You can use Commvault to back up and recover virtual machines (VMs) that are hosted in a cluster for the Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV). A Nutanix cluster includes at least three hosts that provide computing and storage resources, with data replicated in the cluster for high availability. You can assign virtual machines that are hosted on a cluster to protection domains. Within a protection domain, You can group VMs into consistency groups.
You can perform streaming backups and IntelliSnap backups for Nutanix AHV from the Command Center or from the CommCell Console.
Note
You can use the Nutanix virtualization client only to protect virtual machines that run in Nutanix AHV. To support other hypervisors that run on a Nutanix cluster (such as VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V), configure a virtualization client for that hypervisor.
Key Features
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Feature |
Description |
Additional information |
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Agentless backups and restores |
Install the Virtual Server Agent on a machine to act as a VSA proxy. A VSA proxy manages backup and restore operations for guest VMs in your environment, eliminating the need to install agents on guest VMs. |
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"Incremental forever" data protection |
After an initial full backup, you can perform ongoing incremental backups to capture changes for the source VM. |
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Changed Block Tracking |
Commvault uses Changed Block Tracking (CBT) to identify changes for each incremental backup. |
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Restores |
You can restore full VMs or guest files and folders. |
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Simplified operational interface |
The web-based Command Center interface uses smart defaults to simplify configuration and support streamlined operations. |
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Single point of administration |
The CommCell Console provides advanced options for Commvault operations. Using the CommCell Console, you can configure a virtualization client that serves as a single point of administration for a Nutanix cluster. You can perform backups and restores from the virtualization client, and perform other administrative tasks such as creating schedules and generating reports. |
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Automatic protection for all virtual machines |
By default, all virtual machines are automatically selected for backup, to ensure that all virtual machines are backed up. |
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Application-aware backups |
Perform application-consistent backups without installing application agents on virtual machines. From the Command Center, you can use the Auto discover applications option to automatically find applications on servers and install the agents that can back up the applications. (For more information, see Automatic Discovery of Applications in the Command Center.) |
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Automatic discovery |
To back up categories of virtual machines, you can create rules to automatically select virtual machines based on specific criteria. Automatic discovery is useful in environments where virtual machines are frequently added or removed. |
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Customized filters |
To exclude virtual machines from backups, create rules to filter virtual machines. |
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VM conversion |
When restoring a VM, you can choose to restore to a different hypervisor. This capability can be used to migrate VMs to a different virtualization platform. |
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Reports |
You can view detailed information about each backed up virtual machine, including information such as size of the data, status of integration services, guest operating system, and the host on which the virtual machine is running. |
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Snapshot support |
Use snapshots to capture virtual machine data quickly, with minimal impact on the source VM, and use the snapshot as a source for backup copies. |
Commvault Platform Features
The following features are available throughout Commvault and are not limited to the Virtual Server Agent.
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Feature |
Description |
Additional information |
|---|---|---|
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Policy-driven data protection |
Policies drive operations to meet service level agreements (SLAs). |
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Block-level deduplication |
Block-level deduplication compares blocks of data during backups. If virtual machines contain identical blocks of data, block-level deduplication eliminates the storage of redundant data and reduces the size of data in storage. |
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Built-in compression |
Commvault storage policies automatically enable compression to reduce the quantity of data sent to storage. |