Whitepaper Availability complete visibility service provider

Availability & Complete
Visibility for the Service
Provider
Kirsten Stoner
Product Strategy Coordinator

Availability & Complete Visibility for the Service Provider
2© 2015 Veeam Software
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Veeam Backup & Replication Plug-in for LabTech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Backup monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Veeam Endpoint Backup for LabTech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Remote management and control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Veeam Backup & Replication Add On for Kaseya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Backup monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
About Veeam Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Introduction
When it comes to data availability, visibility can be a key challenge facing many IT administrators or IT
service providers. This lack of visibility can lead to data recovery failure, the inability to identify factors that
cause poor performance and a delayed response time when troubleshooting, among other challenges.
IT professionals can combat data availability challenges and gain the capability to verify backup and
recoverability, identify bottlenecks effecting performance and accelerate the response time needed
to troubleshoot by establishing visibility through the implementation of the appropriate solutions. To
combat the challenges in data availability today, Veeam® has introduced a solution for LabTech managed
service providers (MSPs). This includes Veeam Backup & Replication™ Plug-in for virtual infrastructures
and Veeam Endpoint Backup™ for LabTech for physical environments. Additionally, Veeam offers Veeam
Backup & Replication Add-On for Kaseya to have visibility into the Veeam Backup infrastructure for all MSPs
using Kaseya Virtual Systems Administrator (VSA). These two solutions give managed service providers
what they need to keep their customers Always-On™ and available.
Visibility may be a key concern when implementing and evaluating protection for endpoint devices. To
ensure physical endpoints are always available to users, it’s important to have the ability to identify poor
or slow performance, troubleshoot backup failures, and remotely monitor and manage these machines.
Veeam has tackled this challenge with the addition of Veeam Endpoint Backup for LabTech. Veeam
Endpoint Backup for LabTech adds functionality to the LabTech Remote Management Platform (RMM)
enabling remote control along with monitoring and reporting capability for overall visibility. These two
additions into the LabTech Solution Center allow service providers to face visibility challenges head on
and gives them a competitive advantage when servicing customers.

Veeam Backup & Replication Plug-in
for LabTech
The LabTech RMM platform enables MSPs to proactively monitor and manage customer virtual
machines (VMs) and endpoints. The Veeam Backup & Replication Plug-In for LabTech adds additional
capabilities to enhance visibility in the backup infrastructure. Through these techniques, MSPs can
better utilize labor and resources. Not only does LabTech RMM allow you to have all your customer’s
IT objects in one window, it also allows you to work on multiple users and computers at the same
time and connect all your customers to the same interface. The Veeam Backup & Replication Plug-
in for LabTech adds tools that include the backup infrastructure dashboard, backup jobs dashboard,
data views, and alerts and tickets. These views ensure that your customer’s IT infrastructure is being
protected and is available to them at all times.
Backup monitoring
The Backup Infrastructure Dashboard allows you to look at Veeam’s Backup Infrastructure components
including inventory, repository space, Veeam jobs (including backup, backup copy, replication,
SureBackup® and tape jobs) and your customers’protected VMs.
The figure above shows the Backup Infrastructure dashboards. This view allows MSPs to monitor their
customers’backups and ensure that the backups are performing successfully. As an MSP, you have the
added functionality of clicking on the objects to see the number of servers, proxies and WAN accelerators
that have been deployed in the backup architecture. This allows you to see what elements are being used
in the backup process and allows you to keep a record of what components are included.

Along with monitoring backup infrastructure components, you can also monitor backup jobs and their
status. If a job has failed, you can click on the job and the plug-in will display details about the error.
The Veeam Backup & Replication Plug-In for LabTech can even identify if the error was caused by a user.
Jobs shown in this view can display job history, the number of times the job has run, if the job has ever
failed and how many VMs are included in the job.
The Veeam Backup & Replication Plug-In for LabTech incorporates predefined alerts, data views for events,
jobs and protected VMs. Alerts and tickets will be shown when certain conditions are met on an agent-
enabled Veeam Backup server. Some conditions can be defined to allow MSPs to view specific customers
at a certain locations. The LabTech Control Center raises an alert when a monitor has reached a predefined
threshold and has been assigned an alert template. If you have been working with LabTech specifically,
you may have noticed that you can access the alerts in different views within the control center. These
alerts are identified by severity with a corresponding color. An example is in the figure below.

