Support for Nutanix AHV

[Gostev]

In a few years, I suspect that Nutanix will control a much larger portion of the market.

And if this actually happens, then I am positive that we will support it with our product.

We do realize that we may lose some existing customers until we have support, but this is the necessary evil and is unavoidable with any new technology appearing. Plus, we will always have an option to make it easy for them to come back to Veeam if they want to!

[Matt@Work]

+1 for AHV support. We are moving away from an 8 host ESXi environment to a 3 host AHV environment. I can't justify keeping around ESXi or moving to Hyper-V. It's not only added cost, as many others have argued, it's also added complexity. While I really enjoy using Veeam, I can't continue to use it if it requires me to add another layer to support in ESXi/Hyper-V. As a small IT team, we are trying to eliminate complexity, and keeping one of those hypervisors is moving in the wrong direction.

Let's face it - hypervisors are nearly commoditized these days, especially in the SMB segment of the market. It's time for Veeam to accept that, even if it means developing for what now is a small market. In a few years, I suspect that Nutanix will control a much larger portion of the market. In the meantime though, I'll be forced to move to something else like CommVault if Veeam has no plans for AHV support, and that's a shame.

I find it interesting you picked a replacement solution that didn't work with a product you already had. Surely that limits any savings you make going from ESXi to AHV? Also, I'm not aware of any product to migrate out from AHV, I know of a few that migrate in. Are you not concerned about lock in? What if Nutanix is bought by an established vendor and decide to deprecate the product? You then find yourself in the position of having to create a whole new solution and migrate.

Cost isn't only about purchase price.

[tomas.olsen]

I enjoy a good comparison of any product. Both hardware and software solutions. That beeing said, to this day I still have not experienced such thing. Every vendor is too busy trying to emphasize their own strengths not caring how narrow they might be and trying to hide features they are not so good at. This makes comparison difficult in most cases. Generally speaking.
If you argue that you are tired of the expenses related to one hypervisor with 8 hosts, and brag about the effectiveness of another that utilizes only 3 hosts to serve the same purpose, the physical hardware compared can not have been the same. That would be like comparing your old 5400rpm laptop harddrive with the newest SSD and arguing that the SSD is so much better. Off course it will be. Intel and many other developers provide the majority of consolidation ratios today regarding CPU at least. That being said, Dell servers can tolerate just as many vm's as Lenovo or HP servers as long as the underlying harware is about the same or supermicro for that matter.
The hypervisor, how it manages physical resources and further how it schedules them to virtual machines can also take some of the credit in performance and consolidation ratios. But today one hypervisor is not twice or three times more effective then another at this job. My believes is that the differences is minor.
So It is complex to calculate the TCO of any solution and one are bound to forget pieces of importance that would influence the TCO substantially either way. TCO is about more then just the cost of a socket license for the hypervisor, much more.
I feel that today is more about closing deals and grasping market shares than having the best interests of the customer in mind. I think one must be better at taking a higher ground and getting a better and more complete view of the environment before making huge investments in infrastructure. When you invest, you often invest for a 3-5 year timeperiod. within that period it is common to adjust the initial investment by adding resources like a node, more ram or disk to existing nodes and so forth. I have been in the market for a while, and I, as well as many of you boys and girls out there, know that you get enormous discounts on a new investment. But when it is time to add more cpu/ram/disk, you rarely see the same discounts. Which again ads to the complexity of calculating TCO. Dependent on what solution you chose and how it has been sized, some have to reinvest earlier then others.

At the moment I am calmly watching the market, trying to get a bearing of where it is taking us. there are many and major players out there today. trying to see where we are going is not easy at the moment. Cloud has also been a buzz word for quite some time. Maybe the era of one or a few big players is past. Maybe the future is just about having an enormous amount of small players to chose from, where you can take your environment and jump form one solution to the other as often as you like at small costs. just like changing your mobile carrier or how you can buy electricity from one supplier one month, and another the next month...
Who knows were we will be tomorrow....

Sorry, That was more then just my two thoughts, but then again....
This reply was meant more as a general reply and not as a reply just for or against Nutanix.

Thanks for a great forum and good discussions!

