Backup Exec replacement? (on site only)
Posted by Kwinza@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 66 comments
Since BE is now dead I was wondering what everyone plans on migrating to?
We have 500tb of data and 20tb of VM's (40 VM's) so Veeam isn't an option as they charge WAAAAY more than BE did.
Any suggestions will be invaluable.
SudoZenWizz@reddit
500TB of data is for NAS area(Object storage, NAS or file shares)? for VMs you need 40VUL and for 500TB for NAS means 1000VUL ( 1 vul covers 500GB of NAS/File shares). If this 500TB is based on linux/windows servers, and you backup the VM then you should have VUL for the VMs and not for data.
Kwinza@reddit (OP)
All on NAS's :(
SudoZenWizz@reddit
Veeam is horrible for this with pricing. What can be tested is: mount the nas data on a server, use VAL and backup the mount point. After this check in licensing of vbr what is consumed. You can do this in a “trial” env with lower data volume.
chickibumbum_byomde@reddit
If Veeam is too expensive, you’re basically choosing between cheaper tools with more diy stuff (like Proxmox Backup Server or Bacula) or midtier options like Nakivo or BDRSuite that are easier but deffo more affordable.
With that data size, just be careful not to optimize too much for cost, backups are only “cheap” until you actually need to restore and it will bite back, if going with that route, most definitely tighten the monitoring, particularly usages, backup processes, and set thresholds, configure timeperiods for the notifications, and you'll be fine.
LuckyWillingness2301@reddit
DM me, I'd like to get some more details and see if I can supply what you need.
St0nywall@reddit
Your choices for inexpensive but reliable are Veeam or Datto.
Neither are inexpensive anymore though but they are where you are in price point.
AnythingGuilty5411@reddit
I’d rather do Unitrends than Datto if you’re going that route. But yes, agreed.
No_Yesterday_3260@reddit
Are you thinking about the Datto NAS? Yeh, don't do that, you're completely reliant on their support.
Maybe it changed over the past 4'ish years, but I wasn't able to pull a list of failing files, had to contact support and even with them it was a FIGHT to get it ,so I could fix it - I would not suggest it, if it's Datto NAS.
redwing88@reddit
Whoever gave you that quote is very wrong. It is not $40,000 or near close to that.
If you providing the storage for backups You have 40 VMs It’ll be around $3568 USD per year approx. There is no storage backup limitation on the license UNLESS you’re backing up file shares from a NAS.
My MSP is a Veeam partner we can provide a detailed quote.
40 VMs = 40 licenses = 8 packs of 5. At MSRP, that is 40 × $89.20 = $3,568 USD/year
We run 100+ VM Veeam environments for our clients it’s no where near the cost there giving you.
Kwinza@reddit (OP)
Why is everyone saying this BS while completely ignoring THE 500 TB OF DATA!!??!?
They charge for 1 license for every 500gb of unstructured data.
WendoNZ@reddit
While that's the published cost, they do discount it heavily for larger amounts of data. If you haven't already it may be worth working with someone to get an actual quote (assuming you haven't already).
In saying that, I wouldn't be using Veeam to backup unstructured data the same way I wouldn't use it to backup Entra (where it's 1 VUL per 10 users). It just doesn't make financial sense to price to like that (or pay for that pricing structure).
redwing88@reddit
See this comment. You didn’t provide appropriate context of your data in your post. It would be more cost efficient to shift the data into a VM model as the cost savings are astronomical.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/s/y6ODsntIYw
scytob@reddit
because most reddit users want to tell you are wrong rather than help
bagaudin@reddit
You can consider our Acronis Cyber Protect among other options. Per-virtual host licenses are readily available, local storage is included and will most likely cost less, especially if you only need a standard license, do multi-year, make use of an migration offer of 1st year %50 discount.
AnythingGuilty5411@reddit
Commvault or Rubrik for your big data. Rubrik is more expensive but their whole target is to protect you not just backups. Both have advantages.. I sell them both so if you need an architecture plan, I’m happy to help.
CantThinkOfAUserNahm@reddit
Do you have experience with Rubriks DR product? If so, what are your thoughts - any good?
AnythingGuilty5411@reddit
Why don’t you just get veeam and use object first storage and sit all of that data on immutability and then ship some monthly’s offsite? You’ll save yourself a ton of money with a quality product.
