For a good part of the last 18 months of my previous role as Lead Architect at a leading Veeam Cloud & Service Provider (VCSP) partner I was involved in a project to try and come up with an easy way for our clients to perform in-guest backups of their IaaS virtual machines. At that time it involved clumsy and complex methods of performing file-level or application-aware backups to an external location. Not only were those methods problematic, they often led customers to consuming storage that wasn’t part of our own service offerings.
There had to be a better way to build out that new service offering in such a way that we could give our clients a more streamlined approach to offsite backups that also generated income for us in the form of clients using our own storage as targets for the offsite backups to be stored in. At the time, I knew about Veeam Endpoint Backup but it did not have an option to back up externally unless we exposed our Veeam Backup & Replication server over the internet, which in many ways defeated the requirement of the project for simplicity in the service offering.
Cloud Connect comes through again!
NEW Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows 2.0 has the ability to back up directly to Veeam Cloud Connect repositories without any additional investments from the VCSP. It just works as part of any existing Cloud Connect Backup infrastructure built on Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 2. As we did with Cloud Connect Backup and then Cloud Connect Replication in resolving the complexity around getting virtual machine backups, backup copy jobs and replicas up into a cloud platform, we have now resolved the complexity of getting physical servers and workstations as well as cloud-based Windows instances into cloud environments operated by our VCSP partners.
The Availability challenge
As mentioned, there exists a challenge in being able to provide robust backup for physical servers and workstations that cannot be virtualized due to complex hardware configurations or regulatory compliance regulations. There is also a challenge in being able to provide low RPOs for users on workstations, laptops and tablets whether in corporate, remote or home offices and there is also a big challenge around being able to back up and recover Windows instances that reside in public cloud environments as well as those workloads that sit on alternative hypervisors to VMware and Hyper-V.
The agent solution
Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows solves all those challenges listed above and would have certainly been the answer to the project in my previous role. All VCSPs running Cloud Connect can now extend their Backup as a Service (BaaS) offerings with the capabilities provided by Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows in a combination with Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 2.
VCSPs can now offer their partners and clients Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows licensing through the VCSP program and also provide new and existing tenants with the ability to create sub-tenants and consume storage using Cloud Connect repositories as the offsite backup target. With Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows allowing to back up directly to Cloud Connect repositories, we have opened the way to back up offsite physical servers, workstations and endpoints as well as workloads running in Azure, AWS or any other public cloud.
The VCSP agent opportunity
Let this opportunity sink in – the ability to offer offsite backup services beyond virtual machines sitting on VMware or Hyper-V to both on-premises and remote offices, physical workloads as well as workloads residing in public clouds. The physical market opportunity is truly open for business by Veeam with the release of Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and VCSPs should be, if not already, looking to this new Veeam Agent offering to deliver value to customers and increase adoption of Cloud Connect Backup services.
With over one million downloads of Veeam Endpoint Backup, we are already seeing a great number of users upgrading to Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows 2.0. With all the Veeam Endpoint Backup users upgrading to the newer version, imagine one million endpoints, which you as a VSCP can help to protect by backing up offsite to a Cloud Connect repository… think about that!
So, if you are a VCSP looking for new opportunities to offer your customers backup services around physical servers, workstations and Windows-based cloud workloads, don’t wait! Make sure you look at Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows 2.0 and get in position to offer your partners and clients service offerings that take advantage of Veeam’s enhanced features for VCSPs in Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 2.