Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!


Backup solution ?
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

Backup solution ?

Currently we are having KVM based installation and guests are mostly windows (200+).
We are currently using Acronis Cloud backup solution to backup them all but it takes too much time to restore the VM (from remote location Singapore).

So we are looking for a solution for inhouse backup.

Some important points
VM BACKUP IMAGE BASED
1) Free/or cheapest or affordable
2) Client/Server based (yeah don't want to mess with host).
3) ISO based restoration (Bootable)
4) Incremental Backup's
5) Flexible Backup scheduling
6) Backup reporting incase of failure and stuff
7) Linux based is preferred due to the fact when ransomware attacks most of the windows and share gets encrypted. So better to use control with Linux variant.
8) Dedupe (Well Optional)
9) Easier Management

Currently on my mind but haven't checked
URBACKUP

Comments

  • Adding a local backup in Acronis cyber backup and keeping your current solution would be an idea too (just need to have network storage inhouse), you would have a cloud backup and a local backup and you could use the local backup to get faster restore time.

  • Borg and lvm snapshots

  • +1 for both. lovin' it.

  • bilalinamdarbilalinamdar Member
    edited January 2021

    Looks tempting but the issue is they don't have Clients for Windows. As my Primary requirement is Client Server architecture.

    From proxmox forum

    Having backup clients for other operating systems(windows) is on our roadmap, but there is no fixed timeframe. This holds especially for Windows, unfortunately.
        
    

    To brief more about infra.
    1) We are using OnApp. We also have OnApp backup server.
    But the issue is, No incremental backup for windows! That takes up space in backup server and as i said previously we have 95%+ windows. OnApp uses ntfsclone to backup, Most of the time if the disk has issue (chkdsk) it doesn't backup.

    2) The onapp install is based on LVM storage (might help to understand the requirement). So guest disk are in LV in LVM. I do not want to mess up with the Host and the LVM so looking for client server architecture.

    @alpinedc said:
    Adding a local backup in Acronis cyber backup and keeping your current solution would be an idea too (just need to have network storage inhouse), you would have a cloud backup and a local backup and you could use the local backup to get faster restore time.

    I guess yes but the issue again is cost and requirement. It require atleast 2-3 (quorum/cluster) server plus storage. We can only allocate 1 server + san storage. Again the cost will also be high in this (license and stuff recurring).

    @darkimmortal said:
    Borg and lvm snapshots

    I didn't get you how can it help in Client Server arch & in Windows Guest ?
    Also it is very good for Linux Based guest but i do not have problem to backup linux. As onapp provides proper backup solution for linux with incremental & stuff. My concern is mainly related to Windows Guest 95% of it is using the resource. Although i really liked it and thinking of using it in some other project. thx

    Do let me know guys. I seek your experienced guidance!

  • alpinedcalpinedc Member
    edited January 2021

    I guess yes but the issue again is cost and requirement. It require atleast 2-3 (quorum/cluster) server plus storage. We can only allocate 1 server + san storage. Again the cost will also be high in this (license and stuff recurring).

    The requirement of 2-3 servers is if you want to use acronis cyber infrastructure with your datas on local disk on this servers (to configure a new "cloud" storage on your account), even for this solution, you could just have one vm with Acronis cyber infrastructure and select your san storage in acronis backup gateway for the storage if you have storage space already.

    My suggestion was to add a protection plan to your current configuration with local storage (nfs or SMB/CIFS), you can try with one vm to see if it would solve your long restore speed time.

  • @alpinedc said:

    I guess yes but the issue again is cost and requirement. It require atleast 2-3 (quorum/cluster) server plus storage. We can only allocate 1 server + san storage. Again the cost will also be high in this (license and stuff recurring).

    The requirement of 2-3 servers is if you want to use acronis cyber infrastructure with your datas on local disk on this servers (to configure a new "cloud" storage on your account), even for this solution, you could just have one vm with Acronis cyber infrastructure and select your san storage in acronis backup gateway for the storage if you have storage space already.

    My suggestion was to add a protection plan to your current configuration with local storage (nfs or SMB/CIFS), you can try with one vm to see if it would solve your long restore speed time.

    The issue with Acronis is make a round trip to cloud server even if we have a local server. That again adds the bandwidth issue. This i got to know from previous engineer who did the install and test for local backup.

  • Veeam Agent with Veeam Backup & Restore Community Edition. Veeam Agent free for windows is very fast, and have Volume Incremental Backup.

  • bilalinamdarbilalinamdar Member
    edited January 2021

    @rafaelscs said:
    Veeam Agent with Veeam Backup & Restore Community Edition. Veeam Agent free for windows is very fast, and have Volume Incremental Backup.

    it have10 VM limit.

  • tolovalltolovall Member
    edited January 2021

    @bilalinamdar said:

    @rafaelscs said:
    Veeam Agent with Veeam Backup & Restore Community Edition. Veeam Agent free for windows is very fast, and have Volume Incremental Backup.

    it have10 VM limit.

    If you need good windows app, you have to pay.

    Simple as that.

  • Maybe it's not possible for you now to implement it.. But put everything on ZFS and use ZFS snapshots to do everything. Lovely stuff.

  • darkimmortaldarkimmortal Member
    edited January 2021

    @bilalinamdar said:

    @darkimmortal said:
    Borg and lvm snapshots

    I didn't get you how can it help in Client Server arch & in Windows Guest ?
    Also it is very good for Linux Based guest but i do not have problem to backup linux. As onapp provides proper backup solution for linux with incremental & stuff. My concern is mainly related to Windows Guest 95% of it is using the resource. Although i really liked it and thinking of using it in some other project. thx

    Do you not have control of the host machines that run these 200 windows VMs? Why do you want to backup from within the virtual machines?