[dlink7]

Hey

Going from ESXI to AHV and back again is possible with built in automation. I guess it would possible to have a three node cluster with 1 ESXI node and 2 storage nodes and use cross hypervisor DR to backup the VMs with Veeam. The reality the ratore would be messy but hey its an option.

[Matt@Work]

Man after my own heart. When I was chatting with a Nutanix tech and said this, he said 'err yeah, OK, mmmm, yeah.........." Was like watching a computer do Divide by 0

[trumby90]

We have also been having the same internal debate/struggle. For nearly 2 years suffering from poor performing backups because we are running a Hypervisor on Nutanix that does not have built in Change Block Tracking (CBT). Our environment is built on Hyper-V backed up with Veeam before switching to Nutanix hardware, so it was a rude shock to find this out. We also have a separate VMware cluster backed up with Veeam also. Very happy with our Nutanix solution but have been Hanging out for Windows 2016 to be supported. We have been an early beta test site with Nutanix, we built a Cluster running Hyper-V 2016 and backed it up using Veeam. From the info I have it looks like it is going to work as we want CBT etc… however support for this solution from Nutanix is still months away…

I have waited so long why give up now you might say? The introduction of AVH and a supported enterprise backup solution with Commvault that can back it up and our VMware environment looks attractive. Also we will then have the ability to run AVH and VMware together on the same Nutanix cluster. So it has been a long road but sadly may be the end for us with Veeam… unless something changes.

Thanks

[asavage]

+1 to AHV support. New DR site will be AHV, production is still VMware - but that may change.

Also, would love Veeam to integrate with Nutanix snapshots - much like Veeam's NetApp integration.

[HBGNB]

Hello,
we are using EXCHANGE on a AHV cluster. This is very quick and works fine.
But I cannot use VEEAM with AHV, so please support it as soon as possible.

Thanks.

[markus.bach]

We're thinking of using Nutanix AHV as well, but as long as it is not supported by Veeam this is almost not possible. Thinking of Commvault as an alternative as it supports AHV already.

[Matt@Work]

***Public service announcement***

Other HCI vendors are available

[tsun8824]

I was looking for a possible solution on how to use veeam to backup AHV when selling new IT solutions to customers...

Couldn't I just use the new veeam windows agent on all of the VMs which run on AHV?

Yes, it is much more work because I have to install the agents of all VMs..
Or I could just include the veeam agent in the server template...

This should work, right? Is there any known negative impact or limitation in comparison to traditional vsphere-veeam-agentless backup?

[nielsengelen]

Correct, you can use the Veeam Agents to backup Linux and Windows VM's on Nutanix systems .

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, it is much more work because I have to install the agents of all VMs..
Or I could just include the veeam agent in the server template...

Depending on how many agents you're going to be deploy you might be able to use Veeam Availability Console, that provides centralized management (deployment, configuration, monitoring) for Veeam Agent for Windows.

[dwnek]

Correct, you can use the Veeam Agents to backup Linux and Windows VM's on Nutanix systems .

I've been monitoring this thread for a while because we're eagerly awaiting some sort of AHV support, but we were just told we'd need to buy entirely new licensing if we wanted to use the Windows Agents...

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, that's correct. Veeam backup agents is a different product set from Veeam Backup & Replication, which has its own licensing model. However, there is a free version of the product too.

[jmmarton]

I'm working with a customer right now who owns Veeam Availability Suite for VMware. They are looking at migrating to Nutanix + AHV later this year. We're discussing continuing to use Veeam, which he really loves, via the agents to protect the new Nutanix environment. Our upcoming agent management in v10 should make this easy, and we've even discussed how he can automate rolling out agents to only AHV VMs using a PowerShell script that runs on a regular basis. While it's not native AHV integration within VBR, it's still a pretty slick solution for protecting an AHV environment.

Joe

[ChuckS42]

Interesting. I wonder if going the Agent route is more cost effective than the regular Veeam licensing method, in this case. Of course, if you factor in the savings of not needing to license vSphere any more, that's a whole different math.

[FabioM]

Hi,

Just had a customer call asking for a solution to backup (and replicate) some VM's on a Nutanix + AHV infrastructure.
Can someone help me to address this ?
Should I use Veeam Agent for Windows Server and install it on each VM? Using this licencing can I use a Veeam B&R on-prem or on Azure(?) or should I also licence the server (how)?
Is there any way i can replicate to VM to my on-prem infrastructure or Azure?

