Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV 7 Release Notes
This document provides last-minute information about Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV 7, including system requirements, installation procedure, as well as relevant information on technical support, documentation, and online resources.
For existing deployments, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV version 4.0, 4a, 5.0, 5.1, 6 and 6.1 can be upgraded to version 7 together with the upgrade of Veeam Backup & Replication to version 12.3.
For new deployments, the release version of Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV 7 is available for download from the Veeam downloads page as part of Veeam Backup & Replication version 12.3 starting from December 3rd, 2024.
See next:
System Requirements
Platform
- Prism Central version pc.2022.6 (or later)
- Nutanix AOS versions 6.5.x - 7.0
NOTE |
Nutanix AOS 6.8 is supported since version 6.8.1.6 that contains a fix of the issue described in Nutanix KB-17244. |
Virtual Hardware
During the deployment process, the Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV backup appliance is deployed as a dedicated Linux-based VM in a Nutanix AHV cluster you want to protect. The backup appliance performs management operations and handles backup and restore tasks (if the embedded worker is enabled). If you deploy Veeam Backup Nutanix AHV using the default configuration, the following compute resources will be allocated to the backup appliance:
- CPU: 6 vCPU
- Memory: 6 GB RAM
- Disk Space: 100 GB for product installation, backup appliance internal database files, logs, and other data
With the default configuration, the backup appliance can perform management operations in a cluster with less than 1000 VMs and process less than 100 jobs, and handle up to 4 concurrent backup and restore tasks. While deploying a new backup appliance or editing settings of an existing one, you can adjust compute resources allocated to it according to the recommendations described in the Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV User Guide.
For large deployments (more than 1000 VMs in the cluster or more than 100 jobs), it is recommended to configure dedicated workers that perform data processing tasks. Workers are Linux-based VMs that are distributed among the cluster hosts (nodes) and are automatically launched for the duration of a backup or restore process. VMs running as dedicated workers must be configured with 2 vCPUs and 2GB of RAM for the base operating system and attendant services along with the following compute resources for each concurrent task:
- CPU: 1 vCPU
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
While configuring dedicated workers, follow the recommendations described in the Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV User Guide.
Veeam Backup & Replication and Nutanix AHV Plug-in
Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV includes Nutanix AHV Plug-in 12.7.0.172 and Nutanix AHV backup appliance 7.0.0.241.
The Nutanix AHV backup appliance requires the Nutanix AHV Plug-in installed on the Veeam Backup & Replication 12 (12.3.0.310 or later) server.
What’s New in Version 7
The version 7.0 Nutanix AHV integration delivers several important product feature enhancements as well as minor improvements in this our second major release of 2024. Due to the accelerated release timeline and attendant feature complexity some of these new capabilities will be delivered with an “experimental” support status. While these features have been rigorously tested, full regression testing is pending hence the “experimental” designation. For additional information regarding experimental support see this KB article.
Application-Aware Processing (experimental support) – features VSS quiescence, database log shipping, Veeam Explorers integration and guest VM pre-freeze/post-thaw scripting all integrated into the familiar Veeam Backup & Replication UI job wizard. Integrated applications in this release are: PostgreSQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Exchange
Guest Indexing Data Scan (experimental support) – expands AHV malware detection capabilities with the addition of inline scanning for detecting suspicious filesystem activity.
Guest Filesystem Indexing (experimental support) – enables global file catalog visibility for AHV workloads in Veeam Enterprise Manager as well as providing the prerequisite functionality for inline malware detection.
Inline Malware Scan – enhances security posture via inline AI-powered encryption entropy activity analysis, onion link and ransom notes detection.
SOSAPI – adds support for SOSAPI-enabled object storage backup targets.
Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) – introduces granular control for environments deploying NGT. Application or crash consistent backup snapshot creation may now be specified per backup job. If NGT application consistency is enabled, database log truncation or retention may also be designated. Note: NGT settings are ignored if Veeam application aware processing is enabled.
Upgrade & Deployment Considerations
Backup Appliance VM Specifications
- UEFI boot is now used for backup appliance and workers.
- It is highly recommended to upgrade appliance and worker VM compute specifications to the new recommendations - 2 vCPU and 2GB RAM for base OS and management plus and additional 1 vCPU and 1GB RAM for every concurrent task.
- Multiple vNICs can be configured for the backup appliance and workers.
- In the Prism Central deployment, the “SelfServiceContainer” storage container will always be used for the backup appliance and workers.
