Veeam Availability Suite 8.0 Update 2: support for vSphere 6, Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE, and more
Update 2 was recently released for the Veeam Availability Suite 8 integrated solution, which includes Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam ONE products. Updates concern both products, and today I will tell about the most significant of them - this is full support for vSphere 6, support for Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE solution and new features for Veeam ONE.
When an article was published in the Veeam blog about the implementation of support for vSphere 6, its main idea was to please our users with the news that this support would be implemented. Since then, our testing team has completed the full range of load tests for release candidates, checking for support for vSphere 6 RTM - and now we are announcing the release of Veeam Availability Suite 8.0 Update 2.
According to the already established good tradition, we did not confine ourselves to basic compatibility, but provided full support for vSphere 6 by implementing a number of unique functionalities, such as:
Consider these innovations in more detail.
')
Virtual Volumes, VMware Virtual SAN 2.0, and Hot-Add support for SATA virtual disks support was implemented using the new version of Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK). I note, however, that the functionality that we provide for Virtual SAN is unique. This mode of working with data will probably be the most effective for EVO: RAIL and EVO: RACK solutions, since they are based on the use of VMware Virtual SAN - just deploy a virtual Veeam proxy on each of the hosts.
If you are already familiar with the new generation of storage technology for VMware, then you know that the Storage Policy-Based Management (SPBM) policy -based storage management approach allows you to manage the requirements for virtual infrastructure storage systems in vSphere ─ both in the current version and with the future. For our part, we have implemented support for backup and recovery of storage policies - in particular, we are able to restore storage policies for a virtual machine as part of its full restoration (Full VM restore). This allows you to get rid of manual operations and reduce recovery time. SPBM policies play an important role in recovery, since virtual machines to which they are not assigned can, for example, adversely affect the availability of a restored machine or virtual machines on the same storage system. By default, Veeam will restore the same policy that the virtual machine had in the backup - but, of course, if necessary, you can assign another one.
"
Personally, I was most interested in how backup support for fault-tolerant (Fault Tolerant) virtual machines in Veeam Backup & Replication will be implemented.
It turns out that vSphere 6 allows you to create snapshots of fault-tolerant virtual machines via an API (and this is the only way to create snapshots for such machines). And that was what Veeam Backup & Replication needed to learn how to create backups and replicas for these machines - and now it is done in the same way as for other virtual machines. Thus, you can now maximize the capabilities of Fault Tolerance in your data center to best support data availability.
vSphere 6 also provides new APIs for programming and managing labels, or tags (vSphere tags). They are very convenient for creating backup policies in case of heterogeneous infrastructure with many optimization settings. We supported the use of tags in vSphere 5 (see here for more details), and now in vSphere 6 - so that you can continue to create effective policies with this flexible handy tool even after upgrading to a new version.
An important novelty was the support of vMotion between servers vCenter. As far as I remember, Veeam Backup & Replication always supported systems from several vCenter servers, however with innovation there was such a difficulty: the backup task "lost" the virtual machines that were part of it (added explicitly, and not in the container) after they were transferred to another vCenter server - this was due to a change in their object ID (moRef). We solved this problem by adding support for vMotion migration between vCenter servers to our Quick Migration functionality. Now the corresponding objects included in the task will be automatically updated. We also support migration to a virtual volume.
I note that Quick Migration is also supported in the free version of Veeam Backup Free Edition . I recommend it as a way to migrate virtual machines in cases where it is not possible to use vMotion — for example, a slow or unreliable data transfer channel or the lack of a required license. This functionality will allow you to migrate machines to new clusters, where vSphere 6 will be deployed, rather than dragging behind them the disadvantages and problems of infrastructure design from old clusters.
For Veeam, vSphere 6 support means not only using the full range of new features at full capacity, but also providing our users with the confidence that they can safely use these features, and their virtual infrastructure will be protected from failures. Why we do not declare support for the new platform in the first rows, and instead prefer to spend a few weeks in-depth testing of the pre-release version? The answer is simple: because we value your data, their reliable protection and ensuring their availability at the required level. Haste would only bring unnecessary risks; For example, as can be seen from the discussions on our forum or from Anton Gostev (@TheRealGostev), we found a serious error in the work of data transmission via Direct SAN access in vSphere 6 - thanks to rigorous testing:
Each release of a major version of vSphere means a lot of innovations compared to previous versions. That is why we pay great attention and time to testing the reliability of each updated vSphere component and its interaction with our product. That is why we tend to announce support for a new version of vSphere at some point — 6 weeks from the release date of VMware, and this often pays off many times over. So, opening Release Notes for VDDK vSphere 6 , you will see that the error we detected, pointed out by Anton Gostev, was added to the top of the Known Issues list as critical, i.e. able to affect the performance of the production infrastructure. However, there is no reason to alarm the Veeam users, as long as VMware is working on the fix, we in our Update 2 made the appropriate patch for the VDDK. So Veeam users, including those who use SAN mode for backup, can safely upgrade to vSphere 6.
