page_title: Backup Exec
section_title: Configuration
hierarchical_section_title: Backup Exec / Configuration
caption_attribution_description: English: Central Admin Server Option architecture
context_page_description: Veritas Backup Exec is a data protection software product designed for customers who have mixed physical and virtual environments, and who are moving to public cloud services. Supported platforms include VMware and Hyper-V virtualization, Windows and Linux operating systems, Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure and Google cloud storage, among others. All management and configuration operations are performed with a single user interface. Backup Exec also provides integrated deduplication, replication, and disaster recovery capabilities and helps to manage multiple backup servers or multi-drive tape loaders.
  Backup Exec has an installation process that is well automated. Installing Backup Exec 15 on a Windows Server 2012 R2 system takes around 30 minutes. The installation wizard can be started from the Backup Exec Installation Media or the management console to push agents out to the physical servers, Hyper-V/VMware virtual machines, application/database systems hosting Active Directory, Exchange, Oracle database, SQL, and other supported platforms.
context_section_description: Backup Exec installations can have one or more Backup Exec servers, which are responsible for moving data from one or more locations to a storage medium, including cloud, disk, tape, and OST device. The data may be from the local system or from a remote system. There are two primary Backup Exec architectures:
  1. Standalone Backup Exec configuration (Two-Tier)
  A single Backup Exec server is assigned the standalone Backup Exec server role. Each server runs the Backup Exec software and the services that control backup and restore operations of multiple clients. Each Backup Exec server maintains its own Backup Exec database, media catalogs, and device catalogs.
  2. Central Admin Server Option (CASO) configuration (Three-Tier)
  Large environments may contain multiple Backup Exec servers responsible for backing up many different client systems. Backup Exec servers in large environments can run independently of each other if each server is managed separately. Separate server management may not be an issue if there are only two or three Backup Exec servers, but it can become unwieldy as the environment grows. Backup Exec can centralize the management of multiple Backup Exec servers using an add-on option called the Backup Exec Central Admin Server Option (CASO). CASO ensures that everything throughout the network is protected by a single system that can be managed from one console and also balances the workload across all Backup Exec servers in the environment.
  In a CASO environment, one Backup Exec server can be configured to be the Central Admin Server (CAS), while other Backup Execs become managed Backup Exec servers (MBESs) that are managed by the CAS. The CASO configuration simplifies the management and monitoring of enterprise-level environments.
caption: Central Admin Server Option architecture
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