Solved Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.
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I would not buy Veeam for backup as my first choice for Hyper-V if you have less than 1TB of data to backup though.
Well assuming that Unitrends still offers 1TB for free.
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@JaredBusch said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@openit said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@JaredBusch said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
Why are you all over complicating things with extra software.
If he is going to use Hyper-V , then you only need Hyper-V.Server A: Running all the virtual workloads and replicating to Server B with native Hyper-V Replication.
Server B: Receiving the replication. All servers always powered off unless you are going to buy extra Microsoft licensing.
Hyper-V Clustering, not needed.
Nothing against Starwind, but this is completely overcomplicating things for a such a simple scenario.
I agree with you about using Hyper-v inbuilt replica will make things clear.
But when I seen Veeam B&R replication software, which was in budget price, thought to have a look how commercial product benefiting me.
I have never tried Hyper-V replication. And no idea how easier/harder it is. So I thought paid/commercial software will make my things easier and give peace of mind than free one (sometimes)
I would use Veeam over Hyper-V if you have it purchased because of the notifications if nothing else. You also get more control on how many replicas to keep and such.
That's exactly I was looking, easier and more featured.
How about you said "increasing complexity" ?
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@JaredBusch said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
I would not buy Veeam for backup as my first choice for Hyper-V if you have less than 1TB of data to backup though.
Well assuming that Unitrends still offers 1TB for free.
Yeah, I am aware of free 1TB by unitrends.
Well, we are not eligible for that
as we have more than that data. -
@openit said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@JaredBusch said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@openit said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@JaredBusch said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
Why are you all over complicating things with extra software.
If he is going to use Hyper-V , then you only need Hyper-V.Server A: Running all the virtual workloads and replicating to Server B with native Hyper-V Replication.
Server B: Receiving the replication. All servers always powered off unless you are going to buy extra Microsoft licensing.
Hyper-V Clustering, not needed.
Nothing against Starwind, but this is completely overcomplicating things for a such a simple scenario.
I agree with you about using Hyper-v inbuilt replica will make things clear.
But when I seen Veeam B&R replication software, which was in budget price, thought to have a look how commercial product benefiting me.
I have never tried Hyper-V replication. And no idea how easier/harder it is. So I thought paid/commercial software will make my things easier and give peace of mind than free one (sometimes)
I would use Veeam over Hyper-V if you have it purchased because of the notifications if nothing else. You also get more control on how many replicas to keep and such.
That's exactly I was looking, easier and more featured.
How about you said "increasing complexity" ?
You hare adding pieces. By definition, that is adding complexity. You now have to update Veeam in addition to Hyper-V. Veeam installs components on the Hyper-V servers, so there is a new fail point. I have never seen this fail, but it certainly can happen.
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@openit said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@JaredBusch said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
I would not buy Veeam for backup as my first choice for Hyper-V if you have less than 1TB of data to backup though.
Well assuming that Unitrends still offers 1TB for free.
Yeah, I am aware of free 1TB by unitrends.
Well, we are not eligible for that
as we have more than that data.That you checked is great.
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For a "simple" (aka with less moving parts, less complexity) BackUp & Replication product, I would take a good hard look at http://www.altaro.com/vm-backup/
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@JaredBusch said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@openit said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@JaredBusch said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@openit said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@JaredBusch said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
Why are you all over complicating things with extra software.
If he is going to use Hyper-V , then you only need Hyper-V.Server A: Running all the virtual workloads and replicating to Server B with native Hyper-V Replication.
Server B: Receiving the replication. All servers always powered off unless you are going to buy extra Microsoft licensing.
Hyper-V Clustering, not needed.
Nothing against Starwind, but this is completely overcomplicating things for a such a simple scenario.
I agree with you about using Hyper-v inbuilt replica will make things clear.
But when I seen Veeam B&R replication software, which was in budget price, thought to have a look how commercial product benefiting me.
I have never tried Hyper-V replication. And no idea how easier/harder it is. So I thought paid/commercial software will make my things easier and give peace of mind than free one (sometimes)
I would use Veeam over Hyper-V if you have it purchased because of the notifications if nothing else. You also get more control on how many replicas to keep and such.
That's exactly I was looking, easier and more featured.
How about you said "increasing complexity" ?
You hare adding pieces. By definition, that is adding complexity. You now have to update Veeam in addition to Hyper-V. Veeam installs components on the Hyper-V servers, so there is a new fail point. I have never seen this fail, but it certainly can happen.
I see.
What if I planned to get Veeam for VMs Backup on Hyper-V. So, Veeam is already installed for Backup purpose, what if I use if for Replication also
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I'm still stuck scratching my head wondering why we need HA, Veeam, Starwind, SANs, etc... just for 1 DC and 1 FileServer???
I haven't seen anything else mentioned.
