The portability and flexibility of the Veeam Backup file (.vbk) that is created with the Veeam Agents for Windows and Linux as well as the VMware and Hyper-V backups is also the same format that we see with the Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV. This allows us to extend your availability options when we look at where we can store copies of our data offsite.

The 3-2-1 rule is a methodology that Veeam has been advocating for many years now, 3 copies of your data on 2 different media types and 1 of those being offsite. This protects your business against many different failure scenarios. That 1 copy offsite is the one I want to touch on in this post.

The focus of this post is how you can take your Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV backups and send them to one of the many Veeam Cloud Connect Service Providers for that offsite copy of your data and availability.

Adding your Veeam Cloud Connect Service Provider

It’s an easy process to start getting your data to an offsite location. Leveraging one of the Veeam Cloud Service Providers (VCSP) first within Veeam Backup & Replication we need to add in our Cloud Connect DNS name or IP Address.

Your service provider will have supplied the DNS Name or IP Address to use in the above screen, they would have also provided you with unique credentials that can be added here.

The Service Provider would have also setup available resources to you as a tenant. In the below scenario this is a repository to store those backups. This could also include the ability to leverage the Veeam WAN Accelerator technology if the links meet the requirements to do so.

We then apply those configuration changes and you will see the process running through on screen.

Providing you have given all the correct information you will then see the successful summary on the final screen of the wizard.

Creating a Backup Copy Job

The next stage is defining the Backup Copy job to start sending data to the Cloud Repository hosted by the Service Provider. From the drop down select backup copy and providing you are running Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 update 3a you will see the Nutanix Policy available if you have Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV jobs enabled and running.

For those that have created the Veeam Backup Copy job it is a very simple wizard driven approach and this job is no different other than the source being a Nutanix Policy, above you can see the other options that can be used for Backup Copy job sources.

At this screen we can now choose our Nutanix Policies that we want to include in this job to our new Cloud Repository.

If you happen to have several Nutanix Policies, we can choose multiple policies and include them in the same backup copy schedule.

For this walkthrough I am going to use just the one policy and include this as the object in the job.

Next is where do we want to store the backups, so we select the newly created Cloud Repository. This could be any supported Veeam Backup Repository.

In keeping in accordance to your companies regulation then you may get this warning if you are not tagging your repositories and their location, my system knows that my Nutanix policies are being stored in London but the Cloud Repository that we have added has no location if you are using this feature in accordance to compliance or just organisation then this prompt will warn you to make that change in configuration. More information on location tagging can be found here in these two posts.

Veeam Backup & Replication – Location Tagging

Veeam ONE – Location Tagging Reporting

I mentioned earlier on in the post about the Service Provider enabling the resources available to you as a tenant, if WAN Acceleration was a requirement due to poor connection link speeds then this is where you could configure the option to use.

The next is the schedule, when do we want this to run? For this example, I am happy for this to continuously run but you can see the granular time span that you can choose when things should be running and not.

Finally, a summary of the configuration we have made.

Sending Data Offsite

Now we have the new Cloud Repository configured and the Job to get that data offsite, the job should then be started, and you will see the first job progress run through with all details of data processed and transferred.

Once the job is complete you will see this job run in accordance to the schedule you have configured.

Recovery

If we ever need to recover from this data, then we can do so by navigating through Veeam Backup & Replication to perform the recovery steps as per <recovery post link> simply select the restore icon and run through the wizard.

Select the backup copy job you wish to recover from and run through the wizard that is explained in the link posted above.

Everything You Need to for Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV

Now that we have our Veeam Proxy Appliance deployed, installed and configured, the next step is to start protecting some of the workloads we have sitting in our Nutanix AHV Cluster.

Navigate to the backup jobs tab on the top ribbon.

Here we can add a new backup job, a simple wizard driven approach to start protecting those workloads.

Next, we need to add in our virtual machines,

In my scenario I have simple virtual machines, if you are leveraging Nutanix Protection Domains then you can also leverage this grouping here to select your virtual machines, we can also leverage dynamic mode this is to allow the adding and removing of new workloads under that protection domain.

Add the virtual machine or machines that you wish to protect.

Next, the next option is selecting the destination of the backup job. To be able to see the backup repository the access on the VBR server needs to have the correct permissions to allow for access. This is done from the Veeam Backup & Replication console.

There are some advanced settings that can also be set to remove deleted VMs from the backup that are no longer included in the backup job.

The final step is to configure through the schedule. This will allow, you to choose the interim of backups and how many restore points that you must retain.

The final screen is the summary of the backup job you are about to complete.

You will also notice the ability to run the backup job when finish is selected, this will then start the backup job process. This will trigger the backup job to perform a full backup of the virtual machines you have selected.

Over in VBR you can see the job also running. In a very similar fashion to what we saw with the original Veeam Endpoint backup, we see enough that something is happening, but nothing can be configured from this job within Veeam Backup & Replication.

Back in the Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV we now have a completed backup job.

Veeam Backup & Replication also shows the completed job and the steps that have occurred during the job.

We will also now see the specific job in our Veeam Backup & Replication console under the backups giving us the ability to perform certain recovery tasks against those backup files.

And we also see the completed job now under the backup jobs in the proxy appliance interface. Here we can perform an Active Full in an ad hoc scenario but also, we can start and stop the job and edit that job.

Over on the Protected VMs tab you will also notice that we now have visibility into the virtual machines that are protected with how many snapshots and backups are present.

To finish, if you head back to the dashboard you will now see the job status showing that we have one created backup job and it is currently idle.

