server and all the devices how often to copy and save the company’s data. It would then also send that data to a remote server to be saved.
But let’s back up a bit. We’ve been talking about how Veeam can restore your data, but we haven’t discussed how data is typically lost.
What are the most common causes of data loss?
As we said before, we help prepare businesses for the worst. There are quite a few causes for why your business would need to restore its data, but the three most common are cyber attacks and ransomware, human error, and hardware malfunction. Below is an overview of the most common causes of data loss. However, we cover this topic more in-depth here.
Equipment and Software Malfunction
Despite the plethora of news stories and warranted hype about ransomware, according to Veeam’s 2022 Data Protection Trends Report, the number one cause of data loss is equipment and software malfunction.
Human Error
According to the same report, the second most common cause of data loss is human error. Some examples of human error include when an employee accidentally deletes, overwrites, or corrupts data. It also includes administrative configuration errors.
Cyber Attacks and Ransomware
Finally, the third most common cause of data loss is cybersecurity events. However, although it is not as common as equipment and software malfunction and human error, Veeam’s research shows that cybersecurity events were the most impactful, meaning they cost companies more time and money. Speaking of ransomware…
3 Reasons Veeam is the best software for ransomware protection
- Veeam’s digital “air-gap” feature protects backups from being permanently damaged by new variants of ransomware.
- Veeam’s software allows you to test backups in a “sandbox” environment to ensure they are ransomware-free before restoring those backups.
- Veeam provides the fastest restore from a backup or replication to ensure your business is up and running again as quickly as possible after a cyber attack.
What’s the process for signing up for Veeam?
1. Find a Veeam ProPartner
Veeam does not sell software licenses directly to customers, nor does it provide the setup and management services. Therefore, the first step to signing up with Veeam is to find a Veeam ProPartner, like Prodatix. There are three different levels of ProPartners. You can read more about them below.
2. Discovery
Working with your ProPartner, you’ll discuss your business’s data backup and protection needs. You’ll explore which specific services your business requires. At Prodatix, we work to thoroughly understand your business’s technological needs as well as what hardware you currently have, which allows us to understand the full picture or what it will take to protect your data. We set up a video call with clients and actually log into their servers so we can make sure things are set up.
3. Determine Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
After we’ve understood your environment, now it’s time to determine your recovery time objective (RTO). RTO is how long your business can be down after a disaster. Essentially, how quickly do you want to be back up and running after data loss? This will help us better understand exactly what services are required to accomplish your RTO.
4. Licensing Discussion
Next, it’s time to figure out how many licenses your business and RTO require. In addition to your RTO, this will be determined by how many employees you have.
5. Implementation
At this point, it’s time for implementation. Exactly how Veeam is implemented will vary by customer. For some customers, all they’ll need are licenses. These customers are not typical, as they tend to work in IT or data management. The majority of customers will need a Veeam expert to set up the software properly to make sure it works as effectively and as efficiently as possible.
6. Ongoing Management
Once Veeam’s software has been implemented, someone needs to continue to manage it. A lot of companies, even with a dedicated IT person, realize that they are too busy to manage the complexities of data backup on an ongoing basis. However, in order to ensure your data is protected, it’s crucial a qualified and experienced professional is managing your data backup and protection.
What does it mean to be a Veaam ProPartner?
As we mentioned above, all Veeam products are sold through authorized partners. An authorized partner of Veeam is a ProPartner. There are two programs, the Veeam Cloud Service Provider program (VMCSP) and the Veeam Value-Added Reseller VMVR program and they each have four levels of partner, registered, silver, gold, and platinum.
What is a Veeam Value-Added Reseller Registered Partner?
A registered Veeam Partner is the lowest level of partner. It’s fairly easy for a company to become a registered partner. The main requirement is that a company enrolls on the Veeam ProPartner portal.
What is a Veeam Registered Cloud & Service Provider Partner?
A registered Veeam Partner is the lowest level of Cloud and Service Provider. It’s fairly easy for a company to become a registered partner. The main requirement is that a company enrolls on the Veeam ProPartner portal.
What is a Veeam Value-Added Reseller Silver Partner?
Silver Veeam Value-Added Reseller is the second level of membership in the Veeam Value-Added Reseller program. Partners at this level are authorized to sell Veeam products and have sufficient knowledge to do so.
- Has at least one Veeam Sales Professional (VMSP) on staff
- Has at least one Veeam Technical Sales Professional (VMSTP) on staff
What is a Veeam Sales Professional (VMSP)?
An individual who understands the value proposition and general capabilities of Veeam products. An individual is awarded the VMSP designation following successful completion of a VMSP course and certification exam.
What is a Veeam Technical Sales Professional (VMTSP)?
An individual who understands Veeam products and is able to provide an overview of how they operate. An individual is awarded the VMSTP designation following successful completion of an online VMSTP course and exam.
What is a Veeam Cloud & Service Provider Silver Partner?
Silver Veeam Cloud and Service Provider (VCSP) is the second level of membership in the VCSP program. Partners at this level are authorized to incorporate Veeam products into their solutions and have sufficient knowledge to do so.
- Protects or manages at least one customer machine with Veeam
- Has one Veeam Technical Sales Professional on staff
What is a Veeam Value-Added Reseller Gold Partner?
Gold Veeam Value-Added Reseller is a company with a long history of relations with Veeam that has demonstrated proficient knowledge of Veeam products and confidence in the ability to deliver flexible and reliable solutions.
- Has at least two VMSPs on staff
- Has at least two VMTSPs on staff
- Has at least one Veeam Certified Engineer on staff
What is a Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE)?
An individual who possesses the necessary level of expertise to correctly implement and configure Veeam solutions. An individual is awarded the VMCE designation following successful completion of a VMCE course and certification exam.
What is a Veeam Value-Added Platinum Partner?
Platinum Veeam Cloud & Service Provider (VCSP) is the highest level of membership in the VCSP program. A Platinum VCSP has a proven history of successful installations of Veeam solutions, including complex and custom integrations plus an outstanding level of product and technical expertise with Veeam.
- Has at least four VMSPs on staff
- Has at least four VMTSP on staff
- Has at least two VMCE on staff
Let Prodatix Protect Your Data With Veeam
Prodatix is a Veeam Gold Value-Added Reseller and Gold Cloud and Service Provider partner. We help you achieve Data Peace of Mind (PoM). If you have questions about your business’s data backup and protection, give us a call (tel: 623-266-4190) or contact us online.
