Server backup options

[Meresgi]

So I need to look into some backup options for the MSP I work for. We looked at Acronis but it's a pretty hefty fee (600 bucks). We need a solution to back up our client's servers in case of a horrible issue to get them up and running pretty quick. For the most part all of our clients are running VM servers on ESXI. We want to backup their server's complete image to our server so we have it on hand to easily get them back up. Anyone know of any decent solutions?

[Pikarya]

http://www.veeam.com/

Also Acronis is suicide, avoid.

[xopher]

Yeah fuck acronis. At the MSP I used to work at we used Storagecraft and it was probably the absolute best managed backup solution I've ever seen. It was for physical boxes though. Veeam is probably your best VM backup solution.

[Ratatapa]

Building a Bacula solution at work atm

It's hard a first, but really flexible

[Niya]

Another vote for Veeam. One of our Customers uses it for their ESXi cluster, and it runs so good and fast(!) i'm surprised every time i check the logs... xD The only drawback that i know of is that Veeam can't handle tape drives or similar, so you're better off letting it write to a local/network disk and back that up separately.
For non-VM backup we mainly use CA Arcserve Backup, though i'm not THAT fond of it. Can be a bit bitchy at times, especially with Exchange 2007+ backup.

[Meresgi]

Awesome thanks guys for the info, gonna check out Veeam and see how it will work for us.

Looking at their licenses it seems good for a place with 1 main ESXI server, but we have multiple servers at multiple locations running ESXI with maybe only 1-2 virtual machines (Not sure why when we could just virtualize their entire network as a whole)

[Niya]

True, but they probably chose that licensing scheme since VMWare is doing the same thing for the non-free version of ESXi.

[Hellfury]

Adding to the fray. We use Veeam for primary day to day, and dump the Veeam backup folders on massive external HDs locked in a banksafe as a tertiary backup on a regular basis.

(we have few physical servers, but several virtual ones)

[Meresgi]

I'll have to contact Veeam and check up on it, wondering if we could purchase a license and just use the software on 3-4 servers or if it is only allowable to be used on a single physical server.

[Pikarya]

I'll have to contact Veeam and check up on it, wondering if we could purchase a license and just use the software on 3-4 servers or if it is only allowable to be used on a single physical server.

I think.

[Meresgi]

Thank you Pik

[Oreth]

Late to this thread sorry but with such little VMs you might want to look into AppAssure if you havnt already gone with Veeam