CantThinkOfAUserNahm@reddit
Uhh - replied to the wrong thread or…?
AnythingGuilty5411@reddit
You got it 🙃
CP_Money@reddit
Given that I got a $50k quote for the smallest Rubrik appliance I doubt that's in his budget
CantThinkOfAUserNahm@reddit
Did you move forward with Rubrik?
CP_Money@reddit
No, I’m only paying like $5k a year for my Unitrends appliance and while it’s not perfect, Rubrik isn’t worth $45k more to me
SpotlessCheetah@reddit
We use Rubrik. There's an on-site appliance..cloud controlled but there's an internal site for the cluster.
Dell Power Protect is another appliance based option with flexibility.
Just remember..when you get quotes right now for new systems the pricing is going to be crazy due to the demand. Which is stratospheric.
CantThinkOfAUserNahm@reddit
How do you find Rubrik?
Omish_lord@reddit
Is BE really dead or did it just change hands again? Will the new company continue support and dev?
Kwinza@reddit (OP)
No its dead.
Sales/renewals ended march this year. Support ends 2029.
Stonewalled9999@reddit
so you can use it till 2029, you have 2 years to decide then?
Kwinza@reddit (OP)
My license ends in a few months.
Stonewalled9999@reddit
Does it die post license or it runs you just don’t get support and updates ?
shikkonin@reddit
Do you happen to have a link for that?
Kwinza@reddit (OP)
It's literally on their website....
shikkonin@reddit
All I can find is advertisements for the product and "get the 60 day trial"
dolsey01@reddit
We use Arcserve UDP. It was the only thing affordable that we could find that supported our Hyper-V Cluster and fileservers and our tape libraries. Our first year cost was less than 40K and then the usual software maintenance yearly of around 18-20%. I wanted Veeam but could not afford it. We have had ArcServe Backup for probably 15 years so it was just more of the same.
CyberHouseChicago@reddit
Comet you pay per vm or server nothing for using your own storage you can run a management vm yourself also.
Will come out to around $10 per server per month.
naugasnake@reddit
OP did leave a bit of information in the post a little vague, and this is an area where being explicit about the environment would be helpful. You say that you have 500tb of data and 40vm's using 20tb. You say that the data is unstructured, but you didn't explain exactly where that data sits. If the 500tb of data is sitting inside a VM...you're not going to have to pay the per 500gb license fee, and your Veeam license costs plummet dramatically. If the data sits on a NAS, then yeah, thats a problem and the $40k fee is correct. This almost feels like one of those situations where just simply shifting the data around (instead of putting it on a nas, move it to a VM?) could save tens of thousands of dollars annually, but thats a question OP would have to answer. 500tb is a lot of data, and Im guessing given the budgetary concerns, they dont have a spare 500tb worth of storage just laying around to shift things around. That said, it seems like your only real alternatives might be Bacula (an open source product), Comet or Barracuda enterprise. SO, OP, it would have reduced confusion for people chiming in here to know how/where that 500tb of unstructured data is stored in your environment, as that can have a big impact on what you can and cannot get in terms of licensing here. Mot people make the same mistakes that are being made here, because the little details here matter a lot.
disposeable1200@reddit
40 VMs is only £3k ?
Where is the 40k price tag coming from
https://www.veeam.com/solutions/small-business/pricing-calculator.html
scytob@reddit
did you try putting in 500TB of NAS data before you decided to link to that......
Not mention it confirms what the OP said....
r/confidentlyincorrect
Kwinza@reddit (OP)
price per tb for the data.
Sweet-Sale-7303@reddit
What NAS are you using? If it is one of the supported ones that can have an agent installed it uses 1 VUL I believe.
Sweet-Sale-7303@reddit
Veeam changed their licensing to VUL. If you backup a NAS share 1 VUL is equal to 500 gigabytes. So 1 terabyte is 2 VUL licenses. So, 500 Terabytes is 1000 VUL licenses.
Stonewalled9999@reddit
per TB cost IIRC
disposeable1200@reddit
Only if you buy their storage? And that's never cheap
OP says on prem backup exec so surely they've got storage?
I've never looked at how many TB we have for our stuff
xxbiohazrdxx@reddit
Unstructured data/NAS backups are in fact licensed on storage consumption. With you providing the storage
hellcat_uk@reddit
Yeah hardly comparing apples with apples if the BE was only 3k/y, but that cost didn't include the cost of half a PB of storage for backup files.