First, you don't want to replicate DC's. Have two DC's, both virtualized, on different physical servers, non-replicated.
Second, if you only have one other VM (your file server), you don't need anything else besides Windows Server Backup (WSB). There is no reason what so ever WSB can't handle backing up 2 DCs and 1 File Server. Three servers I can't see spending thousands on something you can do for free with no additional benefit (in your scenario).
I don't see the point in replicating a file server period. If you need replication for a file server, you can use DFS-R. That's even better.
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What I'm envisioning, is two hypervisors (hosts). HV1 and HV2.
HV1
-- DC1 (virtual machine on HV1)
-- FS1 (virtual machine on HV1)
------ FS1 is your file server with DFSR replicating to FS2.HV2
-- DC2 (virtual machine on HV2)
-- FS2 (virtual machine on HV2)
----- FS2 is a second, separate file server running DFSR with FS1.Windows Server Backup running on both hosts backing up everything if you have the room. May be redundant, but you only NEED to back up one host completely.
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@Tim_G said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
I'm still stuck scratching my head wondering why we need HA, Veeam, Starwind, SANs, etc... just for 1 DC and 1 FileServer???
I haven't seen anything else mentioned.
First, you don't want to replicate DC's. Have two DC's, both virtualized, on different physical servers, non-replicated.
Second, if you only have one other VM (your file server), you don't need anything else besides Windows Server Backup (WSB). There is no reason what so ever WSB can't handle backing up 2 DCs and 1 File Server. Three servers I can't see spending thousands on something you can do for free with no additional benefit (in your scenario).
I don't see the point in replicating a file server period. If you need replication for a file server, you can use DFS-R. That's even better.
All of this is a waste of money, feeding the Microsoft machine.
We are in the modern era now. There are not any issues with replicating a DC. Why buy more licensing and add complexity? The same for file shares. for a small office, why pay for more licensing and add more complexity (DFS is not trivial to the SMB IT staff). Not to mention all the time to spend configuring and maintaining it.
Almost no SMB needs to have AD up so critically that they need multiple domain controllers.
Almost no SMB needs share drive access so critically that they need DFS.
As for HA? The OP is not talking about HA. I think @DustinB3403 or someone else used the term first.
The OP and myself have only been discussing backups and replication.
Every SMB needs backups. So Veeam or some other product will be required always.
Replication is not HA, but is redundancy (and the OP knows that). He wants redundancy, and I have listed a few ways to obtain it.
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Honestly, IMO, from what little we know of the OP's environment, he does not need replication either. Just a single server and a backup.
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@JaredBusch said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
Honestly, IMO, from what little we know of the OP's environment, he does not need replication either. Just a single server and a backup.
That's normally the case.
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@JaredBusch said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@Tim_G said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
I'm still stuck scratching my head wondering why we need HA, Veeam, Starwind, SANs, etc... just for 1 DC and 1 FileServer???
I haven't seen anything else mentioned.
First, you don't want to replicate DC's. Have two DC's, both virtualized, on different physical servers, non-replicated.
Second, if you only have one other VM (your file server), you don't need anything else besides Windows Server Backup (WSB). There is no reason what so ever WSB can't handle backing up 2 DCs and 1 File Server. Three servers I can't see spending thousands on something you can do for free with no additional benefit (in your scenario).
I don't see the point in replicating a file server period. If you need replication for a file server, you can use DFS-R. That's even better.
Almost no SMB needs to have AD up so critically that they need multiple domain controllers.
It's a best practice to include a second DC. The only case where you would only have one DC at a site, is in what Microsoft considers a small branch office, where in that case, it wouldn't be the only DC in the forest anyways. There would be two over in the main site.
Sure, you can decide not to and you may be just fine. You may also be just fine with no UPS and no backups as well. To each his own.
But I would highly recommend implementing at minimum two DCs per AD forest.
If you are so small that you don't need 2 DCs, then do you even need Active Directory?
And you need to define SMB. You said "almost no SMB needs multiple DCs". I almost threw up when I read that. What you said is the same thing as saying: "Almost all SMBs should only have one DC".
Every SMB needs backups. So Veeam or some other product will be required always.
Replication is not HA, but is redundancy (and the OP knows that). He wants redundancy, and I have listed a few ways to obtain it.
Yes, every SMB does need backups. But if you only have 1 or two servers... one being a DC, and the other most likely being a tiny FS, why spend thousands on Veeam at that point?
The OP only mentioned replication... somehow, HA and everything else got mixed in. I wanted to kick it all back out, it doesn't belong.
I figured that if the OP wants anything replicated at all, it'd be the file server data, best done by DFSR.
However, you are right, I don't see a need for any replication what so ever. 2 DCs, 1 FS, and backups is all that's needed here. (unless the OP is leaving a lot of stuff out)
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@Tim_G said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
And you need to define SMB. You said "almost no SMB needs multiple DCs". I almost threw up when I read that. What you said is the same thing as saying: "Almost all SMBs should only have one DC".
