Performing Backup

With Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV, you can protect data in the following ways:

• Create snapshots of VMs

A snapshot captures point-in-time image of the processed VM. You can use the snapshot to restore the VM to the original Nutanix AHV environment.

To take VM snapshots, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV uses native Nutanix AHV capabilities. VM snapshots are saved locally in the Nutanix AHV cluster where the source VMs reside. To create a VM snapshot, configure a snapshot job.

• Create snapshots of protection domains

A protection domain (PD) snapshot captures point-in-time image of consistency groups (VMs and volume groups) that belong to the processed domain. You can use the PD snapshot to restore VMs and volume groups to the original Nutanix AHV environment.

To take PD snapshots, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV uses native Nutanix AHV capabilities. PD snapshots are saved locally in the Nutanix AHV cluster where the source PD resources reside. To create a PD snapshot, configure a protection domain snapshot job.

• Create backups of VMs

In addition to VM snapshots, you can protect your Nutanix AHV VMs with image-level backups. An image-level backup captures the whole image of the processed VM (including VM configuration, OS data, application data and so on) at a specific point in time.

To create backups, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV uses workers that retrieve VM data from the Nutanix AHV cluster and forward it to a backup repository in the native Veeam format. You can use the backup to restore the VM to the original Nutanix AHV environment or any other supported virtual environment, for example, VMware or Hyper-V. To create a VM backup, configure a backup job or perform a VeeamZIP operation.