Last chance to win your VMworld 2015 Ticket from VMTurbo

If you still have not got your VMworld 2015 ticket, it is not yet the time to quit your hunting for a free VMworld ticket. VMTurbo is still offering you the chance to win one of a pair of Two VMworld 2015 tickets through their sweepstakes taking place on July 9th. VMworld is the most looked after Virtualization/Cloud Computing event, and here is your chance to be there this year. Good luck everyone and looking forward for a winner within my blog readers.

Below is more details about VMTurbo VMworld 2015 Ticket Sweepstakes: (Click on the image below to be directed to the Sweepstakes page)

VMTurbo VMworld 2015 Sweepstakes

VMTurbo is giving 2 more lucky winners two Full Conference Passes to VMworld 2015 in San Francisco. The epicenter of all things virtual, VMworld is our industry’s biggest stage. VMTurbo will be there, and they want you there too.

VMTurbo will be giving away the last pair of tickets on July 9th, make sure to enter for your chance to win!

Who? 2 Winners (maybe you!)
What? 2 VMworld 2015 Passes
Where? San Francisco, California
When? August 30th – September 3rd… Read More

Chance to Win Google Glass from Veeam

Veeam DR SessionsAs usual Veeam not only offering great products, but they have a great marketing team that always spoil us with new type of  give away. This time they are offering Google Glass for the winner of their three sessions below attendees, and there will be 15 Pizza coupons per session. That means you will have a high odd of winning something just for attending their session and gaining knowledge of their product. Below is the invite, & hope to see you enjoying Google Glass soon!

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

It is a period of data recovery wars. Join us in May for three episodes of epic Whiteboard Fridays: Recovery Wars saga and become true Virtualization Jedi!

Master your skills during these episodes:

• May 13. Episode IV – A New Host: learn how to prepare for disaster, document your environment, ensure your backups and configure backup

• May 20. Episode V – The Admin Strikes Back: be prepared for recover process of the datacenter and primary VM’s, learn how to rebuild your environment effectively

• May 27. Episode VI – Return of the Admin: deep dive into restoring services, best practices around restores, focus on the getting services up and running for the end-users.… Read More

Win Free VMworld Trip with Veeam

I am sharing this news, as I am sure many of you are looking for a free way to get to VMworld, and Veeam is offering a few of you a chance to do that. They are even offering a chance to Win a Google Glass. Sorry Apple, but I would rather the Google Glass on an iPad my self! Below is the details on why Veeam is doing it and on how to register. Good luck!

Veeam is about to get its 100,000th customer and is launching an interactive contest for a chance to win a trip around the world and other prizes (Google Glass, iPad and Microsoft Surface).

To participate, visitors need to register and predict the location of Veeam’s 100,000th customer on the interactive map. The closer you are to the right spot, the better chance you have to win the trip around the world and other prizes.

Veeam currently have a live pre-registration page. The main contest will start next week.

Join in on the fun! I hope many of you will participate and I hope among my readers there will be few winners.

Just for the fun of it, if you have got a chance to choose between any of these gifts, which one will you choose?… Read More

Top 5 Veeam Backup & Replication V7 Innovations

For the past couple months, I have been following the features announcements of Veeam Backup & Replications V7 as they were introducing their innovation by every feature they announced during the count down. Before I get asked, Veeam has not yet announced general availability of Veeam Backup & Replication V7 but it should be pretty soon as on my last discussion with them which was posted at: http://www.virtualizationteam.com/veeam/veeam-backup-replication/vcloud-director-backup-by-veeam.html they mentioned it should be released in Q3, 2013. I heard as well that private beta is already being conducted, so hit them up if interested. Below is a review of the top 5 upcoming features(from my perspective) including videos:

1- Enhanced Backup & Recovery for vCloud Director

Actually this was the focus of my last post on Veeam Backup & Replication V7 at: http://www.virtualizationteam.com/veeam/veeam-backup-replication/vcloud-director-backup-by-veeam.html. As most of you know that I work with vCloud Director almost on daily basis, & always looking for solutions that integrate well with it from backup & disaster recovery perspective as the question about backup & recovery of VMs living within vCloud Director has almost been a part of every engagement & it is nice to see greater integration coming up from backup vendors by day, & glad to see Veeam is taking it to the next level with V7.… Read More

vCloud Director backup by Veeam

Backing up vCloud Director environment has been one of those hot topics lately, as not many backup vendors have mastered it yet. All the big players in town are promising a fully integrated solution by this year end, but we still to see a fully integrated solution. I believe within the next 6 months, we will have most major backup vendors offering different vCD backup solutions with varying integration levels.