Horsemeatburger@reddit
Have a look at Nakivo, I believe they only charge per TB for dedicated NAS devices, not for servers (including file servers).
They also still offer perpetual licenses.
leadout_kv@reddit
you might want to reword what you said. be is not dead. v25.0 is supported through 4/2029. is it a good time to start migrating to a new solution? sure. but its not dead yet.
Kwinza@reddit (OP)
Its effectively dead because you can't buy a renewal. So unless you licensed for 4 years in March, its dead.
We were on a 1 year that ends now. So dead. very very dead.
Nandulal@reddit
so like ex exec
al2cane@reddit
Hard to put a price on sleeping easier. Don’t cheap out on backups, it’s rarely worth it.
Maybe check if commvault is still around?
Kwinza@reddit (OP)
I don't decide our budgets. BE was £3,000/y Veeam for the same would be nearly £40,000/y. There is 0 chance I get that kind of increase passed the board.
Sweet-Sale-7303@reddit
Your pricing is wrong. If your providing the backup storage and not using cloud connect it should be much cheaper for veeam. You need to get a new veeam quote. Make sure to tell them your hosting the backups yourself.
xxbiohazrdxx@reddit
Non vm backups are licensed on storage consumption. One VUL per 500GB
Sweet-Sale-7303@reddit
really? That is not what I am getting charged. Isn't it per instance?
xxbiohazrdxx@reddit
Are you backing up a NAS? I shouldn't have said 'non-VM', the defining characteristic is if you can install the agent. If its a physical server that can run the agent, or a VM, it can be 1GB or 100TB and it'll only consume 1 VUL.
Unstructured NAS data consumes one VUL per 500GB, and it used to be 250GB. It's insane and I refuse to pay it.
Stonewalled9999@reddit
Also IIRC every TB you write to tape is a VUL (I know OP did not mention that but tape for cold backups are still pretty common)
al2cane@reddit
“It’s only our backups” 🤷♂️ I assume you own the storage yourself? 40K for 40 VMs seems a bit excessive
Kwinza@reddit (OP)
You ignoring the 500tb's of data? Thats the bulk of the Veeam cost.
al2cane@reddit
If you’ve got the storage yourself, you could offload to azure/aws/backblaze or somewhere.
Kwinza@reddit (OP)
We already own the storage, it costs 0/y now.
We are a no cloud company for reasons I can't discuss here.
al2cane@reddit
If you have the storage, then there’s something very amiss with the 40k quote.
xxbiohazrdxx@reddit
Veeam licenses unstructured data per 500GB. So he would need 800 licenses. So yeah about 40k
Excellent_Pilot_2969@reddit
Yes, BackupChain. Doesn't support tape, however. So we finally left tape behind as well....
theoriginalharbinger@reddit
"500tb of data"
What kind of data? Unstructured? SQL? Exchange? Oracle?
Lots of people will back that up - Unitrends, Veeam, Dell, Rubrik. But it's all going to be $$ for functionality you probably don't need if it's just filesystem data and you just need the files (not the permissions or access logs). Different licensing by vendor according to deduplication ratio and retention periods as well, and what the data access layer looks like (S3? proprietary? file system or SMB?).
Your first stop should be categorizing it, then analyzing how well it would dedupe and figuring out what the total size on disk would be for the retention period and dedupe ratio you expect, and then call around to a few vendors.
prodders152@reddit
40k is still cheaper than crap / non existent backups when required and the company going tits up...
good luck! hopefully you'll find something or they'll see sense.. but understand it's hard after being cheap for so long
Main_Ambassador_4985@reddit
Does it have to be one solution?
We went a few years without good backup because of pricing.
Unluckily a partner company was ransomed. They were down for 8+ weeks just to get email up. Not a small company. 50-100x our size company.
All of the sudden we had a budget for backups.
Bring up some studies about recovering from ransom, hardware failure, and software upgrades.
We snapshot 65TB unstructured data outside Veeam using the NAS’s built-in object storage tools and dedupe replication for about 150 ExB snapshots hydrated.
We only use Veeam for VMs and it has saved us from upgrade corruption multiple times in just a few months.
msalerno1965@reddit
Did you ask Cohesity/Veritas about moving to NetBackup?