Compare Backup Exec™ to Veeam

One backup to rule them all solves the problems point solutions create

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Protection /Backup Exec /Veeam vs. Backup Exec | Veritas

It’s not just backup, it’s a more powerful, flexible business

Solve more problems with less complexity. Backup Exec™ helps meet business expectations for data protection, reduce storage costs, secure confidential data, achieve regulatory requirements, and eliminate niche backup tools from your infrastructure.

Protect all your data, not just some of it

Backup Exec’s powerful, simple recovery solution protects all your data no matter where it lives: whether virtual, physical or in the cloud. Veeam is primarily focused on virtualized environments, and major analysts have raised cautions about their limited support for physical servers and integration with Azure and AWS public cloud storage.

Be confident in your journey to the cloud

Backup Exec provides easy, one-click backup to public cloud solutions such as AWS, Azure and Google. With direct cloud connectors and flexible hybrid cloud options, Backup Exec keeps you close to your cloud data. Veeam’s Cloud Connect is designed with managed service providers in mind and costs up to 30x more than a comparable Backup Exec solution. Additionally, Veeam lacks API integration with public cloud storage providers, such as Amazon and Microsoft, which may complicate your data recovery when you really need it.

Experience matters

A leading analyst firm calls Backup Exec mature and scalable, with capabilities usually only found in enterprise data protection solutions. With more than 25 years of collaboration with Microsoft, Dell, VMware and other industry leaders, including numerous Microsoft certifications, Backup Exec is founded on many years’ more experience of data protection over Veeam.

Virtual is important

Backup Exec has been protecting VMware virtual machines longer than Veeam has been in existence. In addition, Backup Exec's virtualization capabilities are part of Veritas' larger unified data protection platform, not just a point solution. Backup Exec integrates with the latest versions of VMware (including vSphere 6.5) and Hyper-V (2016) to autodiscover VMs, add them to a defined policy, and perform efficient, changed block-level backups for more frequent RPOs without requiring agents in each host.

Reduce risk with certified solutions

Along with existing Microsoft certifications, Veritas has one of the most extensive hardware and software compatibility lists in the industry, so you don’t have to test and validate yourself. Veeam has you test on your own — and that can leave you out in the cold, holding the bag.

Easy to operate and manage

Backup Exec legendary ease of use allows IT administrators to spend less time ‘doing backups’ and more time doing productive things. Launch a backup using Backup Exec in three clicks instead of 14 with Veeam. Should you run into problems, Backup Exec Technical Support has excellent customer satisfaction ratings. Veeam’s many backup options and 12+ user interfaces require backup administrators to know various technical nuances to choose the optimized method for certain workloads and to properly size a solution.

Reduce your inventory costs

Backup Exec global block-level deduplication works across all data: virtual, physical and cloud, and therefore consumes less back-end storage. According to Veritas comparative testing, Backup Exec requires up to 3x less target storage capacity than Veeam’s “per job” based deduplication, significantly reducing the amount of redundantly stored data. In fact, Veeam recommends customers use a separate deduplication appliance to help shore up their own solution.

Simple, fair pricing

Backup Exec’s two front-end, capacity-based pricing tiers offer a rich feature set for commonly deployed operating systems, applications and hypervisors. Flexible “a la carte” options allow customers to choose specific product features for application and system protection. Veeam has raised end-user pricing up to 25% in the past two years, and remains as much as 29% more expensive than Backup Exec on a feature-to-feature comparison basis.

Tape still has a lot of life

Businesses seeking cost-effective ways to achieve regulatory compliance still turn to tape. For $30, Backup Exec archives over 6 TB to an LTO-6 tape in encrypted WORM format. With Backup Exec’s extensive tape experience, users can count on reliable recovery for years to come. Veeam’s record with tape appears spotty, as evidenced by numerous issues and complaints in their user forums, and they cannot back up directly to tape—requiring a potentially expensive D2D2T configuration when just a simple tape drive and Backup Exec can do it.

Breadth of protection

Veritas offers several data protection solutions to cover all user situations: from DLO for desktop and laptops, to VSR for flexible server imaging, to Backup Exec for mid-sized organizations, to Veritas NetBackup™ for complex, highly scalable data protection. According to a recent Spiceworks survey, IT professionals prefer a low-cost, unified backup and recovery solution that protects all data: across virtual, physical and cloud infrastructures.