Backup Appliance Upgrade and Update
- For simplified migration from the standalone cluster deployment to the Prism Central deployment, add the Prism Central to the backup infrastructure as described in the Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV User Guide. At the “Backup Appliance” step of the New Nutanix AHV Server wizard, select the backup appliance that will be automatically configured to manage all the jobs that are currently managed by dedicated backup appliances in the clusters. While connecting the Prism Central, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV will remove the other backup appliances and will configure them as dedicated workers. The configuration of existing workers will be retained. Note that the step is available in the wizard only if you connect a Prism Central that manages at least one cluster with a backup appliance already added to the backup infrastructure.
- UEFI boot must be supported in the Nutanix AHV environment.
- Major upgrades of the backup appliance from the previous version are done via re-deployment. The previous backup appliance configuration will be backed up, a new appliance will be deployed, and the configuration will be restored to a new appliance. The old appliance will be removed after a successful upgrade.
- During minor backup appliance updates if installed from the Veeam Backup & Replication console, a VM snapshot will be automatically created before starting update. If something goes wrong, VM will be automatically reverted to the snapshot.
Known Issues and Limitations
Backup Infrastructure
Nutanix AHV Cluster
- You can add only one Nutanix AHV backup appliance per Nutanix AHV cluster or Prism Central.
- Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV does not support the Migrate Across Clusters functionality. If a VM is migrated in this way, backup jobs that contain this VM will skip it. If the VM is included into a category, a backup job that protects this category will start a new backup chain for the migrated VM.
Backup Appliance
- The backup appliance does not support IPv6, therefore the backup infrastructure components the backup appliance communicates with (such as the backup server and the Nutanix AHV cluster) must be reachable using IPv4 addresses.
- The backup appliance performs all data protection and disaster recovery operations according to the time zone set on the backup server.
- The backup appliance does not allow you to add inactive protection domains to any jobs.
- The backup appliance does not require any additional settings for Nutanix AHV VM High Availability. For details, see the Nutanix KB.
- After you enable SSH access in the backup appliance web console, you can establish an SSH connection and then disable the access. The current connection will not be terminated. However, new SSH connections will not be established.
Workers
- Installing worker updates is performed on each worker start. To disable automatic updates (for example, if your infrastructure does not have connection to Internet) disable the Obtain updates from rpm repositories option in the backup appliance web console.
- Starting workers for data processing is performed serially not in parallel, that is, no new worker starts until the prior worker has been prepared.
- Workers may start on the same host if automatic host affinity is enabled, and the number of workers has exceeded the number of hosts in the cluster.
Configuration Backup and Restore
- Configuration backup of backup appliances is created automatically with Veeam Backup & Replication configuration backup if configuration backup encryption is turned on.
- Configuration backup cannot be restored onto multiple backup appliances to avoid job collision. If you want to restore configuration on another backup appliance, remove the original backup appliance first.
Veeam Backup & Replication Repository
- Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV does not support storing backups in Veeam Cloud Connect and and HPE Cloud Bank Storage repositories. However, you can use them for storing copies of backups created with Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV. You can use Instant Recovery to restore VMs to Nutanix AHV from those or external repositories.
- If a standalone VBR repository extent storing Nutanix AHV backups is migrated into a SOBR, backup jobs will begin to fail with unknown repository errors. Editing the backup job to target the SOBR repository will correct the issue.
- Only file-level restores are available for backups created by Veeam Backup for AHV/Proxmox/RHV and stored on HPE Cloud Bank Storage
Nutanix CVM
- Nutanix CVM cannot be backed up with Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV.
- If you raise the number of concurrent backup tasks, backup jobs may fail due to CVM resource limitations. The CVM on each node of the cluster may need additional resources.
Data Protection
Backup Jobs
- Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV creates forward incremental per-VM backup chains (one backup chain contains data for one VM). When you add several VMs to a backup job, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV creates individual backup chains on the Veeam backup repository, one for each VM processed by the job. Note that for forward incremental backup chains, you can create active or synthetic full backups. For more information, see the Backup Methods section of the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.
- After upgrade to version 7, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV will automatically update each backup job to use the default Nutanix VSS snapshot type setting that instructs Nutanix to use built-in tools for creating application-aware snapshots. This functionality is used only if Veeam guest processing is not enabled for the backup job. For more information, see the Configuring Advanced Settings section of the Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV User Guide.
- By default, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV applies the following deduplication and compression settings to backed-up data:
- Deduplication: Enabled
- Data compression level: Optimal
- Storage optimization: 1MB
Due to technical limitations, you cannot change deduplication settings while configuring backup jobs.