Critical alerts will show up in an orange color.You can see in this lab environment there is one major alert
which is that the tape job that has been setup failed. From this screen, you can see if other technicians
have left any messages regarding the issue. By clicking on the alert you can create a ticket for the issue.
Tickets created by Veeam monitors support all the possibilities included in the LabTech ticketing system.
Reports
Along with monitoring and alerting, you can also generate reports through the Veeam Backup &
Replication Plug-In for LabTech. Reports that are generated assess and document the latest backup
status, VM backup status, and protected VMs. As an MSP, it’s important to show your customers what
you are doing in the background of their day-to-day operations. Reports can assist on identifying areas
for improvement and be used to ensure customer’s that their data is protected. These reports can be
specified by customers at different locations or be defined by groups or computers. The Veeam Backup
& Replication Plug-In for LabTech will even allow you to report on all customers at once. To access these
reports, you will find them in the Report Manager.
The first report mentioned measures the Latest Backup Job State. This report identifies and provides
details about the status of backup, backup copy, and replication jobs. You can filter this report based on
criteria needed to be identified whether it be by customer, computer, location or the type of job. The
report provides a diagram that shows completion status with a table of details regarding different jobs.
Reports that measure the latest VM backup state can be performed for the current week, the past
month or the past week. These reports provide the status of all managed VMs. Similar to the Latest
Backup Job State, you are given the option to filter the data that the report shows based on certain
criteria. Some of the data filters include by customer, VM name and location.
The protected VMs report can be performed to show data from the last month, last week and the past
day. These reports identify which VMs have the proper backup or replica protection. A VM is protected
if a backup or replica restore point meets the specified recovery point objective (RPO) range that has
been previously determined. If the VM is deemed unprotected, then there is a missing or outdated
backup, replica or restore point. Both protected and unprotected VMs are shown in a diagraph along
with the last backup state showing completion statistics. You’ll also find a table including the details of
each protected and unprotected VM that has been defined in the report.
All of these reports are integrated with LabTech to allow MSPs to evaluate the Veeam infrastructure and
its different components. This visibility allows you to plan ahead and be proactive with your customers.

Veeam Endpoint Backup for LabTech
Availability of workstations and laptops can also be challenging when it comes to visibility, central
control and remote management. To provide a comprehensive, cohesive solution, Veeam has built
Veeam Endpoint Backup for LabTech to provide robust protection for physical endpoints. This allows
MSPs to establish visibility, reporting and remote management and configuration on their customers’
physical endpoints. One of the key features that this solution addresses with the integration with
the LabTech RMM, is the ability to have a centrally managed console. When using the LabTech RMM
platform, MSPs who have integrated Veeam Endpoint Backup for LabTech into their environment will
be able to remotely install, configure and recover a customer’s endpoint devices — including remote
bare-metal restores. Additionally, reporting and monitoring capabilities enhance the solution for the
best management of Windows-based endpoints.
Remote management and control
Veeam Endpoint Backup for LabTech includes a system dashboard with information regarding licensing
and managed customers that can be filtered per customer or location. From the system dashboard you
will gain a set of tabs that enables remote management for customers’endpoints. As mentioned earlier,
Veeam Endpoint Backup for LabTech can remotely deploy Veeam Endpoint Backup onto physical
systems. This is all done silently in the background and also gives you the ability to find those machines
that already have Veeam Endpoint Backup installed on them to add to the managed console. To
note, these machines must have the LabTech agent installed on them for Veeam Endpoint Backup for
LabTech to recognize the machines.
Veeam Endpoint Backup for LabTech can remotely configure backups through the computer
management screen. All from one screen, MSPs can stop and start jobs and download logs for
troubleshooting. Digging deeper, MSPs gain all information regarding backup jobs including the
number of restore points, backup size, average duration, restore point duration and status of jobs. For
each different client location, there are additional tabs that show an overview of the latest backup jobs,
trends, listed endpoints at that location and RPO statistics. This view can also identify which endpoints
are experiencing the most backup issues.
Another unique feature is the ability to remotely perform bare metal restores. This feature eliminates
the need for a visit to the client’s site. To accomplish this, the customer’s staff would need to insert the
Veeam bootable recovery media (i.e USB stick or other bootable removable media) and boot up the
endpoint from it. When the connection is established, the MSP can finish the entire process remotely as
the LabTech agent is built-in to the Veeam Endpoint Backup recovery media.
Reporting
Similar to theVeeam Backup and Replication Plug-In,Veeam Endpoint for LabTech will include reports that
assess the backup environment. Some reports that are included will show protected endpoints, endpoint
job status, and licensing.The MSP will be able to review the reports, show them to their clients if needed, and
identify areas for improvement.These reports can be filtered by criteria which include location, computer type,
computer, group, or client offering a solution that will benefit backup manageability and monitoring.

