Hyper V backup solutions

[zeibis]

Hello,

 

So lets start with hardware: 1st server 24 core Xeon and 2nd server 12 core Xeon.

 

On 1st server I have around 15 VMs running and I need backup and replication solution so if the fist one goes down I can, with minimal downtime, start VMs on second server.

 

My first choice was Hyper V Replication but I am struggling with Kerberos authentication, I will work on it but its frustrating. Maybe there is a simple fix to error 0x00002EFE but I am thinking about 3rd party software.

 

I am trying Commvault and Altaro free trials to see what they offer and buy full product if they are good enough.

 

So I need some tips how to setup backups and what software is better to use.

 

Thanks,

zeibis

 

[Salv8 (sam)]

1 hour ago, zeibis said:

-snip-

the checkpoint feature will fit your needs

you can set it up to take a snapshot of your virtual machine at a specified time at a specified date, tell it where to store the checkpoints and how many to keep

you can find this in the virtual machine settings in the hyper-v manager. just enable and configure it.

i recommend having the checkpoint stored somewhere safe, preferably somewhere backed up regularly, just in case some thing goes wrong and you need to restore from an older checkpoint .

if you are still getting confused read up on these:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/user-guide/checkpoints - good explanation with a demo to show how it works

https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/standard-production-checkpoints-hyper-v/ - an excellent explanation with in-depth details on how it works, also check out the comments in it, some of your questions may be answered there.

[Falconevo]

2 hours ago, zeibis said:

Hello,

 

So lets start with hardware: 1st server 24 core Xeon and 2nd server 12 core Xeon.

 

On 1st server I have around 15 VMs running and I need backup and replication solution so if the fist one goes down I can, with minimal downtime, start VMs on second server.

 

My first choice was Hyper V Replication but I am struggling with Kerberos authentication, I will work on it but its frustrating. Maybe there is a simple fix to error 0x00002EFE but I am thinking about 3rd party software.

 

I am trying Commvault and Altaro free trials to see what they offer and buy full product if they are good enough.

 

So I need some tips how to setup backups and what software is better to use.

 

Thanks,

zeibis

 

If you are struggling with Kerberos its likely because your hosts are not on a domain which is a requiement for Kerberos.  You can do replication without Kerberos.

You can use SSL cert's for replication instead, this is the preferred method when using Hyper-V on non-domain workgroup hosts.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/virtualization/2013/04/13/hyper-v-replica-certificate-based-authentication-makecert/

 

Please be aware that Hyper-V replication is NOT high availability, it is a DR technology so simply disaster recovery only.  You will have a loss of data should the primary host fail, the amount of data lost depends entirely on your replication scheduling.  Virtual machines will replicate in an a-synchronous manner on a predefined time (1min / 5min / 15min) so keep that in mind when configuring.   Hyper-V replication also uses a large amount of network and disk IO when a replication job is performed so setting it at 1min replication times may overwhelm your storage or network capacity.

 

Hyper-V replication is NOT backups, never confuse the two..  Remember that if you fuck up the VM on one side, within the replication schedule it is also fucked up on the other side so if the broken changes are replicated you need to restore from backups So Hyper-V replication in addition to VM level backups would be preferred, you can look at stuff like Veeam to easily accomplish this I think they do a free version which covers VM level backups;  https://www.veeam.com/virtual-machine-backup-solution-free.html

[zeibis]

@Salv8 (sam) and @Falconevo thank you, I got info from you that i needed, I will spend next few days setting up the replication and create good backup solution.

[Falconevo]

Just now, zeibis said:

@Salv8 (sam) and @Falconevo thank you, I got info from you that i needed, I will spend next few days setting up the replication and create good backup solution.

No worries, give us a shout if you struggle with cert config for Hyper-V

[BloodKnight7]

Have you tried veeam or nakivo? those are my personal cheap/"free" software for seamless backups.

[zeibis]

On 8/20/2018 at 1:35 AM, BloodKnight7 said:

Have you tried veeam or nakivo? those are my personal cheap/"free" software for seamless backups.

As I got replication to work, I am looking for an overnight incremental backup solution. veeam is a very good option and I will try nakivo.

[N1tro199]

We use Shadow-Protect to backup around 12 VM's and 4 physical servers.

 

It does à full backup and first and then perpetual incrementals. We were using BackupExec which was crap. We couldn't get 1 week of backups without errors. 

 

Since we moved to shadow protect, we haven't had issues. It is so nice to have the email confirmation that your backups were done correctly!

 

The restoration and mounting of a backup image is also well done. Not the prettiest UI but simple enough.

 

Setting the schedule is also pretty easy. It uses VSS so it's also pretty fast.