Veritas Backup Exec is a data protection software product designed for customers with mixed physical and virtual environments, and who are moving to public cloud services. Supported platforms include VMware and Hyper-V virtualization, Windows and Linux operating systems, Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Storage, among others. All management and configuration operations are performed with a single user interface. Backup Exec also provides integrated deduplication, replication, and disaster recovery capabilities and helps to manage multiple backup servers or multi-drive tape loaders.
Backup Exec employs an automated installation process. Installing Backup Exec 15 on a Windows Server 2012 R2 system takes around 30 minutes, according to reviews. The installation wizard can be started from the Backup Exec Installation Media or the management console to push agents out to the physical servers, Hyper-V/VMware virtual machines, application/database systems hosting Active Directory, Exchange, Oracle database, SQL, and other supported platforms.
With its client/server design, Backup Exec provides backup and restore capabilities for servers, applications and workstations across the network. Backup Exec recovers data, applications, databases, or systems from an individual file, mailbox item, table object, or entire server. Current versions of the software support Microsoft, VMware, and Linux, among others.
When used with tape drives, Backup Exec uses the Microsoft Tape Format (MTF), which is also used by Windows NTBackup, backup utilities included in Microsoft SQL Server, and many other backup vendors and is compatible with BKF. Microsoft Tape Format (MTF) was originally Maynard's (Backup Exec's first authors) proprietary backup Tape Format (MTF) and was later licensed by Microsoft as Windows standard tape format. In addition, Microsoft also licensed and incorporated Backup Exec's backup engine into Windows NT, the server version of Windows.
In addition, Backup Exec's family of agents and options offer features for scaling the Backup Exec environment and extending platform and feature support. Backup Exec 21.3 is the latest version of Veritas’ backup and recovery software, released on September 6, 2021.
History
Within the “backup” portion of the data protection spectrum, one Veritas product, Backup Exec, has been in the market for more than two decades. Since the early days of Microsoft’s journey to turn its Windows Server into the world’s dominant client-server operating system, Backup Exec has been one of a handful of technologies to protect it. As the WinSvr OS grew to become a platform of choice for application enablement and user productivity, Backup Exec’s media/platform support, application support, and internal operation evolved at a similar pace.
Backup Exec has a long history of successive owner-companies. Its earliest roots stretch back to the early 1980s when Maynard Electronics wrote a bundle of software drivers to help sell their tape-drive products. 1982 - Maynard Electronics started. Maynard's software is known as "MaynStream." 1989 - Maynard is acquired by Archive Corporation MaynStream is available for DOS, Windows, Macintosh, OS/2, and NetWare. 1991 - Quest Development Corporation is independently formed to develop backup software under contract for Symantec. 1993 - Conner Peripherals acquires Archive Corporation and renames the software "Backup Exec". 1993 - Quest acquired rights to FastBack for Macintosh, and hired its principal author, Tom Chappell, from Fifth Generation Systems. 1994 - Conner creates a subsidiary, Arcada Software, by acquiring Quest and merging it with their existing software division. 1995 - Arcada acquires the SyTron division from Rexon, including their OS/2 backup software. 1996 - Conner is acquired by Seagate Technology and Arcada is merged into its subsidiary Seagate Software. 1999 - VERITAS Software acquires Seagate Software's Network and Storage Management Group, which included Backup Exec. 2005 - Symantec acquires VERITAS, including Backup Exec. 2015 - Symantec announced they would be splitting off the Information Management Business which contains Backup Exec, into a new company named Veritas Technologies Corporation acquired by the Carlyle Group. 2016 - Veritas Technologies re-launches as a newly independent company which contains Backup Exec.