Veeam Backup & Replication
Add On for Kaseya
The Veeam Backup & Replication Add-On for Kaseya allows visibility into the Veeam Backup &
Replication infrastructure by enabling service providers to monitor backup jobs, check alarms,
discover machines and run reports. Veeam Backup and Replication is an agentless solution
that ensures your virtual environment is available at all times to meet the demands of today’s
business operations. Veeam Backup & Replication offers 47 restore scenarios that can be utilized
in virtual environments. Veeam Backup & Replication Add-On for Kaseya relies on the following
components: Veeam Backup & Replication Add-On for Kaseya installed on the Kaseya Server
and the Kaseya agents deployed inside the managed machines. These components collect and
gather information about the managed machines, then use the information for dashboards,
views, reports and alarms. Additionally, some key benefits of Veeam Backup & Replication
Add-On for Kaseya include the ability to review the state and performance of backups, analyze
VM data protection to ensure the proper restore points are available, and the ability to monitor
backup infrastructure machines and protected VMs. The next few paragraphs will dive deeper
into these benefits and how you can use them to establish enhanced availability.
Backup monitoring
The Veeam Backup & Replication Add-On for Kaseya lets the service provider monitor the
Veeam infrastructure and includes a set of views that allow users to browse through different
aspects to identify job status and duration, active alarms and machines that have the Kaseya
agent installed on them. The dashboard view shows an overview of the backup infrastructure
and includes different sections outlining alarms, backup infrastructure inventory, repositories
including the amount of free space each has, job status, protected VMs and top job duration.
The Dashboard allows MSPs to monitor the backup infrastructure as a whole.

The screenshot above shows the dashboard described in previous paragraphs. The alarms list will be
shown at the top of the dashboard with the time that the alarm went off and a brief description of the
trigger. Note that you’ll see the name of the repository, the state of the repository, capacity, free space,
and backup size in the repositories section.
Some of the other views mentioned were backup jobs and active alarms. These views will show more
information regarding backup jobs, including type of job, when the job last ran, average duration and
much more. This allows MSPs to track statistics for Veeam Backup & Replication jobs to help identify
problem areas or areas to improve on data availability. The alarms view, which is separate from the
backup jobs view, will show the severity of the alarm, the time it occurred, the machine that triggered
the alarm and why it occurred. This view enables service provides to minimize response times and filter
through the most important alarms.

Reports
The Add-On includes a set of report templates for MSPs to use that support all possible reporting
situations in Kaseya. You can export reports to a .PDF, .HTML or to Microsoft Excel formats as well as
schedule and deliver reports by email. Some of the included reports show job status, usage on backup
repositories, backup server statistics, machine protection status, protected VMs and verified VMs.
The screenshot above shows the reports available within Kaseya. With each report, this view offers a
brief description of what the report will identify. When the report template is selected, you can view
the report parts. For example, when the machine replicated status is selected, the report parts will be
listed underneath. The report parts included in this report are backups with warnings, failed backups,
successful backups and VM backup status.
TheVeeam Backup & Replication Add-On forKaseya includes one last section, configuration.This section
allows users to change the visibility ofVeeam Backup server and configure advanced options. Any
machines runningVeeam Backup Enterprise Manager orVeeam Backup & Replication, along with the virtual
infrastructure servers that were added to the managed servers inVeeam Backup & Replication will be shown
in this view. MSPs can also remove machines that no longer need to be monitored in this view.

Summary
In conclusion, one of the major concerns facing the managed service providers of today is having the
visibility into the infrastructure to ensure backup functions and processes are performing properly in
the customer’s environment. This visibility issue can be solved by Veeam’s integration with the different
RMM platforms LabTech and Kaseya. The Veeam Backup & Replication Plug-In for LabTech allows MSPs
to remotely monitor, manage and report on their customers’virtual backup infrastructures. The Veeam
Backup & Replication Add-On for Kaseya gives Kaseya users the same opportunities. These solutions for
LabTech and Kaseya users, can tackle virtual data availability issues and give MSPs an advantage to win
over existing and potential customers. With the addition of Veeam Endpoint Backup for LabTech, Veeam
extends this visibility to the physical side of IT. MSPs that have joined Veeam’s Cloud & Service Provider
Program (VCSP) will have the ability to extend their offering (backup as a service) to physical/virtual
backups and easily recruit new customers.
Altogether, these solutions enable the Always-On Business™ and provide enhanced visibility
for service providers.

Kirsten Stoner is a Product Strategy Coordinator at Veeam Software. Her
responsibilities include community tasks such as providing answers to
Spiceworks user’s online, social media and content for Veeam campaigns.
You can follow Kirsten on Spiceworks at:
http://community.spiceworks.com/people/kirsten-veeam
About Veeam Software
Veeam® recognizes the new challenges companies across the globe face in enabling the Always-
On Business™, a business that must operate 24/7/365. To address this, Veeam has pioneered a
new market of Availability for the Modern Data Center™ by helping organizations meet recovery
time and point objectives (RTPO™) of less than 15 minutes for all applications and data, through
a fundamentally new kind of solution that delivers high-speed recovery, data loss avoidance,
verified protection, leveraged data and complete visibility. Veeam Availability Suite™, which
includes Veeam Backup & Replication™, leverages virtualization, storage, and cloud technologies
that enable the modern data center to help organizations save time, mitigate risks, and
dramatically reduce capital and operational costs.
Founded in 2006, Veeam currently has 30,500 ProPartners and more than 145,500 customers
worldwide. Veeam's global headquarters are located in Baar, Switzerland, and the company has
offices throughout the world. To learn more, visit http://www.veeam.com.
About the Author

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Whitepaper Availability complete visibility service provider

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