Abiquo backup plugins were previously run as a separate service and they have now been integrated into the core product.
Abiquo backup plugins support the following backup systems:
- Veeam
- Avamar
Both of these systems support Complete backups only. Note that Veeam actually performs cumulative backups but when it interacts with Abiquo, Veeam stores and retrieves complete backups.
You can edit backup properties as before. The Backup now option is only available in the UI when you are working with Avamar
To use a backup system, you should first create a backup manager for the datacenter. The backup manager configures the connection to the backup system including the endpoint and optional credentials. Here you should specify the type of the backup plugin. Abiquo does not validate the connection details. In this initial version, a connection will be made to the backup system when a user requests a backup operation. Tip: When adding a Veeam backup manager, don't forget to add the slash "/" at the end of the URL. Abiquo does not display the credentials. The administrator can edit all values except the backup type. If you change the backup manager, future requests to the backup system will use the new values.
As before, in each datacenter, create backup policies that contain the available configurations. For Avamar Abiquo uses the Code attribute to match policies that the administrator already created in Avamar.
Abiquo supports the Avamar replication option.
The enterprise that creates the backup policies will automatically be allowed to use them. For other enterprises, you must select the allowed backup policies for each datacenter.
Then to assign backup policies to their virtual machines, users in the enterprise will be able to select backup policies from the allowed backup policies. In the API, the configured backup is stored for the virtual machine using the backup configuration definition data media type.
The user will then need to configure the backup at the virtual machine level, for example, to set the time and select disks as required.
After the user creates a backup, it displays in the list on the Backups tab. While the backup system is performing a backup, Abiquo locks the virtual machine. To restore a backup, the user clicks on the Restore link. To open a list of restore details in the lower section of the same tab, the user clicks on the backup.
Abiquo displays events from the backup system on the Events tab.
To see full details, the user double-clicks a backup event.
CHECK: Users can only restore a backup for a deployed virtual machine. If you undeploy a VM and then deploy it again, you can restore backups for this VM.
Technical details
When the user deploys, reconfigures or undeploys a virtual machine, Abiquo will include a new job called BACKUP_SCHEDULE in that task. If the job fails because Abiquo cannot schedule the backup, then the virtual machine operation will roll back. As before events from the backup system are incorporated into Abiquo and streamed by the outbound API.
The backup plugins work with the API (for backup management), and remote services: virtual factory and cloud provider proxy. The backup plugins are configured using:
- Abiquo property on API / Server: check
- Abiquo property on Remote Services: configuration file location
- Backup system configuration files in the same folder as the Abiquo properties file on the remote services
API Changes
There are new Abiquo API methods for working with backups. Previously, developers could create a backup integration using virtual machine metadata and events. Now developers should upgrade their integration to use the new API methods for backups, with new data media types. The Abiquo UI now works with the Abiquo API instead of virtual machine metadata. So backup results and restores in virtual machine metadata is valid but it will not be visible through the Abiquo UI. Backup results cannot be written using the Abiquo API.
In the initial version, the supported configurations for the plugins are as follows.
Operation |
Avamar Plugin |
Veeam Plugin |
---|---|---|
Configure schedules on deploy |
X |
X |
Configure schedules on reconfigure |
X |
X |
Deconfigure schedules on undeploy |
X |
X |
Execute on demand backup |
X |
|
Restore |
X |
X |
List backup and restore results |
X |
X |
Check expired results |
X |
X |
The constraints for the backup actions are as follows.
Constraint |
Avamar Plugin |
Veeam Plugin |
---|---|---|
Reconfigure schedules in power on state |
X |
X |
Restore a virtual machine in power on state |
|
X |