User wants to backup once a day and (if possible) replicate data more than once a day.
Any advice how to implementa backup solution to do this?

Thanks

[veremin]

Should I use Veeam Agent for Windows Server and install it on each VM?

Correct. If you're after central agent management, either take a look at Veeam Availability Console or wait for the next release of Veeam Backup and Replication.

Using this licencing can I use a Veeam B&R on-prem or on Azure(?)

Correct, you can point all agents to a backup repository.

or should I also licence the server (how)?

Veeam Agent for Windows has its own licensing model. Basically, there are two scenarios:

1) Separate license distribution (install licenses one by one). In this case you will need to buy as many VAW licenses as there are VMs that need to be backed up
2) Central license distribution (one license is installed either on backup or VAC server; and each connected agent receives a license). In that case you will need to purchase one license containing certain number of workstations and servers (VAW editions)

Ask your sales representative for more information regarding that.

Is there any way i can replicate to VM to my on-prem infrastructure or Azure?

No. However, you can instantly restore physical server or workstation to a Hyper-V host (if you have any). Also, server or workstation can be restored to Azure thanks be for Direct Restore to Microsoft Azure functionality.

Thanks.

[FabioM]

Thanks v.Eremin
So summarizing ..
I can licence X number of VM's with VAW and install it on the VM's on the Nutanix platform.
With those licences I can install Veeam Availaility Console on a on-prem server or Azure Server (am I allowed to install or should i have a specific licence for it since there ir no VBR on-prem?) and use local disc for repository (either on-prem server/SMB or Azure VM with FS role).
To recover the VM I can use Direct Restore to Azure from the Veeam Availability Console.

I'm still a bit lost on the target repository. what should I install on-prem or Azure.
Thanks

[Vitaliy S.]

With those licences I can install Veeam Availability Console on a on-prem server or Azure Server (am I allowed to install or should i have a specific licence for it since there is no VBR on-prem?) and use local disc for repository (either on-prem server/SMB or Azure VM with FS role).

To manage Veeam backup agents you don't need to have an on-prem backup server. BTW, you can always point VAW backup jobs to the FREE backup server when managing everything through VAC.

To recover the VM I can use Direct Restore to Azure from the Veeam Availability Console.

Direct Restore to Azure is available from the Veeam backup console, which can be managed by VAC. Feel free to VCSP forums to know more about VAC capabilities.

[FabioM]

I think I've got it.
VAW on the servers on Nutaix infrastructure.
Veeam Backup Server (Free) on-prem or azure VM with Repo (local drives or share).
VAC to manage it all.

Last question. VAC is only for SP's or the customer has access to that with the VAW licences?

[Vitaliy S.]

There are two editions of VAC, one for service providers and another one for Enterprise customers (need to meet the certain criteria to be eligible to use the product). Our sales team can clarify these requirements.

[bdg0296]

I'd just like to put my vote in for Veeam to support / work with AHV. We have two Nutanix Clusters and need Veeam to work with AHV.

[Yannis]

Hi,
Very good news

"Veeam will support Nutanix, for the first time, by the end of the year, and Nutanix will promote Veeam as their premier availability vendor."
http://www.channelbuzz.ca/2017/06/nutan ... hip-22014/

[Vitaliy S.]

The keep pushing strategy does work!

[romx]

Yes, it's a great news for many Veeam customers
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/2 ... Enterprise

Congratulations, Veeam! We going together!

[davow]

I'm curious if the future Nutanix AVH support will mean there will be generic KVM support as well considering AVH is a version of KVM? At the very least is may make a KVM version easier with the experience you get from building the Nutanix support.

Good to see Veeam moving into this space.

[Gostev]

No, actually it does not mean that. Nutanix provides excellent backup APIs that we're leveraging - we don't really need to deal with the actual hypervisor. This obviously makes "vanilla KVM" support a whole different story...

[gingerdazza]

Gostev, is it anticipated that you'll have proper storage integration with Nutanix AHV? And will this also work with Nutanix on VMware (same storage API I'd assume)