backup

Nakivo Backup and Replication v10 released with support for vSphere 7

Nakivo Backup and Replication released last week version 10. I personally use Nakivo Backup and Replication in my lab environment because it can be installed on my NAS device. This saves me hardware resources of the backup VM (appliance or Windows/Linux) and the deployment is super fast.

In version 10 of Nakivo Backup and Replication the following new improvements are added:

  • VMware vSphere 7 support. vSphere 7 support for Nakivo Backup & Replication. This is the latest version of VMware vSphere when writing this blog post.
  • User Interface Enhancements. The user interface has a new facelift to improve the experience with the product.

  • Physical Machine Recovery to VMware (P2V). To protect mixed physical and virtual IT environments, Nakivo Backup & Replication offers the Physical to Virtual Machine Recovery feature.
  • Backup to Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage. You can create backup repositories in Wasabi buckets for backing up and storing virtual and physical machines.

  • Linux Workstation Backup. Perform app-aware, incremental backups of Linux workstations running Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop and 20.04 Desktop. Quickly recover entire workstations or restore individual files and objects directly from backups.

Other improvements are:

  • Application permissions for Microsoft 365 accounts have been updated. Make sure you make the necessary changes to prevent backup and recovery jobs from failure. Refer to Obtaining Microsoft 365 credentials (item 10) for details.
  • CentOS v7.0-7.6 support
  • Improvements for Backup to Amazon S3

The release notes can be found here: link and a free trial can be found here: link.

 

Veeam v8 is coming

The new version of Veeam is called “Veeam Availability Suite v8”.

Veeam

The Veeam Availability Suite v8 has improvements in the following areas:

  • High Speed Recovery
  • Data Loss Avoidance
  • Verified Protection
  • Leverage Data
  • Complete Visibility

HIGH-SPEED RECOVERY

Enables low recovery time objectives (RTOs) of <15 minutes; enables rapid recovery of the data customers want, in the form that they want it. Features are:

  • Instant VM Recovery
  • Instant File-Level Recovery
  • NEW v8 Veeam Explorer™ for Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, SQL
  • Server,Active Directory
  • NEW v8 Veeam Explorer for Storage Snapshots (HP and NetApp)

DATA LOSS AVOIDANCE

Avoids data loss by enabling low recovery point objectives (RPOs) of < 15 minutes and facilitating offsite data protection. New features v8 are:

  • 2-in-1: backup and replication
  • Built-in WAN Acceleration
  • Native tape support
  • NEW v8 Backup from Storage Snapshots (HP and NetApp)
  • NEW v8 EMC Data Domain Boost
  • NEW v8 Veeam Cloud Connect
  • NEW v8 End-to-end encryption
  • NEW v8 Replication enhancements

VERIFIED PROTECTION

Reliably restores files, applications and virtual servers when needed; ensures business resiliency through automated backup and DR testing.

  • SureBackup
  • SureReplica

LEVERAGE DATA

Eliminates the risks associated with application deployment; allows you to test changes in a production‐like environment before actually deploying them.

  • Virtual Lab

COMPLETE VISIBILITY

Provides monitoring and alerting tools so that you can discover and be alerted to issues in your IT environment before they have a significant impact.

  • Complete visibility of the Veeam backup infrastructure
  • vSphere Web Client Plug-in
  • vCloud Director integration
  • Centralized management

The Veeam Availability Suite v8 is scheduled for Q3 2014.  More information can be found here, link.

Backup the ESXi configuration and update the status in vCenter

I create a simple PowerCLI script that backups all the ESXi hosts configurations that are connected in a vCenter server and displays the backup status in vCenter. To display the backup status in vCenter I created a global custom attribute called “Last ESXi Backup”.

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After the ESXi PowerCLI backup script runs the  “Last ESXi backup” field is updated with the current date.When the script is started the map that stores the ESXi configuration files is copied to an old map.

Here is an example how it looks  in VMware Web Client:

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And an example how it looks in the vSphere Client:

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The script can be scheduled to make for example every week a backup of the ESXi server configs. You can easily customize the script for your own needs.

PowerCLI Script:

<# .SYNOPSIS Backup ESXi configration .VERSION 1.0 .DESCRIPTION Backups the configuration of all the ESXi servers .NOTES Author(s): Ivo Beerens Create a global custom field called "Last ESXi Backup" on the vCenter server .EXAMPLE ./BackupESXi.ps1 .Changes #>

#Load PowerCLI
Add-PSSnapin vmware.VimAutomation.core -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

#Variables
$Folder = “E:\Backup\ESXi”
$FolderOld = “E:\Backup\ESXi\Old”
$Date = Get-Date -f dd-MM-yyy

# Connect to local vCenter Server
Connect-ViServer localhost

# Move existing backup files to the old directory
mv ($Folder + "\*.tgz") $FolderOld -force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

# Backkup ESXi configuration
Get-VMHost | Foreach {
$_ | get-vmhostfirmware -BackupConfiguration -DestinationPath $folder
$_ | Set-CustomField -name "Last ESXi Backup" -value "$Date"
}

# Disconnect session vCenter 
Disconnect-VIserver -Confirm:$false