The SMP suite is great at what it does, but it can be very complicated to learn how to get it to do what you want. It's a beast! However, when you learn how to the things you want to do, it comes as second nature and you complete them like they're supposed to be done that way. A lot of these things are done to be able to be completed a number of different ways. Take Patch Management, you can deploy patches automatically, via Jobs, or via the "Start Software Update Cycle Now" link in the SMP Agent!
Veeam One works great for monitoring virtual infrastructure. However, other dedicated server monitoring apps do better with monitoring the individual VMs. Where it stands out is its reporting functionality, which allows you to forecast growth and keep track of how you are using your resources. It is also great for companies without a big monitoring budget, as there is a pretty functional free version.
Proactive Alerting - the product can provide email alerts to notify one of any issues in the environment.
Capacity Planning and Forecasting - it has the ability to provide an analysis of the current environment as well as provide a report to forecast future capacity requirements.
Monitoring and Reporting - the software can monitor you environment 24x7 with the ability to provide comprehensive reporting.
The SMP solution is a beast. Each piece is complicated in itself let alone how everything ties together!
There is plenty of documentation online on how to perform a specific task, but you need to pay attention to what VERSION the article is written for. I've been halfway through implementing something only to hit a roadblock since I'm running a newer version and the option the article says to click on doesn't exist anymore...
The licensing is tricky to understand. You can have an enterprise BR license or a Veeam ONE license, and the split modules read from only one module where the license is actually loaded into it.
Documentation could be a little better.
It's not exactly pretty to look at. Themes and tweaks are pretty limited.
The software is a joy to use. The user interface is good overall and you can find frequently needed things easily and quickly. Some less frequently needed things eg. settings are hidden under several menus and one might have to look for those for a while. We also haven't had any issues with the products reliability.
We rarely if ever call support, but overall Veeam is very responsive, quick to get a hold of, and knowledgeable in there help. Some companies get big like Veeam and their support drops off, but we haven't seen that with Veeam (but again, their products seem really solid and trouble free so we rarely need help).
Veeam One is very easy to use, easy to configure and get what you want. The integration for Veeam Backup is perfect, for today i think Veeam need to make Veeam One monitor Microsoft 365 envirioment, this will give great imput and integrated with Veeam Backup for 365 will be amezing.
Being able to report on the majority of things you want all from one interface, makes it really easy to get the results you want.
Because my employer didn't provide training, it took working with support, reading technical documentation, and just playing around on my own to learn how to do certain things.
I've had a lot of help from the SMP Support staff and they're great people and very helpful!
The most positive impact has been a centralized platform to manage all our vCenter Tags, which orchestrate all our BCDR solutions with Veeam.
Response time for analyzing system performance when there are issues has greatly increased due to the simplicity of the software, plus we have been able to allow access to application developers and managers to view and asses their servers when they feel there are issues, without the need to contact the infrastructure team members.
