KVM Backups - DO NOT USE
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@Dashrender said in KVM Backups:
In light of the XS HVD size limitation of 2 TB is KVM a better choice? or moving to native Xen instead of XenServer?
XS limitations over Xen should not prompt a consideration of KVM. It's only the XS interface itself that has the limitation.
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So should we be looking to do a fall back to Xen? I'm guessing in doing so we'll also loose XO support as well?
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@Dashrender said in KVM Backups:
So should we be looking to do a fall back to Xen? I'm guessing in doing so we'll also loose XO support as well?
By default, yes. I believe that you can apply the XAPI API (is that redundant?) to the Xen install and then attach with XO. Would be a good project to do.
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM Backups:
@Dashrender said in KVM Backups:
So should we be looking to do a fall back to Xen? I'm guessing in doing so we'll also loose XO support as well?
By default, yes. I believe that you can apply the XAPI API (is that redundant?) to the Xen install and then attach with XO. Would be a good project to do.
Ha I always wondered if it was, but then you mention XAPI and not API and people have no idea what you're saying.
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I think that XAPI is its actual name, so API is actually needed.
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"Plain" Xen or KVM would need an agent installed on each host to expose an "enough advanced" API (probably something ugly like libvirt+custom scripts). Take a look a oVirt project for this.
Anyway, XO is only working on XAPI (which is the project name of this Xen API). APIs can be confusing because there is various level of APIs: low level APIs (like lib-xl or a part of lib-virt), and more "turnkey"/complete API like XAPI, which handle a lot of stuff (not only the hypervisor, but also the glue around it).
That's why XAPI project is more than just an API, but a "toolstack". See http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Choice_of_Toolstacks
For example, Amazon got its own toolstack (not public) on top of Xen.
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Aren't there any agent-less KVM backups available? Anything like Veeam?
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@KOOLER said in KVM Backups:
Aren't there any agent-less KVM backups available? Anything like Veeam?
None that I know of. Scale does an agentless backup but you have to have a Scale cluster, not just KVM.
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM Backups:
@KOOLER said in KVM Backups:
Aren't there any agent-less KVM backups available? Anything like Veeam?
None that I know of. Scale does an agentless backup but you have to have a Scale cluster, not just KVM.
I was under impression they license somebody's else technology, don't they?
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@KOOLER said in KVM Backups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM Backups:
I was under impression they license somebody's else technology, don't they?
For their basic backup, no it's all internal. For more advanced features they work with third parties but don't license it, it's sold separately.
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM Backups:
@KOOLER said in KVM Backups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM Backups:
I was under impression they license somebody's else technology, don't they?
For their basic backup, no it's all internal. For more advanced features they work with third parties but don't license it, it's sold separately.
Do you use their agentless backup? How do you find it against say Unitrends or Veeam? thanks!
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It's very basic. Just full images and automated exports. Nothing extensive. But for firms needing a basic, free backup mechanism, it gets them that. In most cases you would still want something more robust, like StorageCraft, Unitrends or the like. A Veeam product for it would be awesome. But it is enough to get automated data protection in place.
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM Backups:
It's very basic. Just full images and automated exports. Nothing extensive. But for firms needing a basic, free backup mechanism, it gets them that. In most cases you would still want something more robust, like StorageCraft, Unitrends or the like. A Veeam product for it would be awesome. But it is enough to get automated data protection in place.
See Inbox
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Qemu has some kind of incremental backup, but I haven't investigated much.
I just want to point out that one advantage to exporting to a raw .img file is that you can mount the image and pull files directly. If you need to import, just have qemu convert the .img back to a .qcow2 file and use the XML dump to rebuild the VM.
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM Backups:
It's very basic. Just full images and automated exports. Nothing extensive. But for firms needing a basic, free backup mechanism, it gets them that. In most cases you would still want something more robust, like StorageCraft, Unitrends or the like. A Veeam product for it would be awesome. But it is enough to get automated data protection in place.
Is the move away from an agent based backup really worth that much?
Didn't we have this conversation a few months ago?
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@Dashrender said in KVM Backups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM Backups:
It's very basic. Just full images and automated exports. Nothing extensive. But for firms needing a basic, free backup mechanism, it gets them that. In most cases you would still want something more robust, like StorageCraft, Unitrends or the like. A Veeam product for it would be awesome. But it is enough to get automated data protection in place.
Is the move away from an agent based backup really worth that much?
Didn't we have this conversation a few months ago?
Unlike a lot of people, I'm fine with agent based. It might not be ideal, but it isn't bad. The big move here, though, is to "free and included."
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I gotcha... So there is a free and included one in KVM, but no Xen or XS right?
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@Dashrender said in KVM Backups:
I gotcha... So there is a free and included one in KVM, but no Xen or XS right?
There is a free, included one in Scale and one in XO.
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Remember, KVM and Xen are base products. They "include nothing" because it would be foolish for anything to exist there. The idea that everything should be built in monolithically is a Windows one. That doesn't make it wrong, it is just one approach and idealistically opposed to all product markets except for Windows. One of the things that the Vmware crowd brags about is how little ESXi does (seriously, they do this.)
Xen and KVM actually do... nothing. It's their support environments that do everything. For Scale, it's the Scale system, not KVM, that does all of the features. With Xen a lot of features come from XenServer and a lot more come from Xen Orchestra. But those things are part of the ecosystem that you get for free. So it kind of feels like they are included, but really they are layered on top, as they should be.
Just like Xen doesn't include DRBD or Gluster or CEPH, but Xen's ecosystem always includes them.
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You're right.. I have to keep reminding myself of that. But SMB's don't want to be chasing down dozens of little pieces all over the place to make these pieces work.
It's one thing or a larger company to have a team who's job it is to do just that - Scott's been talking about using Xen for decade plus. I have to assume that Scott the one man who is equal to nearly 10 normal mortals, has managed to collect and put together all of those parts.
The simplicity of XS and XO are what really give Xen any teeth in the SMB market, a la Windows style, everything in one place.
The bad thing about these groupings though, as we found out with the use of VHDs in XS, are the limitations those packages place upon us.