Veeam has offered support for backing up vCD VMs, but not vAPPs & vCD metadata in the current release but this seems to change soon. Veeam seems to lead the league by planning to deliver the first real vCD backup that is fully integrated pretty soon with private betas even closer. It got me quite interested that I have setup an exclusive interview with Rick Vanover (product strategy specialist for Veeam Software)  to get my readers the answers on what is Veeam will be really offering in their upcoming Veeam 7(Which is a lot to be excited about?). I don’t want to keep you any longer, below is the full interview questions that Rick was kind enough to share the answer with me.

Q: At what level is your vCD Backup working?Read More

Veeam Innovating again with Veeam Backup & Replication 6.5

Veeam has always got me thrilled by how innovative they are when it come to virtual infrastructure backup & replication solutions. Every time they release a product, I think alright they have left nothing to surprise us with next release but each time they prove me wrong and here they do it again with Veeam Backup & Replication 6.5. Their new release make it sound that all the amazing backup features they had in earlier releases were not enough. Below just few of their earlier releases features that were amazingly valuable, but were not enough to stop Veeam from innovating more features:

– Instant VM Recovery: It gave Veeam’s customers the ability to power on VMs from backup directly without needing to wait to restore them. This has cut recovering VMs from hours to minutes.

– U-AIR® (Universal Application-Item Recovery): Recover individual objects from ANY virtualized application without agents, additional backups or software tools.

– On-Demand Sandbox: Run VMs from a backup in an isolated Virtual Lab for testing or troubleshooting.

Universal File-Level Recovery: Recover a file from any guest OS and file system directly from an image-level backup—without booting the VM. vPower extends Veeam Instant File-Level Recovery with support for ANY guest file system.… Read More

Veeam Christmas gift to VCPs – vExperts – VCIs – MVPs – MCP

FREE VEEAM BACKUP & REPLICATION v6 LICENSES FOR YOUR LAB IS VEEAM CHRISTMAS/NEW YEAR GIFT TO MANY OF US. If you are VMware vExperts, VMware Certified Professionals, VMware Certified Instructors, VMUG members, Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, and Microsoft Certified Professionals, then you should check the instructions below to obtain your free NFR copy of Veeam Backup & Replication. Veeam Backup & Replication is such a great backup & replication product with many outstanding features and would be a great fun to own it for free for your lab. Actually I am planning to use my free NFR copy to automate the backup and restore of my home lab, so what are you waiting for go and get yours while they are free!!!

Below are few of the fantastic features that Veeam Backup & Replication offer and could encourage you to obtain your free copy. I still to see a similar capability with any other backup solution for Virtual Infrastructure:

Instant VM Recovery

Run a VM directly from a compressed and deduplicated backup file on regular backup storage. This eliminates the need to extract the backup and copy it to production storage.
Watch feature demo >>

U-AIR (Universal Application-Item Recovery)

Recover individual objects from ANY virtualized application without the use of additional agents, backups or software tools.

Read More

Veeam to add a Free Advanced Capacity Planning Pack to Veeam Reporter

Veeams to add a new free Capacity planning functions to their Veeam Reporter at no additional cost. Below is Veeam announcement in this matter:

Veeam Reporter  has always provided valuable data for capacity planning. With the new Capacity Planning Report Pack, it also does forecasting and modeling for you.

By knowing in advance when additional CPU, memory and storage are needed, you can:

Eliminate service delays
Control costs
Maximize utilization

The Capacity Planning Report Pack is included with Reporter at no additional charge. Download the new version of Reporter  now and get complete visibility of your virtual infrastructure—past, present AND future.

Download Veeam Reporter and the Capacity Planning Report Pack now.

*Also includes support for vSphere 4.1

Veeam Reporter™ has always provided valuable data for capacity planning. With the new Capacity Planning Report Pack, it also does forecasting and modeling for you.

By knowing in advance when additional CPU, memory and storage are needed, you can:

  • Eliminate service delays
  • Control costs
  • Maximize utilization

The Capacity Planning Report Pack is included with Reporter at no additional charge. Download the new version of Reporter* now and get complete visibility of your virtual infrastructure—past, present AND future.

Download

Download Veeam Reporter and the Capacity Planning Report Pack now.

Read More

Veeam Reporter Could not create Windows user token from the credentials specified in the config file. Error from the operating system ‘Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password.

Today, I had a call from one of my enterprise customers complaining that he cannot log into Veeam reporter WebAccess Portal. The main error he was getting is:

“Parser Error Message: Could not create Windows user token from the credentials specified in the config file. Error from the operating system ‘Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password.”

Actually the full exact error message is below:

==================Error Start===================

Server Error in ‘/VeeamWebAccess’ Application.
——————————————————————————–

Configuration Error
Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.

