SQL Safe is appropriate and well-suited for any backup scenario. Having used SQL Safe, I probably wouldn't want to manage a set of servers in the future without it. If you only have a couple of SQL servers, it might not be worth the spend as there are well-maintained free options that are very functional (though they do require more technical knowledge). But I can't think of a scenario where SQL Safe wouldn't be appropriate.
We use it as a Simple Deployment. As a simple deployment scenario, the roles of the backup server, VMware backup proxy, and backup repository are assigned to a single machine. These roles are assigned automatically to the machine where we installed Veeam Backup & Replication. The drawback of the simple deployment scenario is that only the backup server handles and stores all data which is a single point of failure.
When you're adding a new SQL server, sometimes the install from the management server to the SQL server will fail. I'm guessing this happens because of some version difference in Windows components or similar. Not a huge deal because you can just copy the agent to the SQL server and install it there, but considering how easy everything else is, I would expect this to be a little more fluid.
I ran into a situation where part of our business decided to move their servers to a third-party data center. When they took away a SQL server that I was managing with SQL Safe, anything having to do with that policy took forever. Click. Wait 10 minutes. Window reacts. I'm guessing this is because the Management Console is trying super hard to contact the server in question, but I wish it handled losing a server better than it does.
Overall, Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows is a great backup solution and supplies extremely useful tools to configure backups to suite our needs and our clients requirements. I have only taken some points off as the user interface could be easier to navigate when configuring backups and the ability to update Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows from within the software would be appreciated.
Veeam is just on another level compared to most other software vendors who tend to make backup solutions complicated. Veeam uses intuitive GUI's that make sense to most people and take the stress out of systems recovery at high and low levels by simply explaining the process step by step.
SQL Safe allows me to spend less time managing my DR plan and still maintain confidence that my backups and restores are solid. Saving my time means saving money.
SQL Safe does an amazing job at backup compression over and above SQL's native compression. SQL backups are probably our single largest consumer of network drive space. Any product that helps reduce my network footprint, saves money.