    If you are absolutely heart set on doing so, I find Macrium Reflect free works quite well with Borg if you disable compression and encryption in Macrium settings, but you’ll need a lot of scratch space. Or even just use Macrium on its own, but the differential backups you get for free are a bit naff unless you bring your own deduplication

  • bilalinamdarbilalinamdar Member
    edited January 2021

    @tolovall said:

    @bilalinamdar said:

    @rafaelscs said:
    Veeam Agent with Veeam Backup & Restore Community Edition. Veeam Agent free for windows is very fast, and have Volume Incremental Backup.

    it have10 VM limit.

    If you need good windows app, you have to pay.

    Simple as that.

    Can you Please suggest (viable) Paid Solution ? Also the backup server should be in linux/debian preferred as previously had bad experience with shared storage with WINDOWS (ransomware).

    @amarc said:
    Maybe it's not possible for you now to implement it.. But put everything on ZFS and use ZFS snapshots to do everything. Lovely stuff.

    I was very interested in ZFS & BRTFS
    but i am unsure about the implementation.
    Can you point me in the right direction ? In my current setup how i can implement it ? Shall i just make a Backup server (bare metal) with ZFS+debian/ubuntu and use certain solution for backup storage on it ? I think you are talking about Windows / Debian as
    I read 2 days back Linux is not supported due to the License issue of Oracle.
    This is interesting can i know more about this how can it help in backup the Guest OS

  • JamesFJamesF Member, Host Rep

    Synology NAS + series with active backup?

    That’s what we moved to from Acronis and comet backup for some clients.

  • @bilalinamdar said:

    @tolovall said:

    @bilalinamdar said:

    @rafaelscs said:
    Veeam Agent with Veeam Backup & Restore Community Edition. Veeam Agent free for windows is very fast, and have Volume Incremental Backup.

    it have10 VM limit.

    If you need good windows app, you have to pay.

    Simple as that.

    Can you Please suggest (viable) Paid Solution ? Also the backup server should be in linux/debian preferred as previously had bad experience with shared storage with WINDOWS (ransomware).

    @amarc said:
    Maybe it's not possible for you now to implement it.. But put everything on ZFS and use ZFS snapshots to do everything. Lovely stuff.

    I was very interested in ZFS & BRTFS
    but i am unsure about the implementation.
    Can you point me in the right direction ? In my current setup how i can implement it ? Shall i just make a Backup server (bare metal) with ZFS+debian/ubuntu and use certain solution for backup storage on it ? I think you are talking about Windows / Debian as
    I read 2 days back Linux is not supported due to the License issue of Oracle.
    This is interesting can i know more about this how can it help in backup the Guest OS

    If you're looking at bare metal and ZFS, you'd use TrueNAS.

    And if you were ok with per VM backup, Veeam Agent free could be installed on all 200, but the management would be a hassle.

    Did you ever look into URBackup? Because that seemed like a contender right from the start.

    Lastly, do you really need whole image backup? If all the OS's are installed the same way, you just need the unique part backed up and then you can restore in a standard OS ready to go. Restores would go from hours/days to minutes.

    So yeah, unless you had lots of OS customizations requiring image backup, you're doing it wrong.

  • @TimboJones

    If you're looking at bare metal and ZFS, you'd use TrueNAS.

    Do you mean the TrueNAS hardware Appliance ? Or do you mean to use existing Physical server and install truenas os & zfs file system ? Also how can this help ? Do i need to use it for storage with backup solutions (urbackup)?

    And if you were ok with per VM backup, Veeam Agent free could be installed on all 200, but the management would be a hassle.

    Thanks for this! I didn't perticularly knew this trick of using Veeam Agent free for VM's. Now i will try to see further into it. Secondary Priority.

    Did you ever look into URBackup? Because that seemed like a contender right from the start.

    I will do this first thing this week has some host under my supervision for this week. Primary Priority.

    Lastly, do you really need whole image backup? If all the OS's are installed the same way, you just need the unique part backed up and then you can restore in a standard OS ready to go. Restores would go from hours/days to minutes.

    Yes full image backup is needed as OnApp requires it. I cannot change the solution for that (currently). It is mostly user preference.

    Thanks for the input I really appreciate All your discussion and suggestions.

  • Just for update... I was checking URBACKUP and it is good although still in the process of testing. But it looks promising for windows. On Linux I found many troubles yet inbetween of it.

  • NicholasOXINicholasOXI Member, Host Rep

    Hello. From the looks of it, UrBackup will probably be a very good solution if you don't wish to use as others suggested Proxmox. Have you considered maybe using some form of S3-compatiable service with a third-party software (possibly BackBlaze with some form of third-party software)? From what I saw UrBackup does support S3 but I'm unsure if it supports services other than Amazon.

  • bilalinamdarbilalinamdar Member
    edited January 2021

    S3 - Actually Storage is not an issue i got 50TB available so S3 is out of question. Also we are already doing that with Acronis. Regarding Thirdparty software which are provided by them. I don't know if it comes with a limit of VM's. But still that is not the objective (remote / local).

    Urbackup - As a local solution we are looking for urbackup not for remote. Client server architecture.

    PBS - Proxmox was very promising but lacks Windows Client (Major drawback for my case). It will be released in nearest future.

Sign In or Register to comment.