Veeam Backup & Replication 8.0 Update 2 is now vSphere 6 compatible, and Veeam FastSCP for Microsoft Azure is released

If you've followed TinkerTry for a while,

you'll know I've been taking a look at Veeam, NAKIVO, and many other backup and recovery solutions suitable for home virtualization labs. See also my December 10, 2014 post Free NFR of Veeam Availability Suite v8 with Backup & Replication for VCPs, vExperts, and many other certified professionals. A lot has happened since then, with vSphere 6.0 arriving March 12, 2015. Such a major dot zero release means it's also time for a look at new versions of compatible software from third parties.

Like many of the 32,000 or so Veeam forum members, I quite look forward to Anton Gostev's always-interesting weekly newsletter (register here). This past Sunday's edition was no exception. Here's the relevant excerpt:

Veeam Backup & Replication 8.0 Update 2 has become generally available last week. This one was very much anticipated by everyone for bug fixes, but also for a couple of big new features: support for Veeam Endpoint Backup, and VMware vSphere 6.

What's quite refreshing is how he goes on to admit the dangers of any first release, from VMware, or from anybody. This is signature Anton: refreshingly honest about issues. For techies, this projects a favorable image for the whole company. When you read KB2114076, you'll understand his general advice to be good for the risk-averse enterprise, an environment that many of us deal with in our day jobs.

Anton goes on to say:

And now that we do have full vSphere 6 support, I can finally stress something yet again without it looking like an excuse for lack of support for vSphere 6 on Veeam side: please, think twice before upgrading to major releases of ANY software until the first update is available – or you are likely to be one of those folks finding and reporting all the bugs that have slipped by Quality Control.

For home lab with a few VMs? Sure, let's dive in. I hope to have a chance to test VEB (Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE) with a Veeam Backup & Replication 8.0 Update 2 repository soon, in my freshly built vSphere 6.0 home lab. It's said to bless my family's daily VEB-based PC backups with a bit of monitoring capability. A single repository for my key VMs, and my physical systems, is appealing. And because I'm a VCP, I get the NFR of v8 for free.

...another bit of Veeam news....

Many of you may recall first hearing of Veeam through their FastSCP free product, something that helped me a great deal when doing a lot of customer site consulting, back in 2007-2009. Managers spent a lot to have me at their site, to train their techies quickly and effectively. These were one-week "JumpStarts," and they sure as heck didn't want to watch the clock as Windows 2008 was uploading over very slow WinSCP. Like at least one half-hour per ISO, even over gigabit. Veeam FastSCP cut those uploads to 1/5th to 1/8th of that VMware default glacial pace. This sure was a good way for Veeam to put their best foot forward, as IT Pros gradually became familiar with the brand.

I got excited again when they released another carrot on a stick for IT Pros called Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE last month. Testing is going well. Very well.

So it's in that same spirit that Veeam hits the IT professional world once again with a new free tool with a familiar name.

The announcement

While I haven't yet had the chance to test the beta out, I would think folks like Jim Collison, who has been talking a lot of Azure lately, could find this utility to be handy. You can get a sense of the familiar UI from the screenshot below. It's unlikely they'll be much of a learning curve. Yeah, that's a good thing.

The blog post

The beta download

request form is available now at go.veeam.com/azure.html

Free, secure file copy for Azure VMs

With Veeam® FastSCP™ (Secure Copy Protocol) for Microsoft Azure, IT Administrators and Azure Developers can simply and reliably copy local files to Azure VMs, and copy files in Azure VMs to on-premises.

This new, FREE standalone utility, designed specifically for Microsoft Azure VMs*, also provides:
•Secure file copy with no independent encryption or VPN needed
•Manual file copy to/from Azure VMs without the need to keep the UI open until the file copy completes
•Automatic scheduling of file copy jobs for nightly or weekly copies to/from Azure VMs
•A wizard-driven UI to copy files in just a few clicks—with no scripting needed

*Note that Veeam FastSCP for Microsoft Azure is designed to copy files to and from Azure VMs; it does NOT support copying files directly to or from Azure Blob storage.

Disclosure: Veeam has been an advertiser on many virtualization sites for years now, and Veeam is currently running a BuySellAds-purchased advertisement along the top of TinkerTry as well. All TinkerTry advertisement goes through third party BuySellAds. None of my articles are sponsored posts, and note that there are currently no affiliate links for Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE, or any of their other products. TinkerTry.com, LLC is not a Veeam Pro Partner. There are no commissions for any Veeam products folks buy after reading one of my articles.

I reserve the right to freely write about topics that I choose, whenever I choose to, an essential part of what makes blogging about home virtualization labs, storage, and backup so much fun.