How Backup Works

Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV does not install agent software inside VMs to retrieve data. To back up VMs, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV uses native Nutanix AHV capabilities. During every backup session, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV creates a snapshot for each VM or protection domain added to a job. The native snapshot is further used to create an image-level backup of the VM.

Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV performs VM backup in the following way:

1. The web console sends the backup job configuration data to Nutanix AHV backup appliance.
2. The Nutanix AHV backup appliance starts a backup job and forwards the backup session data to backup server.
3. The Nutanix AHV backup appliance connects to the Nutanix AHV cluster over Nutanix REST API and creates backup snapshots of all VMs or protection domains added to the job.
4. The Nutanix AHV backup appliance creates a volume group on the Nutanix AHV cluster, mounts VM disks over iSCSI and retrieves VM data on the block level.
5. The Veeam Data Mover service compresses and deduplicates the VM data and forwards it to the backup repository in the native Veeam format.

Related Topics

• Backup Chain
• Snapshot Chain
• Snapshot Types
• Retention Policy