Parser Error Message: Could not create Windows user token from the credentials specified in the config file. Error from the operating system ‘Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password.
‘Source Error:
Line 117: </assemblies>
Line 118: </compilation>
Line 119: <identity configProtectionProvider=”DataProtectionConfigurationProvider”>
Line 120: <EncryptedData>
Line 121: <CipherData>
Source File: C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\VeeamReporterEnterprise\WebAccess\web.config Line: 119
——————————————————————————–
Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.3603; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.3082

==================Error End===================

After fuzzing out with the product & with Active directory for some time, as the error point out to some authentication problem I have to came to a conclusion its not an active directory authentication problem.… Read More

nworks Management Pack for VMware allows VMware Monitoring with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager

In the past few weeks, I was lucky enough to get the chance to look over many third party monitoring solutions for VMware vSphere. I have decided its worth covering few of them on my blog. I will start today with Veeam nworks  MP Microsoft Ops Mgr.

Earlier last year, I had a look at Veeam monitor which I thought of being a very basic performance monitoring tool though I expected that from its price tag (I have not yet tried Veeam Montir 4 & that is on my to do list). Though  Veeam nworks  MP Microsoft Ops Mgr has changed my view of Veeam when it comes to monitoring. Its a 360 degree full VMware monitoring solution & I would definitely rate it as an enterprise ready. I believe Veeam should revamp their Veeam monitor to match Veeam nworks  MP Microsoft Ops Mgr.

Actually Veeam nworks  MP Microsoft Ops Mgr was able to change my view of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. I have never thought Microsoft System Center Operations Manager will be one of the good candidates to monitor VMware Infrastructure, but Veeam nworks  MP Microsoft Ops Mgr has proven me wrong. I was amazed by the granularity of the product.… Read More

Testing Veeam Backup & Replication Replica Testing Procedure

Veeam Backup & replication is one of my personal favorite DR solution for VMware, specially when SAN replication is not an option. Though just as with any other backup or Disaster Recovery solution you will have to test your backup or disaster recovery plan regularly. As Veeam Backup & Replication does not include a button for testing the DR, many people don’t test their DR or get to restart the full replication over & over again after every DR test. For that I have decided to document my Veeam Replica test procedure & share it with you to save you the time & ensure you can test your DR as often as you like without affecting your production or replication.

Testing replica with Veeam Procedure:

1. Temporarily Disable Veam Replication job

Veeam Replication Disable Replication Job

2. Create a snapshot of the replica using VMware vSphere Client. This will be used to revert the replica VMDK to its original state after the DR test being completed.

Veeam Backup Take snapshot of the replicaVMware vSphere give the replica snapshot a name

3. Change the replica VM network Configuration from being connected to production port group to an isolated test network.

VMware ESX 4 edit the virtual machine settings to change the network of the VMVMware ESX 4 connect the virtual machine network adapter to isolated network

4.  Power on the replica Virtual Machine & test if it work properly.

5.  Shutdown the replica Virtual Machine.

6. Revert back the replica virtual machine to the snapshot you have took at step 2.… Read More

Veeam Backup & Replication 4.1 with full support for replication to ESXi hosts!

Today I have received an e-mail from Veeam, announcing that Veeam Backup & Replication 4.1 is fully supporting VMware ESXi including the replication to VMware ESXi host as a target. Below is the body of Veeam announcement e-mail:

======= Veeam Announcement =========

Veeam proudly announces the upcoming release of Veeam Backup & Replication 4.1 with full support for replication to ESXi hosts!

By moving your virtual infrastructure to ESXi, you can gain the benefits of better security and compliance while still achieving your desired RPOs / RTOs.

Veeam Backup & Replication 4.1 will provide no-limits support for restoring and replicating to ESXi. You’ll get all the advanced features of Veeam replication, including the ability to fail over to both the latest and earlier points in time, when replicating to ESXi.

Another industry first from Veeam!

================================

Its worth mentioning that Veeam backup & replication is the first third party application to support VMware ESXi as a replication target. This might not seems a big deal for environment with only VMware ESX in it, but its a great news for customers running ESXi or planning to use ESXi. I already know few companies who would definitely care about this news. This feature alone can make ESXi customers choose Veeam backup & replication without having to think about it for long as its the only solution that support it at the moment.… Read More

VizionCore esxReplicator (vReplicator) vs Veeam Backup & Replication

After a week of testing and fuzzing with both VizionCore vReplicator originally known by esxReplicator as well Veeam Backup & Replication, I was able to be one of the contributor to the new comparison at ITComparison.com.

The comparison titled VizionCore vReplicator (esxReplicator) vs Veeam Backup & Replication covers many important aspects of the two products. It has been well crafted to help IT professionals find out which product is better for their enviornment. I was glad all this collaboration with other virtualizaiton professionals has met up with success & the comparison was released to the public yesterday.

It was fun to have to test all these aspects for these two leading Replication products. It was even more fun to discuss the results & compare them with other members involved in the comparison. Get to know how other people though about a point to be positive and other just vote against it.

Ah more fun of all the team had put a blog post at VizionCore vReplicator vs Veeam Backup & Replication blog post, which will allow other members in the virtualization community to comment on the comparison & try to debate it. Ah it is even open to the vendors to prove the finding is wrong or leave an update of upcoming fixes or development.… Read More