Reviews

reviews of virtualization products

Review NAKIVO Backup & Replication v7.5 – Installation

In this part of the NAKIVO Backup & Replication review I highlight the installation and basic configuration.

For the installation of NAKIVO Backup & Replication you have several options. NAKIVO Backup & Replication can be installed as:

  • Windows or Linux installation package
  • Virtual Appliance for VMware (OVF)
  • In the Amazon AWS cloud
  • Directly installed on NAS devices such as QNAP, Synology and NETGEAR

In my test environment I installed NAKIVO Backup & Replication as Virtual Appliance (VA) on my VMware vSphere 6.7 environment. This is the latest available version of VMware vSphere when writing this blog. The installation of the virtual appliance can be deployed using the vSphere Client (HTML5) or the vSphere Web Interface.

After specifying the name, ESXi host/cluster, storage and selecting the right network, the VA is ready to be deployed. The appliance uses the following resources as VM:

OS Ubuntu Linux (64-bit) Virtual Appliance
CPU 2 vCPU
Memory 4 GB
Hard Disk 1 30 GB
Hard Disk 2 520 GB (repository)
Network Adapter 1

After the deployment the appliance is ready to start. In the console of the Virtual Appliance several settings can be adjusted such as: networking, security (SSH and root password), time and services using a menu interface.

The next step is the basic configuration.

Network Attached Storage (NAS) Support

Another test i did is to install NAKIVO Backup & Replication directly on my QNAP NAS. The installation is straight forward. Download the NAKIVO QNAP package and install this using QNAP AppCenter. After the installation you’re ready to perform the basic configuration.

Basic config

After the installation is complete, you can log into NAKIVO Backup & Replication by opening the following URL:

https://<IP_address_of_QNAP_NAS>:4443

The fist time create an user and you’re able to log in. In a three step wizard the following is configured:

  • Inventory: On what virtual/cloud environment are my VMs running (VMware, Hyper-V or AWS)?
  • Transporter: That’s the component that performs the actual backup, replication and recovery as well the data compression, deduplication and encryption of the data.
  • Repository: Where will the data stored.

Inventory

Because I have a VMware vSphere environment, I connect to an ESXi or vCenter Server in the inventory tab.

Transporter

The Virtual Appliance acts as transporter. The maximum load is default 6 concurrent tasks. It’s always possible to add extra transporters when needed.

Repository

For the repository I use the onboard repository (uses hard disk 2) that is attached to the Virtual Appliance. The onboard repository compression and deduplication is configured by default.

Other repositories options are: CIFS, NFS and Amazon EBS.

Updating

When new updates are available they are displayed in the web interface.

For the Virtual Appliance (VA) download the updated installer and upload it the VA (/opt/nakivo/updates) folder. Open the console of the VA and select “Software Update” in the menu. It would be great when the upgrade process of the VA can be automated without any manually actions in feature releases.

This was the last step of the 3 step wizard. After approximately 15 minutes i’m ready with the installation and basic configuration of the Virtual Appliance.  I can conclude the following after the installation and basic configuration of NAKIVO Backup & Replication test:

  • The installation of the Virtual Appliance and NAS option are simple and can be deployed very fast (minutes) without the need of a extra Windows licensing costs.
  • When installing NAKIVO Backup & Replication on a NAS device. There is no need for VM resources or physical hosts which saves money
  • Management via done by Web Browser, no software installation is needed

Review NAKIVO Backup & Replication v7.5 released

NAKIVO announced today that NAKIVO Backup & Replication v7.5 is out of beta and available. This new version includes the following new features:

  • Support for VMware vSphere 6.7: It’s now officially compatible with the latest version of VMware vSphere.
  • Cross-Platform Recovery: With the Cross-Platform Recovery feature, users can export VM data from VMware and Hyper-V backups into VMDK, VHD, or VHDX format. The exported files can then be used for recovery across different hypervisors, cross-platform VM data migration, long-term archival, or sandbox testing.
  • Advanced Bandwidth Throttling: Allow you to set speed limits during data protection jobs to avoid network overload for example during business hours.
  • Dell EMC Data Domain Boost Support: Dell EMC Data Domain: Integrates with the BoostFS plugin, combining benefits of the VM backup software with the source-side deduplication offered by Dell EMC Data Domain Boost. As a result of this integration, VM backup size can be reduced by up to 17X while VM backup speed can be improved by as much as 50%.
  • NETGEAR ReadyNAS VM Backup Appliance:  can be installed directly on NETGEAR ReadyNAS devices, creating a cost-effective VM backup appliance. The ReadyNAS-based appliance is a 5-in-1 solution featuring backup hardware, software, storage, built-in global data deduplication, and backup-to-cloud functionality. This is already possible with QNAP and Synology NAS devices.