- By default, backup encryption is disabled for backed-up data. However, you can enable encryption at the repository level. For more information, see the Access Permissions section of the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.
- Since Veeam Backup & Replication does not allow you to assign information about locations to Nutanix AHV clusters and backup appliances, job statistics do not include information on the Nutanix AHV VM data migration between different geographic regions.
- For better performance, the backup appliance does not refresh the list of available VMs in the cluster on job start. However, the backup appliance synchronizes the VM list every 15 minutes. If you still need to refresh the list on every job start, set the RescanVmsInProtectedObjectsRefresh parameter to true in the appsettings.json configuration file.
- Manual Move backup functionality is not supported for Nutanix AHV backups.
- After upgrade from version 4 to version 7, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV will automatically update each backup job to transform VM exclusion rules to the list of VMs excluded from the job.
- If you add a Prism Central category to a backup job, VMs that are assigned to this category will be processed in size order starting with the largest one.
- No PD snapshots will be taken if guest processing (application-aware processing or indexing) is enabled in the backup job. VM snapshots will be created instead.
Guest Processing
- No pre-job / post-job script support
- .js/.vbs/.wsf scripts are not supported for pre-freeze/post-thaw (snapshot) functionality
- No persistent guest agent support
- No file exclusion support
- No Oracle ASM disk support
- No Kerberos support
- Only Windows-based machines can be specified as guest interaction proxies for guest processing.
- If guest processing is enabled, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV will not be able to create PD snapshots of protection domains included into the backup scope — it will back up VMs and their volume groups as if processing individual virtual machines.
- When restoring a database using Veeam Explorers to the original VM, the VM hostname is used instead of the FQDN name. If Veeam Explorers cannot reach the VM, you can add the FQDN name and the IP address of the VM to the hosts file on the backup server.
- If you import backups created by a job with guest processing enabled, this backup job will truncate transaction logs but it will not store transaction log backups in the repository. To avoid the issue, before running the job, either clone the job and perform active full, or contact contact Veeam Customer Support.
- Image-level, application-aware backups of Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 server(s) running on Nutanix AHV clusters are not Veeam Microsoft 365 restore explorers-aware. The behavior described in this article is currently unsupported for AHV backups.
Backup From Replica Site
- Backup from a replica cluster can be used if a protection policy is configured in Prism Central.
- Backup from replica cluster will not be performed if guest processing (application-aware processing or indexing) is enabled in the backup job.
- If backup cannot be performed from a replica cluster, it will be performed from the original cluster.
- If there is no replicated snapshot on a replica cluster, backup will be performed from the original cluster.
- VMs with volume groups attached cannot be backed up from a replica cluster.
- If VM disks were added or removed after the last replication, VM backup will be performed from the original cluster.
- PD snapshots created using Nutanix AHV Async DR are not supported.
Limitations for Backing Up Volume Groups
- If you specify a VM as the source for a backup job, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV processes volume groups attached to the VM. However, if you back up the VM with the attached volume groups, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV will create a crash-inconsistent backup. To create a crash-consistent backup, you must add the VM and the volume group to the same consistency group and back up a protection domain which includes this group. For more information on consistency groups, see Nutanix documentation.
- If you specify a protection domain as the source for a backup job, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV processes volume groups only if they are attached to VMs that belong to the domain. For more information on consistency groups, see Nutanix documentation.
- Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV does not process volume groups if CHAP authentication is enabled. For more information, see Nutanix documentation.
PD Snapshot Jobs
- You cannot create snapshots of a protection domain if it contains multiple VMs or volume groups with the same name.
- You cannot create snapshots of a protection domain if it contains VMs with attached volume groups that are not included into the protection domain.
- You cannot create snapshots of instantly recovered VMs since the VM disks have not completed migration to the Nutanix AHV cluster yet, which may cause the snapshots to become incomplete in case the mount server is disconnected.
- You cannot create snapshots of a protection domain in the Inactive state (for example, after having been replicated to a remote site).
- You cannot configure daily retention and guest processing settings in PD snapshot jobs.
Snapshot Jobs
- You cannot use snapshot-only jobs to create PD snapshots. If you add a protection domain to a snapshot job, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV will create snapshots of individual VMs included into the protection domain.
- You cannot create snapshots of instantly recovered VMs since the VM disks have not completed migration to the Nutanix AHV cluster yet, which may cause the snapshots to become incomplete in case the mount server is disconnected.
- You cannot configure daily retention and guest processing settings in snapshot jobs.
