There is no doubt that there’s been a shakeup in the world of virtualization, for the better part of this century, there has been no doubting the clear choice for organizations to place their virtual workloads on. The market dominance of VMware cannot be disputed and Veeam would not be in existence if it wasn’t for the infrastructure revolution that VMware created. That said, some momentum has shifted and now there is more choice when it comes to organizations choosing their virtualization platform.
Red Hat has embraced oVirt for the management of its virtualization platform, RHV, and oVirt has now become a compelling alternative to the traditional players in the virtualization management platform game. With every release oVirt gets better and the recent 4.5 release is no exception. With that in mind, it’s important for Veeam to continue to support the growth of Red Hat Virtualization and, moving forward, other KVM based virtualizations with a strong product of our own.
Since the release of version one last year, we have seen steady uptake in the use of Veeam Backup for Red Hat Virtualization which is reflective of the rise of KVM-based virtualization. As it continues to challenge VMware there is no doubt that KVM-based virtualization will start to get more market share moving forward.
This initial release followed the same track as Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV in that to download, install and configure Veeam Backup for RHV you had to deploy a proxy into the RHV Cluster and then configure that from within the hypervisor. From there all the configuration tasks would be done from within a new web interface that lived on the proxy. As with Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV v2 of Veeam Backup for Red Hat Virtualization now has platform services integration.
Leveraging Veeam Platform Services
With platform services integration in play, Veeam Backup for Red Hat Virtualization is now a plugin that can be downloaded directly from the Veeam product download page and installed into a Veeam Backup & Replication server. From there, all initial configuration is done through the Veeam Backup & Replication console including the setting up of the proxy deployment which is now handled automatically via platform services to the hypervisor.
The entire VM restore functionality is now available in the Veeam Backup & Replication console. You can use the console to restore multiple VMs during one restore session. In the restore wizard, you can also select the cluster to which VMs will be restored.
The RHV Backup Proxy configuration backup feature has been enhanced. Now, you can restore proxy configuration database from the proxy web console.
Removing the BETA Tag
For version 1 of Veeam Backup for RHV, we distributed it with a BETA tag. This was done for a number of reasons, however with version 2 I am happy to say that that Veeam Backup for Red Hat Virtualization is now an officially released product and fully supported by Veeam. In addition to that licensing will be handled through the Veeam Universal Licence (VUL), available with any of the varieties of Veeam Platform: Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam Availability Suite or Veeam Backup Essentials.
Conclusion
With Red Hat continuing to enhance RHV, oVirt and in turn the whole KVM ecosystem the choice of virtualization platforms for organizations to leverage to host their workloads on continues to expand. Regardless of what platform is chosen, Veeam’s expanded data protection capabilities can efficiently protect workload and ensure critical data is available in case of disaster.
Veeam Backup for Red Hat Virtualization v2 ensures that virtualization workloads placed on Red Hat Virtualization are safe while giving customers piece of mind that only the leader in the data protection space can provide. Download RHV and give it a try today!