Everyone needs insight into their virtual infrastructure, but not all the small shops have the budgets to get this in place. Well…. That is all changed with Veeam One which now has a free version. Does this give you everything, no…. But does it give you enough, sure does. Plus if you get to the point you want the full version just go ahead and purchase your license and apply it to your production install of Veeam Free Edition.

By no means is this going to be an in-depth review, I’m going to show you how easy the install is and how quick you can be up and running. I will also let you know what you are missing between the Free Edition and the full Edition. If you go ahead and install the product and want to find out more information on how to use the product, please visit the Veeam website, they have all the resources you need. http://www.veeam.com/virtualization-management-one-solution/resources.html Don’t want to read? look no further some training videos for Veeam One http://www.veeam.com/university/how-to-manage-virtual-machines.html?ad=one-nfr-page

Install

• First of all we need to get the install, point your browser to http://www.veeam.com/virtual-server-management-one-free.html and start the download, you will need a Free Account. If you don’t have one you can register at this point.
• The download is in the ISO format, and is close to 1.3 GB in size, once you have the file downloaded, go ahead and pick a VM to install it on. In my lab I choose my Veeam B&R server as the VM. I used the VI client to present the ISO to my VM from my Local workstation drive.

System Requirements

• The requirements for the server are pretty low, you don’t need a whole lot of resources to host the server.
• If you are not sure if you meet all the software requirements, that’s fine as you go through the installer it will run some tests to see if you do, and if you don’t the installer will fix that right up for you. I love when Installers give you this option! Thanks Veeam.
• The requirements listed below are right from the Veeam One Installer.

Veeam ONE Server:

Veeam ONE Monitor Client

Supported Virtualization Platforms

Ports

Permissions

Install Screenshots and Steps

• Go to the location where you mounted the ISO and launch the install.

• You should now have the Installer Menu on the screen.
  • Veeam One Server: This will be the full install, if you run this option it will install the server and the monitor client.
  • Veeam One Monitor: This option will just give you the monitor components. This will allow you to view the Veeam One Server from another workstation, it could be a Management Station, Laptop, or anything else you want to have the capability to view your Veeam One Server from. Just make sure it sticks to the requirements for the install.
  • For this example I am going to choose the Veeam One Server Install.

• Click Install Veeam One Server, you will see the screen below as the binaries are loading.

• Of course have a read, and click next.

• Again have a read and agree to the EULA, no worries they aren’t asking for your first born.

• For this pick the Free Mode, again you can change this at any time if you want to go to the full version without have to do a reinstall.

• We have selected the Free Mode, and you don’t get options to choose in the free mode.

• Next is the system configuration check, as you can see I missed a software install. But no problems there, just click install and the issue will be resolved.

• Enabling the missing features for me, without me having to leave the installer, add a feature and run everything from scratch again.

• All is well, time to continue with the install.

• I have decided to change the install path, to another disk on my server that has more space. You may do the same or keep the default of the SysVol.

• Please put in an account that has Local Admin rights to the server, and System Admin on the SQL Server.

• You can choose to install SQL Express as part of the installer if you need a SQL server to host the database, or you can choose an existing SQL server. In my case I am installing on my Veeam B&R server so I will use the same SQL Express Install.

• You can change the ports that the Reporter Web Portal, and the Business View Web Portal uses. You only need to change this if you have a port conflict.

• Now you get to choose what the Veeam One Server is going to monitor it can be a VMware vCenter Server, or Standalone vSphere Host, also the Free Hypvisor version. As you can see you may also pick a Hyper-V Server. Nice thing is it’s all from one console.

• Once you make your selection just go ahead and put in the required username and password.

• At this point that is all the installer needs. Time to go get a Tea and wait for the installer to do it’s thing.

• Waiting, with progress.

• If you see this screen it means all is good to go.

• You will now see the new icons on your desktop. This can all be done in about 15 Minutes, depending on the speed of your hardware.

Veeam One Monitor

This is where you can view all the Real-Time Data and Historical data. In the Free version it will only go back 7 Days. Veeam One Monitor gives you the ability to complete Virtual Infrastructure Analysis, At-a-glance views of health and performance with Dashboards, Advanced Alerting Capabilities, and storage Monitoring.

• Once you launch Veeam One Monitoring you will see the following splash screen.

• Then you will see the portal. This is where you can get all the data to keep you alert of issues that may arise. This will give you the opportunity to resolve issues before your end users even notice. Again just giving a quick overview of what you get with Veeam One, not a deep-dive.
• But below I have provided some screenshots of what you will see.

Veeam One Business View

Business View gives business-oriented views of the virtual environment, for monitoring and reporting from the different perspectives of your stakeholders. This application will allow you to gain a business view of your virtual environment, set and forget dynamic categorization, and prioritize resource allocation and control VM sprawl.

• I haven’t set anything up for this in my Lab, so it doesn’t show much, but this is a Web Portal where if you setup category’s for your VM’s things will start populate.
• The Business View can also been seen with Veeam One Monitor, Select the Business View Tab on the Left side.

Veeam One Reporter

Reporter Discovers, documents, and analyzes your entire virtual infrastructure, this is all automated and eliminates labor-intensive error-prone and ineffective manual reporting processes, and can all be viewed with Customizable dashboards.

Full Version vs. Free

The Free version is great for the SMB that doesn’t have the budget, but the cost of Veeam One is fairly cheap easily if you bundle in Veeam Backup and Replication and get yourself an essentials license. So… you may be asking yourself what do I get with Veeam One Full Version. The following Document will clear that up.

Quick overview

• Alarm modeling and custom alarms
• Full access to the knowledge base
• Management of guest, host and vCenter processes
• Historical change management beyond the most recent 24 hours
• Microsoft Visio reports for multipathing, network, vMotion and datastore utilization
• Automated report generation and distribution

Detailed

Upgrade from Free to Full

Now… its time to see how easy it is to upgrade from Free to Full.

• First of all you need a license, or if you are a vExpert, VCP, MCP, MCTS, or MVP you can get a NFR Full License from this location. This license is only to be used for evaluation or demonstration purposes http://go.veeam.com/one-free-nfr.html?ad=virtual-server-management-one-free.html 
• Open up the Veeam Monitor One Console on the server.
• Click on the Help Option, and click license information.

• You will then see the license you currently have.

• If you are running the free version there will be no license.
• Click the install License, and browse to the location of your key file.

• Then you have a full version!

Conclusion

Veeam has made it very ease and cheap to give you a single pane of glass for reporting, capacity planning, and troubleshooting. If you are not using anything right now, why not! Install Veeam One at no cost to you and within Minutes have a very good view of virtual infrastructure. If you are using something, and you think Veeam One may be better, again install and have a look!