Health Check
- Second Health Check of same data corrupt returns green session (disk is skipped from processing)
Backup Import Operations
- Backups cannot be imported from unsupported repository types. This can affect importing from backup copy jobs.
Backup Copy
- Backup Copy exclusions does not accept Nutanix AHV jobs and objects.
VeeamZIP
- VeeamZIP retention is not supported.
- An SMB share that requires authentication cannot be specified as a local or shared folder. However, it can be added to the backup infrastructure and then set as backup repository.
Backup Jobs in Backup Appliance Web Console
- Guest processing settings are not available in the web console. When creating a job in the web console, you can skip the Guest Processing step, complete the Add Job wizard — and then edit the job settings in the Veeam Backup & Replication console to enable application-aware processing.
- If you have enabled application-aware processing for a job and you add a new resource to it in the web console, default guest processing settings are automatically applied to this resource.
Backup Files and Jobs in Veeam Backup & Replication Console
- Backup files and jobs created by the backup appliance are visible in the Veeam Backup & Replication console. However, some of the Veeam Backup & Replication functionality is not available for these backups and jobs.
- In Veeam Backup & Replication console, you can:
- Create and edit backup, snapshot, PD snapshot jobs.
- Enable and disable backup jobs.
- Use backup jobs as a source for backup copy or backup to tape jobs.
- Create VeeamZIP backups.
- Delete backup jobs.
- Delete backups manually.
- View statistics of backup jobs.
- Start and stop backup jobs.
- Retry and clone jobs.
- Launch the backup appliance web console.
- Back up and restore backup appliance configuration.
Data Restore
- If you restore the VM to Nutanix AOS 7.0, the SCSI Controller and the CPU hot-plug functionality are always enabled (the
scsi_controller_enabled
andcpu_hotplug_enabled
parameters are automatically set to true). - If you restore the VM with an affinity policy not to the original cluster, you must manually configure the affinity policy manually before starting the recovered VM. For more information on affinity policies, see Nutanix documentation.
- If you restore the VM from a snapshot of any type, you cannot change the storage container.
Restore Using Backup Appliance Web Console
- If you restore the VM from a backup, you can select a storage container only for all VM disks, not separately for each VM disk.
- If you restore the VM from a user snapshot or PD snapshot, you cannot change VM network settings. However, after the VM is restored, you can configure them using the Nutanix Prism console as described in Nutanix documentation.
- You can restore volume groups only as part of VMs to which the volume groups are attached. If you restore to original location, the backup appliance overwrites the original VM and volume group. If you restore to different location, the backup appliance creates a new VM and volume group.
Restore in Veeam Backup & Replication Console
- If you restore the VM from a user snapshot or PD snapshot, you cannot change VM network settings. However, after the VM is restored, you can configure them using the Nutanix Prism console as described in Nutanix documentation. If you choose to restore to different location and choose to disconnect from all networks, the new VM will be created without networks.
- If you restore the VM from a backup stored in the archive tier of the scale-out backup repository, you must first retrieve backup data as described in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, section Retrieving Backup Files. Note that you cannot perform Entire VM restore from backups stored in the archive tier that consists of the Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval extent. For those backups, you can perform Instant Recovery.
- If you restore the VM from a backup of a VMware, Hyper-V, oVirt KVM or Proxmox VE VM or from a backup created by Veeam Agent, a restored VM may have network connection problems. To resolve the issue, install Nutanix Guest Tools on the restored VM as described in Nutanix documentation.
- You cannot perform Entire VM Restore to Nutanix AHV from a Veeam Cloud Connect repository or an external repository. However, you can use Instant Recovery to restore VMs to Nutanix AHV from Veeam Cloud Connect or external repositories.
- You cannot perform VM restore from a tape to Nutanix AHV. A tape backup needs to be returned to a supported repository to complete the restore operation.
File-Level Restore
- If you want to perform file-level restore from volume group disks, you should run FLR from backups of the VM that have the required volume group attached to them.
- You can use Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager to file-level restore guest OS files of Nutanix AHV VMs and manage Nutanix AHV VM backup copy jobs. All other operations are not supported.
Instant Recovery
- You can perform instant recovery to VMware and Hyper-V hosts from backups created by Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV. VMware vSphere or Hyper-V hosts must be added to the Veeam Backup & Replication backup infrastructure.
- It is recommended to deploy a dedicated host as a mount server and allocate a minimum of 512 MB of additional RAM for each VM disk that you want to recover at the same time. For example, if you restore a VM with 4 disks, you need an additional 2 GB of RAM on the mount server.
- A Nutanix AHV cluster must be added to the Veeam Backup & Replication backup infrastructure. No backup appliance is required for Instant Recovery.
- Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV requires 64 MB of RAM for a VM to perform Instant Recovery. For VMs with less than 64 MB of RAM, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV increases the amount of RAM to 64 MB during the restore process.
- If you perform Instant Recovery using a VM backup stored in the archive tier of the scale-out backup repository, you must first retrieve backup data as described in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, section Retrieving Backup Files. Note that this requirement is not applicable to backups stored in the archive tier that consists of the Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval extent.
- If you restore a Nutanix AHV VM that has an attached volume group, the disks from the volume group will not be restored.
- Instant Recovery is not supported:
- From backups created by Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV (Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV version 1.0). For those backups, you can perform only entire VM restore.
- From backups of VMs with the ARM architecture.
- From file-level backups created by the Kasten platform, Veeam Agent for Linux, Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows, Veeam Agent for Unix, Veeam Agent for Mac.
- Nutanix VirtIO drivers should be installed initially before the instant recovery process. You cannot add or modify drives in the VM during Instant Recovery launch.
Recovery Verification
- SureBackup for backups created by Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV is supported in the Backup verification and content scan only verification mode.
Public REST API Limitations
- You cannot change network settings of the backup appliance.
- You cannot manage Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV notification settings.
- You cannot enable or disable SSH on the backup appliance.
- You cannot use an account with MFA enabled to obtain an authorization token.
- You cannot enable MFA for a user account.
- You cannot configure or update guest processing settings in backup jobs.
- You cannot configure or update Nutanix guest quiescence settings in backup jobs.
Veeam ONE
Veeam ONE 12 supports monitoring, alerting and reporting features for VMs protected by AHV Backup appliance. For the list of supported features, see the What’s New document for Veeam ONE 12.
Deploying Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV
To deploy Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV 7, do the following:
- Install Veeam Backup & Replication 12 (12.3.0.310 or later) and configure a backup repository that will be used as a target for VM backups.
- In the Veeam Backup & Replication console, add a Nutanix AHV cluster to the backup infrastructure.
- In the Veeam Backup & Replication console, complete a wizard to deploy a new backup appliance or connect an existing one.
For detailed instructions, see the Deployment section of the Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV User Guide.
Upgrading Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV
Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV version 4.0, 4a, 5.0, 5.1, 6 and 6.1 can be upgraded to version 7.
To upgrade Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV version 4.0, 4a, 5.0, 5.1, 6 and 6.1 to version 7, upgrade Veeam Backup & Replication to version 12:
- Check the prerequisites and upgrade Veeam Backup & Replication to version 12 build 12.3.0.310 or later. For instructions on how to do it, see Upgrading to Veeam Backup & Replication 12 section of the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.
- During the process of upgrading to Veeam Backup & Replication 12.2, the wizard will automatically upgrade Nutanix AHV Plug-in.
- Open the Veeam Backup & Replication console. The upgrade wizard will appear and prompt you to upgrade the product components. Follow the wizard to complete the upgrade process for AHV backup infrastructure components.
IMPORTANT |
Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV 1.0 and Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV versions 2.0, 2a, 3.0, 3a are no longer supported and cannot be upgraded to Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV 7. First, you must upgrade Veeam Backup & Replication to version 12 (build 12.0.0.1420) and Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV to version 4a. |
Licensing
Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV is licensed by the number of protected Nutanix AHV VMs. Each protected Nutanix AHV VM consumes one Veeam Universal License instance from the license scope. A Nutanix AHV VM is considered protected if it has a restore point created during the past 31 days. If a Nutanix AHV VM is protected with snapshots only, no license is consumed.
For more information, the Licensing section of the Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV User Guide.
To renew your maintenance plan, please contact Veeam Renewals.
Technical Documentation References
If you have any questions about Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV, you may use the following resources:
Technical Support
We offer email and phone technical support for customers on maintenance and during the official evaluation period. For better experience, please provide the following information when contacting Veeam Customer Support:
- Version information for the product and all infrastructure components
- Error message and/or accurate description of the problem
- Log files
TIP |
To export the log files, navigate to the Configuration page of the Nutanix AHV backup appliance web console and select Support Information. Switch to the Download Logs tab and click the Download Logs link. |
To submit your support ticket or obtain additional information, please visit the Veeam Customer Support Portal. Before contacting Veeam Customer Support, consider searching for a resolution on Veeam R&D Forums.
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Should you have a technical or licensing issue or question, please feel free to contact our Customer Support organization directly. We have qualified technical and customer support staff available 24/7 who will help you with any inquiry that you may have.
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