Veeam offers free Endpoint backup

Endpoint backup has been a tedious task that most know they should be doing but are not. Veeam has announced Veeam Endpoint Backup Free, a solution that needs very little administration that automatically backs up a company’s endpoint computers.

Veeam has a history of providing stand-alone free tools to the IT community that solve real challenges, beginning with FastSCP, Veeam’s very first product, originally released in October 2006.

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE provides a simple solution for backing up Windows-based desktops and laptops.

It’s so easy to install that users can be up and running in just a couple of minutes. And it’s just as easy to use. With Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE, users can back up endpoints to an external hard drive, network shared folder or a Veeam Backup & Replication repository. If a user’s system crashes, hard drive fails, or files get corrupted or accidentally deleted, they can recover whatever they need in minutes. Even better, Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE enables the creation of bootable recovery media, which helps users to fix issues with their machine which may prevent the operating system from booting, or even reset the Local Administrator account’s password.

So whether someone wants to back up their personal device, protect the last couple of physical servers in a data centre, or ensure that data on a small company’s dozen or so laptops can be recovered if lost, Veeam’s new free tool has it covered. And though it is free, thanks to the help of close to 20,000 very active beta users, this product delivers the same reliability as Veeam’s flagship software solutions.

Even in today’s highly virtualised environments, most endpoints remain physical and they need to be backed up,” said Doug Hazelman, vice president of product strategy at Veeam. “It’s no small problem. With more than 330 million Windows-based devices being shipped last year, that’s a lot of endpoints to protect. While availability solutions have evolved exponentially for the virtualised data centre, endpoint protection has been somewhat ignored. With Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE, IT professionals now have a simple solution for backing up endpoints. Plus, if the IT organisation still has a few physical servers left in their data centre, Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE can help fill that gap.

While simple to use, Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE is also a powerful product. Key backup features include the ability to do image-based volume and file-level backups, with flexible configuration including multiple scheduling options. Recovery is also flexible and effortless with several easy-to-use options all from the same image-based backup, including bare-metal recovery to the same or dissimilar hardware, volume and file-level restores. Additionally, thanks to the same backup format, users of Veeam Backup FREE Edition are able to perform application item recovery with Veeam Explorers for Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory, SQL Server and SharePoint from backup of server machines created with Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE.

Additionally, users of paid editions of Veeam Backup & Replication in VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual environments will be able take full advantage of Veeam backup repositories as target locations for Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE backups, and perform basic centralised monitoring and management of endpoint backup jobs from within the Veeam Backup & Replication console. This integration extends some familiar capabilities (e.g., enhanced application item recovery with Veeam Explorers, export of backed up physical disk content into various virtual disk formats, backup files encryption, etc.) to endpoint backups, while allowing backup administrators to control Veeam backup repository access to end users with flexible permissions system.

Endpoint backup has been a difficult task for SMBs and individuals,” said Liz Conner, Research Manager at IDC. “With this new free tool, Veeam has introduced an interesting and elegant solution for both individuals looking to back up their own personal machines, or as protection for a small number of enterprise endpoints or even a few physical servers.

“If you want a no nonsense, no fussing around, no long winded marketing-hyped product that just works, Veeam Endpoint FREE is what you’re looking for,” said Femi Adegoke, Technology Director at FATeknollogee. “I know if I was Veeam, I’d charge for this product. It’s too good to be free.

“We have implemented Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE as a self-service tool for our DBAs,” said Didier Van Hoye, Technical Architect at the Flemish Geographical Information Agency (FGIA). “They have full control over their SQL Server native backup to files on disk, where they can keep them for 5 to 6 days, but for longer term retention they need to move them to lower tier storage. Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE provides an easy to use tool to back-up SQL backup files to the lower tier and provide easy self-service restore when needed for use with the native SQL Server backup restore tools. It’s so easy.

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE now joins the Veeam family of free tools that also includes:

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