Veeam Backup and Replication 13 is finally here!

The long-awaited update for the Veeam suite of products has finally arrived and has some really exciting new features to explore!

This blog was written to help distill the plethora of information out there on the new release and share my perspectives on the direction Veeam is taking with the product and why it will be set up for success (and catch up with the more “modern” backup offerings).

Since the early days of virtual machines and image-based backup, there has always been a level of excitement over a new Veeam release (coming from the perspective of a Veeam veteran). Veeam v13 by far is the most significant upgrade to the product line yet – fueling a backup component architecture shift from the long-utilized Windows platform over to Linux.

Back in September, Veeam released an early preview of the new VSA (Virtual Server Appliance). For the first time, you can now run all of the Veeam core infrastructure components: Veeam Management, Proxy, Gateway, and Hardened Repository all on one box! The new appliance offering is a response by Veeam by the ever-evolving data protection market to meet the demand with a simple, hardened, and easy-to-deploy package that you can get up and running in 30 minutes.

Veeam, however, has not compromised on its core foundation of being hardware agnostic. You can still run the new appliance on a large variety of hardware – even repurposed servers that meet the minimum requirements. The appliance not only allows you to deploy a simple out-of-the-box solution, but it also still allows you to be scalable by separating the components (deploying more proxies to meet backup demand for instance) while reducing the dependency on spinning up more Windows-based machines. Veeam has also introduced HA (High Availability) for the management servers – meaning you can run multiple backup servers (nodes) in a cluster, with the configuration synced and a server ready to utilize in the event of a failure or compromise.

Here are some of the highlights of the additional new features:

• Virtual Software Appliance: Pre-built, pre-hardened appliance that allows you to run all components in a fully Windows-free environment.
• Web UI: In addition to the Veeam console, there is now a web-based UI (currently in preview) that has a basic feature set (most common operations), but will expand feature-wise with future releases
• High Availability: For the first time, you can now deploy multiple Veeam management servers (active/passive) and sync the configurations between the servers for rapid access to management in the event of a failure or incident.
• Single Sign On (SSO): Veeam now supports third-party IdPs such as: Entra ID, Duo Security, and Okta, with full support for SAML login.

A full list of the new features is described here: https://www.veeam.com/veeam_backup_13_whats_new__wn.pdf

Veeam currently offers the upgrade to v13in two ways – either upgrading your existing Windows-based environment as-is or migrating to the VSA (appliance).

At the time of this writing, Veeam only supports a direct upgrade (preserving all jobs, configuration, etc.) on the Windows-based version. The appliance deployment would be a new deployment, and any configuration would need to be set up again. Veeam has let us know this is only temporary and that there will be an upgrade/migration path from the Windows-based installation to the VSA within the first quarter of 2026. You will still need to upgrade your existing Veeam v12 environment to v13 (Windows-based) prior to migrating to the appliance (when that becomes available).

What we are seeing is a “soft retirement” of the Windows-based Veeam installation. There has been a slow migration (starting with the release of v12) of moving away from Microsoft dependencies (such as moving from MS SQL to Postgres for the config DB) that we will likely see Veeam full embracing the Linux infrastructure. More time in development will be spent enhancing the Linux platform and there will be more of a push to migrate to the new appliance.

Finally, it’s worth noting that Winslow Technology Group (WTG) has been a long-standing, trusted partner of Veeam, along with several other leading backup and recovery providers. That longevity gives us deep, real-world experience designing, implementing, and supporting resilient data-protection strategies across diverse environments—from on-premises infrastructure to hybrid and cloud-based architectures. Our approach is always vendor-aware but outcome-driven, ensuring customers get the right solution for their operational, security, and compliance requirements—both today and as their environments evolve.

Need assistance upgrading? Have questions about some of the new features or want to take advantage of the new VSA in your environment?

Contact your account executive today to learn more!