VM Backup

To produce backups of Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization VMs, Veeam Backup & Replication runs backup jobs. A backup job is a collection of settings that define the way backup operations are performed: what data to back up, where to store backups, when to start the backup process, and so on.

While creating image-level backups, Veeam Backup & Replication does not install agent software to back up Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization VM data — it uses native Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization capabilities instead. During every backup session, Veeam Plug-in for KubeVirt creates a backup of the Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization VM added to a backup job.

Veeam Backup & Replication offers the following Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization VM backup options:

• Active Full Backup​ — retrieves VM data from the source datastore where the VM resides, compresses and deduplicates it, and writes it to the VBK file in the backup repository.
• Synthetic Full Backup — synthesizes a full backup from data you already have in the backup repository.

How to Protect Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization VMs

To create a Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization backup job, complete the following steps:

1. Check limitations and prerequisites.
2. Configure backup repositories.
3. Connect the Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization cluster.
4. Complete the New Backup Job wizard.

How VM Backup Works

Veeam Plug-in for KubeVirt performs VM backup in the following way:

1. Connects to the Veeam KubeVirt Proxy in the same Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization cluster where the processed VMs reside.
2. Veeam Plug-in for KubeVirt deploys a VKP Data Mover on a Pod in the same Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization cluster where the processed VMs reside.
3. The VKP Data Mover creates snapshots of the VMs and attaches the snapshots to itself.
4. The VKP Data Mover reads data from the VM disks, transfers the data to the target repository and stores it in the native Veeam format.

To minimize data transfer, Veeam Plug-in for KubeVirt uses the incremental backup mechanism: during incremental backup sessions, Veeam Plug-in for KubeVirt reads all data from the snapshot, compares the new snapshot with the previous one, and transfers only those data blocks that have changed since the previous backup session.

5. the Veeam KubeVirt Proxy compresses and deduplicates data saved to repositories.
6. the Veeam KubeVirt Proxy shuts down the VKP Data Mover when the backup session completes.

Related Topics

• Solution Architecture
• Backup Chain