Veeam releases free virtualization backup tool for VMware, Hyper-V

If you’ve been involved in server virtualization for any length of time, you’ve probably already come across the “green machine” marketing group from Veeam Software. Recently Veeam kicked off on its website a countdown clock to “something awesome for virtualization lovers.” In this case, they were right. When the clock finally struck zero, Veeam did indeed announce something “awesome” for virtualization administrators: a free product called Veeam Backup Free Edition.

This free backup solution was released alongside (no coincidence) Veeam Backup & Replication 6.1, the company’s latest upgrade to its core VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V business continuity product. In fact, Veeam Backup Free Edition is the same base product, providing a subset of the functionality of its bigger brother. Both the free and full editions use the same download and installer, with functionality being controlled by the presence or absence of a license key.

[ Also on InfoWorld: With virtualization management becoming more important, will Dell pass on the chance to acquire Quest Software? | Read about what VMware’s CTO said about the future of vSphere while at a VMUG meeting in Italy. | Keep up on virtualization by signing up for InfoWorld’s Virtualization newsletter. ]

The free version has no time limit on use, but it is limited in its functionality. Unlike its big brother, Veeam Backup & Replication, the free version has no backup scheduler; no incremental backup capabilities; no application-aware processing; no vPower or Instant VM Recovery; no VM replication, failover or failback capabilities; no PowerShell or scripting capabilities; and it is limited to a single backup server and a single backup proxy server, so there is no support for a distributed architecture.

Whatever you do, don’t let the “no” list above fool you. This free tool provides a powerful set of features that will surely cause it to find its way onto many virtualization administrator tool belts.

Packed within this free tool, Veeam provides a number of really interesting and powerful capabilities.

File Manager

Veeam hit the virtualization scene back in 2006 with a free file management utility called FastSCP, which according to the company has been downloaded by more than 150,000 users. At that time, VMware ESX was a much different animal than today’s GUI-controlled vSphere environment. The free FastSCP tool was therefore created out of necessity as it was very difficult to manage, move and copy large files on the ESX platform. Now, this popular technology has made its way into Veeam Backup Free Edition.

“With Veeam Backup Free Edition the functionality of FastSCP is not gone, it’s still there, we’re just retiring the FastSCP name,” says Doug Hazelman, evangelist and VP of product strategy for Veeam Software.

File Manager provides the user with the ability to browse VM and host files in a familiar Windows Explorer-like graphical interface, to copy VMs and template images between datastores, and to copy files between hosts using Veeam’s FastSCP technology.

Instant File-Level Recovery

Veeam Backup Free Edition comes with a full range of restore capabilities, including Instant File-Level Recovery (IFLR). Not only can you restore the full VM or individual VM files, but you can also look inside the VM and restore individual guest files. Administrators no longer need to restore the entire VM when all they need are a few guest files.

IFLR is available for Windows VMs on VMware and Hyper-V. It also works with other file systems, including popular Linux distributions, for VMs running on VMware.

Quick Migration for VMware

VMware users also get a feature called Quick Migration, which allows for the live migration of a running VM from a backup image to any host or datastore, for users who don’t use clusters or shared storage.

Quick Migration leverages native VMware technology, as well as Veeam technology, to accommodate any migration scenario, including:

• Migrating a VM from a local datastore to shared storage
• Migrating a VM between two separate hosts and datastores

Quick Migration also allows you to easily move a live VM from any source to any destination, even if vMotion and Storage vMotion aren’t available.

VeeamZip

VeeamZip is one of the more interesting new features added, in my opinion. The purpose of VeeamZip is to provide a quick and easy way to make ad hoc backups of running VMware or Hyper-V VMs for operational, archival, or portability purposes. As an example, administrators can now back up a VM before applying patches, create an archive copy of a VM, or copy a VM to a remote test lab without causing downtime because of having to power off the production VM.

Think of this technology as WinZip for your virtual machines.

“[VeeamZip] allows you to quickly and easily ‘Zip’ all the files and settings associated with a VM into a compressed, deduped ‘archive’ file,” says Hazelman. “The file that VeeamZip creates is in our standard .VBK file format. You can now take a 500GB VM and ‘Zip’ it into a single file that will fit on most removable media such as a portable hard drive or even a USB ‘thumb’ drive.”

According to Hazelman, there are a number of different use cases for these compact VM archives. You can:

• Create an ad hoc backup of a VM before making changes to it. You can restore whatever you need from the backup, whether that’s the full VM or individual files.
• Archive a VM before deleting it. VeeamZip removes unnecessary blocks and compresses and deduplicates the rest to create the smallest possible backup. It can write the backup to any storage accessible to your workstation, including a USB stick.
• Copy and take that VM with you. VeeamZip encapsulates all virtual disks and configuration settings for easy transfer of the VM. Backups are completely self-contained, with no dependency on a backup database or catalog.

I’d rather not look a gift horse in the mouth, but if I’m going to be critical of anything in a free tool like this, it would be the fact that it installs the full production or pay version of the product without a license key. That’s great news if I’m planning on upgrading to the full release at some point in time, but if I’m just planning on using the freebie portion of the product, it might be a hassle to have to install a SQL Express database I probably won’t need and create a much larger footprint than is necessary on my machine.H onestly, I think that’s something most virtualization administrators can live with at the end of the day. It is, after all, free.

By taking a freemium approach, Veeam is also getting this technology into the hands of as many VMware and Hyper-V administrators as it can, ensuring that Veeam Backup & Replication is on their radar screens for down-the-line purchasing once they’ve outgrown the free product.

Veeam Backup Free Edition is available now at no cost and with no limitations on the number of hosts or VMs.

If you have additional free tools that you think others would enjoy using, please mention them in the comments section of this article or tweet me so that we can share them with your fellow readers.

This article, “Veeam Software releases free virtualization backup tool for VMware and Hyper-V,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in virtualization and cloud computing at InfoWorld.com.