back to article See that fist punching through the clouds? That's Veeam's, that is

You've got to have sympathy for Veeam's competitors. Ratmir Timashev's storage upstart pulled off another slam dunk quarter to close 2015. As Barracuda looks for a sale, Seagate sells off EVault, and Veritas flails helplessly, Veeam rockets on, telling everybody it has: A 22 per cent increase in total bookings revenue to $ …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Puhleeeze

    This has got to be the strongest puff piece I have ever read here. It had to be written by someone at Veeam because I refuse to believe that someone at the reg would be this gonzo. By the end of 2018 Veeam will be flailing to stay alive, just like the others mentioned. Its the nature of the business. They are peaking and will start their decline because they are a one trick pony. The reality is most of their products won't be necessary for Microsoft environments in the very near future. I also have no trust in the numbers from a private company that shouts about their numbers like this - there is zero accountability and those that shout the loudest about their financial success, don't actually have it, imo.

    https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=VEEAM+FInancials

    Queue the Veeam social police to slap me down ....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Puhleeeze

      The thing is, I couldn't care less whether Veeam had "22 per cent increase in total bookings revenue to $474m in fiscal 2015 compared to fiscal 2014".

      Likewise, I don't go and see blockbusters that scored a billion dollars because of their financials.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Puhleeeze

      ROFL, you Veritas Stooge!

      I've been using Veeam for a few months and the GUI is a little clunky right now and it's a little hard to find all the options you are looking for at first. But, they are all there and it's doing so much better than my old BEX system.

      I think you're mistaken though, Veeam appears to be getting stronger not weaker. As long as they don't sell it to "Some Antics" I think they'll do well.

      But who the hell am I? Right?

  2. Rainer

    Hate it anyway

    At least the version we have can't really do single file restores from within the server itself.

    Backup-Software usually does that.

    VMAdmins have to create a clone of the VM, we boot it with disabled NICs, give it another IP, enter the VM, pick the files, tar them up, copy them somewhere else and move them over to the actual server.

    Always a big f'ing circus...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Re: Hate it anyway

      Admittedly I'm on HyperV not VMware but AIUI that means I have identical functionality to you but I have the bonus of added fragility, not Veeam's fault. Anyway: restoring single files is *trivially easy* and speedy with v8, from 8x VMs, 6TB total filestores. Digging out individual e-mails from Exchange ditto. This without even using the Enterprise Manager features which make stuff even easier. Bare-metal server and PC OS disk restores ditto - the free endpoint backup is an excellent bonus. I speak as a long-standing BackupExec sufferer (with no link to Veeam other than as a user).

      I am certain that if you reach out to the Veeam forum you'll get the help you need, and will reform your view of Veeam. Good luck.

      Just last week I reported a problem at 11:30pm, got a callback on my mobile within the hour, problem solved and useful additional advice received by 1am. This all on a two-server installation - not a big-bucks corporate setup.

      Best software and support I've come across in 30 years.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hate it anyway

      Dude, you're not using it right then. I've got mine doing crazy stuff.

      Flat file backups, no problem.

      Full VM backups, done.

      Test the VM (even log into it in the Virtual lab and retrieve files), yup did that.

      Backup DB using client aware VSS functions, yup, didn't bust my DB.

      The biggest complaint I've got right now (and we're using v8 not v9) is that if you thick provision your VMs it wants to read the entire volume and not just the used space. Apparently, if you thin provision them this doesn't happen. Also, deleted space inside your VMs gets written to the backup unless you zero them out with sdelete or some other utility, and that's because Veeam uses a block level backup and is totally unaware of whether the data is active or deleted garbage (again, sdelete seems to resolve this).

      If you can't get yours to do backflips and other tricks, you need to come hang out on the forum. Lots of people doing crazy stuff with it in there.

      j/s...

      1. rmason

        Re: Hate it anyway

        Agreed, they're either on the basic version, or using it wrong.

        We almost exclusively use Veeam enterprise, Can't restore single files? You can make it restore single emails should you wish, single files are no problem, neither are whole VM tests, it can mount and display mailboxes directly from the backup, allowing you to read them, restore, move or even just forward them on to yourself/anyone.

        It's a very powerful tool.

    3. Boman

      Re: Hate it anyway

      I have to "protest" against Your claims. Why don't You contact Veeam support? Veeam does all kinds of restore from single image-based backup You can dream of. Single file restore was available since version 1.0 in 2008.

      I work for Veeam and I'm ready to assist Your VMAdmins if they have any issue with our solution.

      1. Rainer

        Re: Hate it anyway

        Can it restore single files out of a Linux XFS LVM?

