Question around functionailty of Veeam with AHV

[currykinguk]

Hi All,

I've been looking through the information on Veeam's website and have been able to get clarity on how the snaps/backups work exactly.

The way my mind sees this playing out is as follows:

1. Veeam initiates a nutanix snap, this snap is local on the cluster but you interface to it via Veeam for granular restores etc.
2. Veeam can use the Nutanix in-built replication to copy this snap to a 2nd Nutanix cluster for DR/off-site backup purposes (so you can spin them up on your 2nd Nutanix cluster as you do with the native replication)
3. Optionally a copy of the snap is moved to the Veeam backup repository, for offloading to tape/NAS/Azure

This gives you your 3-2-1 backup but allows you to backup and restore in the fastest possible way?

Is this how this works?

We currently have Commvault, and it does the 1st part and the 3rd part but not the 2nd, so you need to use Nutanix in-built replication for copying snaps to another cluster so you can spin the VM's up at your DR site.

Thanks

[MichaelCade]

Hi Paul,

A Veeam Backup Proxy Appliance for AHV is deployed within the Nutanix AHV cluster this integrates with the Nutanix AHV cluster and the Veeam Backup & Replication repository.

The integration with Veeam backup & replication is to gain access to Veeam Backup repositories.

The integration with AHV is via the Nutanix RESTful API, assigns necessary resources for backup and restore operations, reads/writes data from/to AHV datastores and transports VM data to/from target Veeam backup repositories.

The proxy is also responsible for job management and scheduling, data compression and deduplication. This is done via a web-based portal. as well as the pre mentioned it also allows for the ability to restore VMs and VM disks back to Nutanix AHV clusters.

More granular recovery can be achieved through Veeam Backup & Replication including, guest files, application items as well the ability to extend availability with Backup Copy, Tape, Cloud Connect (BaaS) and Restore to Microsoft Azure as well as conversion to VMDK, VHD, VHDX

Also to note for one Nutanix AHV cluster, one proxy appliance is required.

Currently we do not have the ability to perform image level replication between multiple AHV Clusters.

Hope that helps

[currykinguk]

Hi and thanks for the response.

So if i'm reading this correctly - you use an API call to call a hardware snap, this then writes back to the AHV datastore as a snapshot, but is also transported to the veeam backup repository for offload to tape etc. Seems you have the same issue as commvault in not yet being able to use the intelligent snaps/replications of nutanix to then offload these to a second cluster?

Thanks

[MichaelCade]

So we also have the ability to leverage the Nutanix AHV Protection Domains so any schedule that has been made on the AHV cluster prior and continuing after Veeam we have the ability to leverage those to backup into the Veeam repository.

[ericschott]

The AHV proxy uses Nutanix APIs to create a Nutanix storage snapshot. So this is within the AHV system. The snapshot data is used as the source for backups, and as Michael mentions the proxy accesses the snapshot, determines changes, and sends these optimized to the Veeam repository (external of the production cluster).

3-2-1 is achieved via normal Veeam backups and copy jobs. So you get a copy during backup off of the AHV system, and you can use Veeam copy jobs to get additional copies offsite, etc as required by your overall backup plan.

[Didi7]

So in comparison to e.g. VMware vSphere, where a VMware snapshot is created before the backup to have a consistent state and where data is read from the original or mother VMDK and where VM changes are sent to the VMware snapshot delta (as long as the snapshot gets consolidated after backup is finished), in AHV the Veeam Nutanix AHV Proxy Appliance reads backup data from the Nutanix VM snapshot instead of the original AHV VM Disk?

[MichaelCade]

The snapshot engine is different from vSphere it’s more aligned to a storage snapshot there is no consolidation requirement within AHV

[martinbradburn]

Can AHV backup directly to a cloud repository rather than a local repository and then a copy job?

[veremin]

Nope, you cannot back up directly to cloud repository. Thanks!