That’s all for the availability section of this series, this is really giving us the ability to create those backup jobs for the virtual machines that sit within the Nutanix AHV cluster, this is an agentless approach for any application consistency you will require the Nutanix Guest Tools.

One thing to note is if you have a transactional workload we would recommend using the Veeam Agent to provide not only the application consistent but also the log truncation within the application. Not required if you have an application that can manage that truncation task.

Next up we will look at the recovery steps and options we have.

Everything You Need to for Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV

At this point we have our new Veeam Proxy Appliance deployed within our Nutanix AHV cluster. Now we need to login and run through the configuration of the appliance.

At the back of the last post, you were left with a web address. Log back in with the updated credentials and at the IP address configuration you set, if you chose not to change then your screen will be back at the login prompt.

The first message you will receive is regarding licensing

The initial dashboard view will look like the below.

The dashboard is the default view when you log in to the proxy appliance, it’s a very simple view and clean interface to navigate.

On the right side of the interface you have the configuration icon to begin the configuration we must add our workloads and targets to begin protecting data.

Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV requires Veeam Backup & Replication to leverage the backup repository targets, as well as recovery examples that we will touch on later in the series.

To connect to your Veeam Backup and Replication server it will need to be running 9.5 update 3a as a minimum.

Next up is we need to add our AHV Cluster, remember it is one proxy per cluster.

You will also see the Appliance Settings on the last tab, this is where we can take those configuration backups if we ever must restore that configuration to a new build of a proxy appliance.

This is also where we need to add our license to the appliance.

Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV can be licensed per protected VM. For more information, see www.veeam.com/eula.html

The trial license key is sent to you automatically after downloading the product, the trial license is valid for 30 days from that moment and includes basic technical support.

To obtain a full license please visit www.veeam.com/buy-end-user.html

With the license for Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV you will also receive a license for Veeam Backup & Replication.

To install the license to Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV, on the summary tab shown above click license. At the license information window, click install license. Select the license file in the file browser and click open.

Now that we have the license, targets and source configured we can head back to the dashboard and now view the status of the environment.

As you can see it’s a pretty simple process to deploy, install and configure the appliance. Next up we will investigate protecting those workloads and the availability steps we can take for the AHV hypervisor.

Everything You Need to for Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV

Carrying on from the previous post of Deployment, this post will touch on the installation and setup of the Nutanix AHV Proxy Appliance and the steps to then start protecting your workloads.

By taking that IP Address that we saw in the AHV console of our proxy appliance and copying that to your web browser you will then be greeted by the following landing page.

Select advanced and proceed to the site.

You will then see the welcome and login screen. In the opened welcome screen, enter the default credentials and click the arrow button.

Default username = admin

Default password = admin

The opening wizard screen will ask if you would like to install for a fresh new proxy appliance or if you would like to restore from a configuration backup. For the purposes of this walk through we are running through a vanilla installation of the proxy appliance.

Read through the EULA and accept to move on.

A strong suggestion at this point is to change the default password.

We then need to define the host name for the proxy appliance. You can also choose to use either DHCP or define static IP configuration on this screen.

Finally there is a summary screen showing you the configuration settings that will be saved.

When you click finish at this stage you will be notified that the installation configuration is being applied and you have a 60 second timer to sit through before the login prompt will reappear.

We now have the Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV Proxy Appliance deployed and installed and ready for configuration, the next post will begin the process of the simple configuration steps to join the appliance to your AHV cluster and the Veeam Backup & Replication server.

Everything You Need to Deploy Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV

Download the latest version of Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV from: www.veeam.com/availability-nutanix-ahv-download.html

These steps assume you have already had a Veeam Backup & Replication server configured. Navigate through the site to get the latest version available.

Accept the EULA.

You will then be prompted for login using your Veeam login credentials.

All the above is pretty standard for any downloads from Veeam.com, now we will get into the actual deployment into your Nutanix AHV cluster.

Once downloaded you need to extract the .vmdk file to a location accessible by the Nutanix AHV cluster.

Log in to your Nutanix AHV cluster, for the purposes of this walkthrough I am using the Community Edition but the process is the same in general for any hardware AHV cluster.

We need to take the VMDK disk and send this to AHV as an image, to do this we need to navigate to the settings button on the top right of the Prism interface and locate “Image Configuration”

A new window will appear, and you can then select Upload Image.

At this stage we can name the image something that allows you to recognize its purpose along with all other fields such as disk type and where you wish to upload the image to.

Upload from the file location you downloaded the vmdk to and save.

Now that we have the image we can create the Veeam proxy appliance from the image. Select create VM.

Create a VM with recommended parameters in the Nutanix AHV cluster that you wish to protect. As per the user guide you will find the system requirements for your proxy appliance. Also take note at those platform support versions.

Creating the VM is very easy and straight forward, we need a name and we need to determine what specifications we wish our VM to have.

In the VM settings add a new disk from the image previously uploaded, the operation job down allows you to clone from the image service. Then under image you can select your recently uploaded Nutanix AHV VMDK

Once added you will also need to ensure that the disk is seen as a boot device, I have removed the CDROM drive from my VM configuration.

You should also add your network interface that has access to your Veeam Backup & Replication server for that communication between the Proxy Appliance and the Veeam Repository.

Once you have added the disk and configured the network then you select save.

Complete the setup by selecting save and then wait for the VM to be created and power on.

NOTE – Must have DHCP available on this network so that the system will pick up an available IP for management this can later be changed to fixed if required.

Once the VM is powered on within the VM console you will see the web console address, copy that full address and paste into a web browser.

There you have it. You have successfully deployed and configured Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV.

The following post will touch on the next steps and navigating the web interface that is exposed from this proxy appliance, the post will also touch on the installation phase.