Timely support of Windows Server Operating System’s new releases is very important to most customers because the applications and infrastructure services most commonly deployed in the private cloud are dependent on the Windows Server Operating System. In the past few years, Veeam has always been first — or among the first — to add support for newly released versions. For example, Veeam Endpoint Backup was the first backup product to fully support Windows 10.

Because Veeam fully intends to maintain this practice of being among the first to add support for newly released versions, I am happy to announce that NEW Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 will be the first to provide FULL, advanced support for Microsoft 2016 data center technologies. Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 will integrate deeply with new Windows Server 2016 technologies, Microsoft Hyper-V 2016 and the 2016 releases of Microsoft enterprise applications. It has always been Veeam’s goal to quickly offer full support for new releases because many Veeam customers and partners are quite anxious to update their environments to the latest versions.

Let's take a deeper look now at the upcoming integration details.

Windows Server 2016

Windows Server 2016 is one of the most anticipated Windows Server OS releases in history due to the many enhancements made by Microsoft. Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 will permit users to install Veeam Backup & Replication components, as well as to protect guest VMs running on supported hypervisors. For Hyper-V 2016, Veeam will even leverage PowerShell Direct, which allows for a direct connection to guest VMs from the Hyper-V host, without requiring any network connectivity for application-aware processing, guest file system indexing and file-level recovery. This is the most-requested VMware backup functionality previously unavailable for Hyper-V.

Microsoft Hyper-V 2016

Microsoft Hyper-V 2016 also features a number of significant updates. If you're interested in learning more about the updates, check out this free eBook I authored.

Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 will support the new Hyper-V backup framework, as well as the VM hardware version, 7.1 (as of TP5), which is required if you want to take advantage of the many benefits that come with the latest Hyper-V enhancements.

Hyper-V Resilient Change Tracking (RCT)

Before Windows Server 2016, Microsoft Hyper-V did not provide any level of native change block tracking (CBT) to allow for faster incremental backups and restores. To keep track of these changing data blocks, Veeam leveraged a proprietary filter driver, which was installed in the parent partition of the Hyper-V hosts. With Hyper-V 2016, Microsoft is introducing native CBT through a feature called Resilient Change Tracking (RCT), which will make Veeam’s CBT filter driver a thing of the past, and more importantly, allow support for configurations with VMs residing on third-party SMB3 storages.

Microsoft Hyper-V on Nano Server and Storage Spaces Direct

Nano Server is another new deployment option within Windows Server 2016. To learn more about Nano Server, read this free eBook written by my colleague, Mike Resseler. Nano Server has specific use cases, with the main use case being a Hyper-V host. Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 will provide full support for processing VMs residing on Nano Server. Version 9.5 will also support Storage Spaces Direct , Microsoft's recommended Hyper-V 2016 architecture, which is intended to reduce the size of datacenter footprints and improve overall security.

Version 9.5 will fully support backup and replication of guest VMs running on both Storage Spaces Direct and Nano Server.

2016 updates to Microsoft enterprise applications

Microsoft is adding many new enhancements to their enterprise applications, with major 2016 updates to Microsoft Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint and SQL Server. Users can rest assured that Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 will provide full support for these new application versions of the application-aware processing engine and Veeam Explorers family. This will ensure that application-consistent backups and high-speed recovery of individual application items are readily available.

Conclusion

Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 will once again be the first to FULLY support all new capabilities of Windows Server 2016, Microsoft Hyper-V 2016 and Microsoft 2016 enterprise applications. All of the functionality that I’ve discussed here is already available as part of the private beta. If you have a Windows Server 2016 TP5 environment deployed and are interested in trying out our 9.5, just contact your Veeam sales representative to see if there are open beta spots available in your region.

Providing support for the latest Microsoft platform is only one of the many Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 features that Veeam customers and partners can benefit from. Don’t forget to register to be among the first to know about all of the great new features being introduced with Veeam Availability Suite 9.5.

I want to hear from you! Tell me how you're currently using Veeam and Microsoft Technologies in your datacenter, as well as how you plan to leverage Microsoft 2016 data center technologies in the future!

Additional resources:

Veeam named Microsoft Partner of the Year finalist in two categories!

In early June 2016, Microsoft announced Partner of the Year Awards for 2016. Veeam was named a finalist in two of the categories: Application Development and Microsoft Azure Certified Azure Solution.

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