That is exactly what I said.
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@Tim_G said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
And you need to define SMB. You said "almost no SMB needs multiple DCs". I almost threw up when I read that. What you said is the same thing as saying: "Almost all SMBs should only have one DC".
Most have only one. Most should have only one. Two isn't an unreasonable thing to find, but it is anything but an expectation. It's not like super rare, but below 50%.
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@Tim_G said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
It's a best practice to include a second DC.
That's not really true. That's a case where a vendor with money to make states that somewhere, but vendors don't get to define best practice. They make money selling you extra copies, not from you having good backups.
Like all things in the HA arena, it requires an evaluation of risk and cost for each workload. AD is actually one of the least critical workloads for a normal SMB, assuming that they have it. I've seen companies go weeks without even knowing that their one DC was down, let alone lose money from it. Some companies have heavy AD dependencies that cause real problems when AD is down, others have just a little, some have effectively none.
Even companies with quite some dependency, it's rarely something that impacts them in minutes. It can be, but very rarely. Restore of a DC is very fast.
The cost of a second DC (that runs on secondary hardware) is often $600+ for the OS license and $1,000+ for the server hardware. Plus IT's time to manage and maintain that, updates in the future, another system to be secured, etc. Even if we keep the cost at $1,600, that's a lot of money for an SMB if they can't show any risk from AD downtime.
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You can also address them directly to me in PM here. Also, I have PMed you my email in case you prefer that way of comunication
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@scottalanmiller said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@Tim_G said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
It's a best practice to include a second DC.
Like all things in the HA arena, it requires an evaluation of risk and cost for each workload. AD is actually one of the least critical workloads for a normal SMB, assuming that they have it. I've seen companies go weeks without even knowing that their one DC was down, let alone lose money from it.
These companies do not need AD then.
In places where active directory IS NEEDED, you can't have AD down for days or weeks. If AD can be down without any cares in the world, then these places are wasting Windows licenses on separate DHCP servers, separate DNS servers, etc. They can combine them and bring about another DC with those services on. A place you feel only needs one DC isn't big enough to not have AD/DNS/DHCP/Print/etc all on the same server/vm. So yeah, you can't have just one.
If AD (and everything else on it) can go down for an hour while you restore it and nobody will notice, and if you can do all maintenance on your DC during off hours (if there are any for said company), then fine. This isn't most SMBs. Most SMBs have DNS and DHCP set up to use the DC dns on workstations. If your computers dns server is set to a machine that is turned off, it can't get out if it's not cached.
Keep in mind that places who only would have one DC, would also have their other infrastructure services running on it as well... such as DNS, DHCP, Print, maybe FS.
I think what you mean to say is that "most very tiny shops" should only have one DC. Places where DHCP, DNS and other services don't depend on that DC. I don't think these places need AD in the first place.
There's just too many assumptions to be made to say most SMBs should only have one DC. Too many things overlooked. SMBs just don't have a single server dedicated for only AD. Bigger places, sure. Not "most SMBs".
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@Tim_G said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@scottalanmiller said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
@Tim_G said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
It's a best practice to include a second DC.
Like all things in the HA arena, it requires an evaluation of risk and cost for each workload. AD is actually one of the least critical workloads for a normal SMB, assuming that they have it. I've seen companies go weeks without even knowing that their one DC was down, let alone lose money from it.
These companies do not need AD then.
Just because they are resilient to downtime? That's not a good indicator. Email is like that, but would you say that companies don't need email just because it is asynchronous? Or that voicemail having a ten minute delay not being a problem means that they don't need it?
Lots of things can handle minutes or hours of downtime without causes problems, that doesn't make them unnecessary.
Of course, no company needs AD, some of the biggest run without it. But of those that use it, most don't need HA.
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@Tim_G said in Hyper V replica VS Veeam B&R Replica.:
In places where active directory IS NEEDED, you can't have AD down for days or weeks. If AD can be down without any cares in the world, then these places are wasting Windows licenses on separate DHCP servers, separate DNS servers, etc.
Definitely. The average company either goes crazy and doesn't buy anything that they need (backups, that's just duplicates, I won't pay for that!) or the other way (we only earn $10K a year, but we feel important so every system that we have needs to be HA no matter how little money we lose if we are done!)
The average company that uses HA doesn't need it. I'd say easily 80% that have it should not have it. Money wasted everywhere. The majority of companies we see in places like SW, for example, claim that HA is a "need" and if you look, it turns out that they never had HA at all. It's just something companies say because it makes them feel good that they "can't go down", but if you are an SMB, almost certainly going down sometimes is a better financial decision than paying to make sure that you never do.
As @networknerd likes me to point out "It's like shooting yourself in the face today to avoid a headache tomorrow."