It is also important to note that we continue to support previous versions of vSphere, which are still used in organizations and continue to be supported by VMware. So, our Update 2 works with vSphere 4.0 (and higher). Returning to the Veeam forums , I want to emphasize that our plans for versioning are always transparent to users, and their plans to change the platform are for us.
For example, at the beginning of this year, we conducted a survey among the participants of the forum on which platform their organization plans to work by the end of 2015. We sent the survey results to the development team to help engineers prioritize the new functionality that real people will need in real life. As can be seen from the results (see picture), the majority of forum participants (today it is 45%) plan to introduce vSphere 6 by the end of the year, however, some users still remain on earlier versions, and we will not abandon them either.
Undoubtedly, one of the “breakthroughs” this year is the recent release of a backup tool for Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE physical machines. It will be supported by Update 2 for Veeam Backup & Replication: the created backups will now also be displayed in the Veeam Backup console, and you can store them in the repository. This is great news for those who have critical applications for some reason or other working on physical machines.
This is what the Veeam Backup & Replication v8 Update 2 console looks like - as you can see, it is very simple to assign permissions for saving backups of a physical machine to the repository:
Support also includes:
Thus, with the installation of Update 2, all owners of Veeam Backup & Replication commercial licenses receive an integrated solution for backing up virtual and physical machines.
If you have not yet met with the new tool Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE, I highly recommend that you do it. I think you will not be disappointed, because it is easy to use and completely free.
Update 2 was also released for Veeam ONE, according to product manager Vitaly Safarov (@vitsa), the most interesting and useful novelty is monitoring of all new vSphere 6 functionality, including Virtual Volumes. Control over the work of the new functionality is very important for such critical technologies, because without it, it is impossible to provide full support. Veeam ONE gives you exactly that ability to manage your entire infrastructure, including storage.
In conclusion, I want to share with you useful links:
Full vSphere 6 support
When an article was published in the Veeam blog about the implementation of support for vSphere 6, its main idea was to please our users with the news that this support would be implemented. Since then, our testing team has completed the full range of load tests for release candidates, checking for support for vSphere 6 RTM - and now we are announcing the release of Veeam Availability Suite 8.0 Update 2.
According to the already established good tradition, we did not confine ourselves to basic compatibility, but provided full support for vSphere 6 by implementing a number of unique functionalities, such as:
- VMware Virtual Volumes and VMware Virtual SAN 2.0 Storage Support
- Support for backup and recovery policies as part of the Storage Policy-Based Management (SPBM) management approach
- Backup and recovery support for fault tolerant virtual machines (Fault Tolerant VMs)
- VSphere 6 tags support
- VMotion support between vCenters (Cross-vCenter vMotion)
- Quick Migration to VVolume Virtual Volume
- Implementation of the Hot-Add data transfer mode for SATA virtual disks
Consider these innovations in more detail.
')
Virtual Volumes, VMware Virtual SAN 2.0, and Hot-Add support for SATA virtual disks support was implemented using the new version of Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK). I note, however, that the functionality that we provide for Virtual SAN is unique. This mode of working with data will probably be the most effective for EVO: RAIL and EVO: RACK solutions, since they are based on the use of VMware Virtual SAN - just deploy a virtual Veeam proxy on each of the hosts.
If you are already familiar with the new generation of storage technology for VMware, then you know that the Storage Policy-Based Management (SPBM) policy -based storage management approach allows you to manage the requirements for virtual infrastructure storage systems in vSphere ─ both in the current version and with the future. For our part, we have implemented support for backup and recovery of storage policies - in particular, we are able to restore storage policies for a virtual machine as part of its full restoration (Full VM restore). This allows you to get rid of manual operations and reduce recovery time. SPBM policies play an important role in recovery, since virtual machines to which they are not assigned can, for example, adversely affect the availability of a restored machine or virtual machines on the same storage system. By default, Veeam will restore the same policy that the virtual machine had in the backup - but, of course, if necessary, you can assign another one.
"Personally, I was most interested in how backup support for fault-tolerant (Fault Tolerant) virtual machines in Veeam Backup & Replication will be implemented.
It turns out that vSphere 6 allows you to create snapshots of fault-tolerant virtual machines via an API (and this is the only way to create snapshots for such machines). And that was what Veeam Backup & Replication needed to learn how to create backups and replicas for these machines - and now it is done in the same way as for other virtual machines. Thus, you can now maximize the capabilities of Fault Tolerance in your data center to best support data availability.
vSphere 6 also provides new APIs for programming and managing labels, or tags (vSphere tags). They are very convenient for creating backup policies in case of heterogeneous infrastructure with many optimization settings. We supported the use of tags in vSphere 5 (see here for more details), and now in vSphere 6 - so that you can continue to create effective policies with this flexible handy tool even after upgrading to a new version.
