Read the full series:
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Ch.1 – Architecture & Requirements |
Ch.9 – Volume recovery |
Most of you know our Veeam Availability Suite solution and how that suite works. Others might be more familiar with the Veeam Management Pack for System Center. With the release of Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE there is a complete new solution in the Veeam family. In a new series of posts, I am going to highlight a few items of this solution, starting with the architecture today.
Veeam Endpoint Backup Free is a stand-alone solution. This is completely different from our other solutions and therefore does not require a dedicated server, management suite or something else. It is a windows-based tool that can be installed on any computer that matches the prerequisites.
You install Veeam Endpoint Backup Free on the computer that you want to protect. This solution has a service-based architecture. When you install the solution, the following three major components are deployed on the computer:
- Veeam Endpoint Service
- Veeam Endpoint System Tray Application
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012 LocalDB
Veeam Endpoint Service
The Veeam Endpoint Service is a Microsoft Windows Service that is responsible for performing the backup and restore tasks on the endpoint. It is started automatically and runs continuously in the background to execute your backups on desired schedule.
Veeam Endpoint System Tray Application
Veeam Endpoint System Tray Service is a tray application that communicates with the Veeam Endpoint service to let you monitor the backup status and gives you the possibility to quickly execute tasks such as performing backup, restores and going to the control panel of the solution.
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 LocalDB
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 LocalDB is a light-weight database that, unlike its “big brother” requires the minimum amount of system resources to run. LocalDB is a Microsoft equivalent of SQLite, which is commonly used to store transactional data for things like web browsers or other end user software. The only difference is that SQLite is usually embedded and runs within the application process, so people don’t even notice it – whereas LocalDB is executed as a sub-process that is launched by the Veeam Endpoint Service. Veeam Endpoint Backup Free uses the LocalDB database to store its configuration data.
As stated, LocalDB is a very light-weight database and uses little resources during your daily work. When Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE is idle, the cost of resources for both the database and the solution itself are little to nothing.
And in the screenshot below you can see the amount of resources consumed while Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE is performing a backup.
System Requirements
Veeam Endpoint Backup Free can be installed on any computer that meets the minimum system requirements for the following supported Microsoft Windows operating systems:
- Microsoft Windows 7 SP1
- Microsoft Windows 8.x
- Microsoft Windows 10
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
Integration into Backup & Replication
Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE can (optionally) be integrated into Veeam Backup & Replication v8 (requires update 2). Thanks to this integration, you use backup repositories managed by Veeam Backup & Replication as an additional backup target, with backup repository availability to end users controlled by a flexible permission system.
When you want to configure Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE to use a Veeam Backup & Replication repository as a backup target, you will connect to your Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure by registering a Veeam backup server – but your backup data will go directly to the repository, bypassing the backup server.
That is all you need to know about the integration in regards to the architecture. We will dive much deeper into actual integration, and additional functionality it enables, in the dedicated blog post later in this series.
Conclusion
Veeam Endpoint Backup Free doesn’t require a lot to be able to run, and its architecture is rather simple. After downloading, it only takes a few clicks and couple of minutes to install the solution and configure the free protection for your endpoint.
For more information, watch the video.
Read the next chapter:
- Ch.2 – Creating recovery media