        What about a FreeBSD UFS2 filesystem?

        ZFS?

        Windows is of no interest to me.

        Looking at this:

        https://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/vsphere/guest_restore_linux.html

        it seems this somehow works via the host-guest filesystem?

        Note that I don't have access to the Veeam GUI, nor have the VEEAM admins any password for our VMs.

        Previously, our VM-admins told us that what I described was the only way to restore data.

        I don't know what version they are running.

        Note: they may be incompetent.

        1. Gostev

          Re: Hate it anyway

          Yes, all of these file systems are supported. For the full list of supported file systems (19 if I remember correctly), see System Requirements > https://www.veeam.com/veeam_backup_9_0_release_notes_en_rn.pdf

          You don't need access to Veeam management GUI to perform file level recovery, as there is also a dedicated web portal where you can delegate required people to perform file level recoveries.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The obvious elephant in the room here is that the only non public cloud stuff which will need backing up and replicating will very soon be physical boxes which Veeam still won't support. All the stuff in the public cloud won't need third party backup for much longer.

    Don't get me wrong, Veeam make some smashing software and I'm a fan. They are extremely focussed though and will need to diversify to survive, and that diversification will have to be into areas which are harder than they are used to, and which are the reason legacy backup is hated because they add complexity and ruin the slick easy interface.

    1. K

      Your assuming public cloud will overtake onsite infrastructure.. If you have any experience of SME infrastructure or networking, you'd know that this will never happen. Available bandwidth, latency and security concerns basically make this impossible.

      1. Lusty

        You don't know anything about the cloud then K. I can assure you all of those are solved problems for the majority of use-cases. It also has the advantage that people who assume rather than learn won't be in a position to obstruct those SMEs any more which is the biggest selling point to management right now - getting rid of those negative nerds that keep saying things are expensive/impossible/complicated. They will do this with or without you so I suggest you skill up before they get the credit card out and bypass you.

        1. K

          Lusty, Your right cloud does have some advantages.. but also a lot disadvantages, if that makes me negative, then I'll take that badge with pride - Us negative nerds as act as a counter-balance too morons like you.

  4. MasterofDisaster

    Why no consolidation?

    At last glance it seemed like there were >200 backup and disaster recovery companies out there, with a lot of them startups. Why isn't Veeam scooping them up and consolidating the market?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why no consolidation?

      I'd reverse that question: "Why should/would Veeam buy any other backup & disaster recovery company out there." If the numbers they announced are correct, why do something different until you have to diversify out of your niche?" Personally, given the current situation, there's going to be a whole lot of fail, and since there are so many, how do you make sure that whichever victim you chose, it's a good bet. Even the established players are nervous. Time to watch and wait I'd say. Probably Chris Mellor would agree as well but I can't speak for him.

    2. Calleb III

      Re: Why no consolidation?

      The only one doing consolidation is the huge publicly owned enterprises that had long ago lost their internal drive for innovation. Solely relying on a string of accusations, buying and gutting start-ups in order to get some fresh blood in their portfolios, often burying the new superior products in favour of their old crap.

      Veeam products are above average if not excellent, and my personal experience with them and their support has been great, glad to hear people are realising this and cutting ties with the dinosaurs in the industry that rely on old glory, and massive long running enterprise agreements to survive.

      Anyone thinking that public cloud will be the dominant form of infrastructure in the near future must be barking. And many private clouds and IaaS, PaaS clouds (other than AWS/Azure) are relying on products like Veeam, being more economical than bespoke in house solution.

  5. vmdoug

    Time will tell...

    *I work for Veeam*

    The comments so far are pretty funny to me. I can understand people not trusting our financials because we're not a public company and we don't have an inflated valuation because we've never taken VC money. We only started last year to disclose our total $ bookings, we're under no requirement to do this but feel it helps add credibility to our announcements instead of just a % growth.

    We're all in a very dynamic environment where things are changing rapidly. People said 6 years ago that we had no chance of survival...I'm glad we're proved them wrong. We have a solid strategy for moving forward, I'm confident we'll still be around 6 years from now and continuing to grow.

    -doug

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Time will tell...

      I agree Doug. I really hope we're both right too, because I've put all my eggs in Veeams' basket (lol). We're setting up a DR site next and we'll probably use Veeam replication to keep it in sync with our production enviroment here. So you guys better keep up the pace and not let me down!

      Plus, I won your Holiday giveaway last month and next year I want to win the big prize so keep making that $ and scooping up customers! I've been recommending it to all my sysop buddies because it seems like with Veritas being tossed around, everyone's been looking for an alternative.

      V FTW!

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