NAKIVO develops data protection solutions for VMware, Hyper-V, and cloud environments such as Amazon and Azure. I was asked to do an independent review of NAKIVO Backup & Replication. In a series of blog posts I will look closer to existing and new features of NAKIVO Backup & Replication v7.5. I’ll will be highlight the following topics:

  • Installation and basic configuration, link
  • Backup and Recovery, link
  • Replication, link
  • Multi-Tenancy, editions and licensing and the final conclusion, link.

Update: Augustus 27, 2018: Today version 8 of NAKIVO Backup & Replication is Generally Available (GA). This version includes the Business Continuity and Site Recovery Orchestration Solution. With v8 of NAKIVO Backup & Replication you can automate and orchestrate the entire site recovery process. Perform scheduled non-disruptive disaster recovery testing, planned failover, emergency failover, failback, and datacenter migration.

More information can be found here:

  • NAKIVO VMware Backup, link
  • NAKIVO Hyper-V Backup, link
  • NAKIVO AWS EC2 backup. link
  • NAKIVO Backup & Replication v7.5 full-featured trial download, link
  • NAKIVO Backup & Replication v7.5 release notes, link
  • NAKIVO Backup & Replication v8 release notes,link

 

Proactively manage your vSphere environment with Runecast Analyzer

I’ve got the opportunity to test Runecast Analyzer. Runecast Analyzer Proactively use VMware KBs, best practices and security hardening guidelines to identify problems in your VMware environment. In this review you find my own experiences of testing Runecast Analyzer.

Deployment

The deployment of Runecast Analyzer is easy. It’s an on-premises deployment on you’re vSphere environment. Within a couple of minutes the Runecast is up and running. First download and deploy the virtual appliance OVA in an existing vSphere 5 or higher environment. During the deployment 3 appliance configuration sizes are available:

Deployment vCPU Memory (GB) Storage (GB) Network
Small 2 4 90 100Mbit=>
Medium 4 8 90 100Mbit=>
Large 8 32 90 100Mbit=>

Choosing the appliance size, set the IP address and you’re ready to access the appliance using a web browser
After the appliance is deployed, the updating of the KB definitions, updates, application and OS updates can be configured in the VA admin interface of the appliance. When using the automatic updating feature you’re always up-to-date.

When the appliance has no internet connection, offlines updates are available on the RuneCast website.

Scan the vSphere environment

Add one ore more vCenter Server(s) and you’re ready to fire you’re first scan of the VMware environment. The scan can be manually performed of scheduled.

After the scan of the environment the issues are displayed in a dashboard.  The issues are categorized in critical, major and medium.

Version 1.7 adds a new dashboard called “issues by layer”. This dashboard categories the issues in 5 main layers: Management, VM, Compute, Network and Storage.

The detected issues are added in the five layers. This dashboard is interactive. By selecting the layer and issue you can drill-down and find the affected component and root cause.

It is possible to integrate RuneCast in the vSphere Web client. The plugin displays all issues detected by RuneCast Analyzer with the details and their root causes.

The vSphere Web Client HTML5 page looks awesome.

Meltdown and Spectre

Runecast is continuously monitoring the VMware KB articles and is able to detect Spectre and Meltdown issues. The great thing is that when VMware is updating or adding a Spectre or Meltdown KB issue, Runecast monitors that and alert you when the vSphere environment is affected. In the following example the Spectre/Meltdown issues are found.

You can drill down to see what hosts are effected.

Log Analytics

Runecast Analyzer includes log analytics. Runecast collects the syslogs from the ESXi hosts and do a smart analytics to discover possible problems found in KBs.

Hardening

Runecast Analyzer uses VMware Security checks (https://www.vmware.com/security/hardening-guides.html) and DISA STIG 6 to check the compliance of the vSphere environment. The results are reports in a dashboard.

vSAN support

Version 1.7 adds support for VMware vSAN environments. It scans vSAN clusters and test their configurations against VMware KB articles and best practices. When issues are found guides are added how to fix them. For example in a customer vSAN environment Runcast Analyzer found the following vSAN problem:

When drilling down the guide tells me that this issue is fixed in ESXi 6.5 Update 1 (vSAN 6.6.1). After patching, the issue was solved without occurring in the vSAN environment. This is what I called “proactive management”.

Conclusion

With Runecast Analyzer every VMware vSphere admin can proactively identify possible (security) problems in there vSphere environment. The installation is easy and fast. Within a couple of minutes the appliance ready for the first scan. As VMware consultant I use Runecast on frequently basis which gives me a great overview of the state of the vSphere environment i’m working with.

Every new release adds great new features such as vSAN and vSphere Web Client (HTML5) support. The next release will contain NSX-V support.

In my opinion Runecast Analyzer is a must have tool for every VMware vSphere admin to proactively monitor there environment.

Wanna try?

There is a 14-day free trial available from this link.