Organizations have enthusiastically adopted server virtualization and continue to expand their implementations beyond test and development into production and mission-critical applications. But consolidating multiple workloads onto individual physical servers does add risk; a single server failure now impacts more than a single application.

Virtualizing tier-1 applications magnifies the importance of enabling quick recovery of virtual machines (VMs). In fact, when ESG recently asked IT professionals to identify where they expect to make the most significant data protection investments, 30% indicated backup of their virtual environment, followed closely by improved application backup. Business managers have little tolerance for application downtime or lack of data availability, and IT managers need assurance that backed-up systems are recoverable.

This ESG Lab report documents hands-on testing of Veeam Backup & Replication. Topics explored include getting started with Veeam, Instant VM Recovery, Recovery Verification, and Universal Application-Item Recovery.