Abiquo backup plugins

Backup system support

Abiquo backup plugins support the following backup systems:

• Veeam
• Networker
• Rubrik

The Abiquo integration with these systems supports complete backups only.

For more details, see individual plugin configuration pages and the functionality and constraints sections below.

Licenses

• Each backup integration and version has a separate plugin that requires a separate license

Configure backup plugins

See the following pages to configure each plugin. 

• Configure Abiquo Veeam backup plugin
• Configure Dell EMC NetWorker backup plugin
• Configure Rubrik backup plugin

Set Abiquo properties for backups

Log in to the Remote Services server and edit the abiquo.properties file. 

• Optionally set the delay between executions of the backup results check in milliseconds. The default of 600000 represents 10 minutes.
• Set the Abiquo Configuration properties to configure a backup plugin and load the configuration file for the required backup system.

See Abiquo configuration properties#backup

Configure backups in Abiquo

Here is a brief outline of how to configure Backups in the Abiquo UI

1. Configure backup policies in Infrastructure view: Backup
2. Allow tenants to work with backup policies: Manage Enterprises in the Allowed datacenters section
3. Users configure backups on VMs: VM backups

Information for cloud users

Please inform cloud users of the following:

• The cloud user should check that the selected backup time for a VM is set as UTC + offset.
• All disks will be backed up by Veeam, even if they have been deselected in the Abiquo VM backup configuration dialog
• Abiquo will allow users to create more than one backup per VM, but Veeam will allow only one backup. Therefore, only the most recent backup job is used
• The Snapshot on-demand functionality uses VMware Snapshots that are only valid if the original disk is available

Technical details

When the user deploys, reconfigures or undeploys a VM, Abiquo will include a new job called BACKUP_SCHEDULE in that task. If the job fails because Abiquo cannot schedule the backup, then the VM operation will roll back. 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 NARS. As described in the configuration section, the backup plugins are configured using the Abiquo property on Remote Services to give the configuration file location and the backup system configuration files in the same folder as the Abiquo properties file on the remote services server.

Functionality

In the current version, the supported functionality for the backup plugins is as follows.

Constraints

The constraints for the backup plugin actions are as follows.

Constraint	Networker	Rubrik	Veeam
Reconfigure schedules in power on state	X	X	X
Restore a VM in power on state		X	X
Restore a VM when it is not allocated	X
Instantly record results of Backup and Restore	X	X	X

 = requires vCenter credentials; add to Backup manager credentials with separator

Veeam frequently asked questions

Why does the Veeam integration support complete backups only?

Veeam performs backups by doing a full backup the first time it backs up a VM and then snapshot backups from then on. This means that Veeam users cannot request full or snapshot backups - they just request a backup and Veeam decides what sort to do. Veeam also does not support the backup of file systems. For this reason we recommend that you do not enable the Snapshot and File System backup configurations in your Abiquo datacenter.

Why doesn't the Veeam integration support a one-off backup at a defined hour?

To use the Veeam one-off backup at a specific time, the Abiquo backup plugin would need to create a new job every time. Because the Veeam REST API does not allow users to delete jobs, these jobs would accumulate in the Veeam system. For this reason the Abiquo backup plugin does not support the Complete Backup at Defined Hour, so do not configure Backup policies to use this option in your Abiquo datacenter. If the option is enabled and it is selected for a VM, it will be ignored by the Abiquo backup plugin.

How does the integration detect finished jobs?

Veeam does not provide notification to the Abiquo backup plugin when a job has been run. The results are logged in the Veeam logs. At regular intervals, the Abiquo backup plugin reads these logs and updates the Abiquo server by adding the backup results by performing a put request to the VM.

How does Abiquo add backups to Veeam?

The Abiquo backup plugin searches the current jobs in Veeam Backup and Replication and checks if any of these jobs have the same granularity as the new VM backup. If so, the new VM is added to a current job. Otherwise one of the dummy jobs is cloned to create a new job and the new VM is added to this job. When the user changes their VM backup settings, the Abiquo backup plugin will remove the VM from one job and add it to another, or create a new job as necessary. Although Abiquo will allow users to create more than one backup per VM, Veeam will allow only one backup. Therefore, the most recent backup job is used. 

Deprecated backup plugins

• For VMware snapshots as on-demand backups only, there is also a standalone plugin, see /wiki/spaces/doc/pages/311378137