An important novelty was the support of vMotion between servers vCenter. As far as I remember, Veeam Backup & Replication always supported systems from several vCenter servers, however with innovation there was such a difficulty: the backup task "lost" the virtual machines that were part of it (added explicitly, and not in the container) after they were transferred to another vCenter server - this was due to a change in their object ID (moRef). We solved this problem by adding support for vMotion migration between vCenter servers to our Quick Migration functionality. Now the corresponding objects included in the task will be automatically updated. We also support migration to a virtual volume.
I note that Quick Migration is also supported in the free version of Veeam Backup Free Edition . I recommend it as a way to migrate virtual machines in cases where it is not possible to use vMotion — for example, a slow or unreliable data transfer channel or the lack of a required license. This functionality will allow you to migrate machines to new clusters, where vSphere 6 will be deployed, rather than dragging behind them the disadvantages and problems of infrastructure design from old clusters.
For Veeam, vSphere 6 support means not only using the full range of new features at full capacity, but also providing our users with the confidence that they can safely use these features, and their virtual infrastructure will be protected from failures. Why we do not declare support for the new platform in the first rows, and instead prefer to spend a few weeks in-depth testing of the pre-release version? The answer is simple: because we value your data, their reliable protection and ensuring their availability at the required level. Haste would only bring unnecessary risks; For example, as can be seen from the discussions on our forum or from Anton Gostev (@TheRealGostev), we found a serious error in the work of data transmission via Direct SAN access in vSphere 6 - thanks to rigorous testing:
Each release of a major version of vSphere means a lot of innovations compared to previous versions. That is why we pay great attention and time to testing the reliability of each updated vSphere component and its interaction with our product. That is why we tend to announce support for a new version of vSphere at some point — 6 weeks from the release date of VMware, and this often pays off many times over. So, opening Release Notes for VDDK vSphere 6 , you will see that the error we detected, pointed out by Anton Gostev, was added to the top of the Known Issues list as critical, i.e. able to affect the performance of the production infrastructure. However, there is no reason to alarm the Veeam users, as long as VMware is working on the fix, we in our Update 2 made the appropriate patch for the VDDK. So Veeam users, including those who use SAN mode for backup, can safely upgrade to vSphere 6.
It is also important to note that we continue to support previous versions of vSphere, which are still used in organizations and continue to be supported by VMware. So, our Update 2 works with vSphere 4.0 (and higher). Returning to the Veeam forums , I want to emphasize that our plans for versioning are always transparent to users, and their plans to change the platform are for us.
For example, at the beginning of this year, we conducted a survey among the participants of the forum on which platform their organization plans to work by the end of 2015. We sent the survey results to the development team to help engineers prioritize the new functionality that real people will need in real life. As can be seen from the results (see picture), the majority of forum participants (today it is 45%) plan to introduce vSphere 6 by the end of the year, however, some users still remain on earlier versions, and we will not abandon them either.
Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE support
Undoubtedly, one of the “breakthroughs” this year is the recent release of a backup tool for Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE physical machines. It will be supported by Update 2 for Veeam Backup & Replication: the created backups will now also be displayed in the Veeam Backup console, and you can store them in the repository. This is great news for those who have critical applications for some reason or other working on physical machines.
This is what the Veeam Backup & Replication v8 Update 2 console looks like - as you can see, it is very simple to assign permissions for saving backups of a physical machine to the repository:
Support also includes:
- exporting the contents of a backup physical disk to various virtual disk formats;
- recovery of application files and objects;
- setting up tasks for transferring backups to a remote site and to a magnetic tape.
Thus, with the installation of Update 2, all owners of Veeam Backup & Replication commercial licenses receive an integrated solution for backing up virtual and physical machines.
If you have not yet met with the new tool Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE, I highly recommend that you do it. I think you will not be disappointed, because it is easy to use and completely free.
Release of Veeam ONE v8 Update 2
Update 2 was also released for Veeam ONE, according to product manager Vitaly Safarov (@vitsa), the most interesting and useful novelty is monitoring of all new vSphere 6 functionality, including Virtual Volumes. Control over the work of the new functionality is very important for such critical technologies, because without it, it is impossible to provide full support. Veeam ONE gives you exactly that ability to manage your entire infrastructure, including storage.
From words - to business!
In conclusion, I want to share with you useful links:
- Release Notes for Veeam Backup & Replication 8.0 Update 2
- Release Notes for Veeam ONE 8.0 Update 2
- Update 2 - link to download updates for Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam ONE
- Article on Habré with review of Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE
- Article on Habré with a review of VMware Virtual Volumes
- Snapshot: snapshot (with review of Virtual Volumes and vSphere 6) - video (in Russian)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/257579/
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