Windows Server Backup is free and does a good job of backing up large Hyper-V volumes in block mode. I have one server that backs up almost 1Tb of data incrementally each night in four hours. It takes about the same amount of time to recover the data to a local archive drive, but at that point the resulting backups are in the form of VHD's that can be mounted for checking or running in a test VM. Laurence Bates -----Original Message----- From: Kramer, Jack [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 3:44 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Backup Solutions for a Relatively Small Hyper-V Shop? DPM 2010 is licensed per agent I believe. It does full image backups of Hyper-V. I have DPM 2007 deployed at a personal client and it works well. The Standard agent only backs up files / folders while the more advanced (enterprise I think?) agent is required for doing anything that would be snapshotted, like Hyper-V, SQL, Exchange, etc. There's also a desktop agent if you want to back up your workstations. Primary restriction with DPM is it's very disk-centric - tape is kind of an afterthought. If you have a tape infrastructure be aware that you'll pretty much be giving it up. Also, it manages disk itself - you'll have to assign some sort of disk to it (physical, RAID lun, etc) which it will then use as a DPM storage pool. It's very good at managing itself but it's something to be aware of. ---- Jack Kramer Computer Systems Specialist University Relations, Michigan State University w: 517-884-1231 / c: 248-635-4955 On 1/31/11 2:52 PM, "Al Puzzuoli" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >The subject basically says it all. I need to decide whether to upgrade >our backup Exec licenses, or move to another solution. On one hand, >Backup Exec seems overly complicated, overly priced, and too >tape-centric. On the other, maybe I should just stick with the devil I >know. >I only need to worry about 2 physical servers, and several, probably no >more than 5 or 6 Hyper-V VMs. >BackupAssist http://www.backupassist.com is relatively inexpensive, >simple and Hyper-V aware. Another option I am looking at is Microsoft >System Center: Data Protection Manager; However, I need to do more >research into how it is priced and licensed before seriously considering >it. >Any thoughts? > >Thanks, > >--Al