Setting Up A Backup Plan

One of the main Xopero ONE features is VMware backup. The system allows you to backup multiple or selected virtual machines hosted on your ESXi/vCenter server. This article is dedicated to VM backup plan creation.

Creation backup plan

To create a new backup plan open the Plans tab and click the (+) Add Plan button in the top bar. After that, the system will display a new panel. Enter a name for the plan.

Backup type

Define the name of a backup plan and set the Backup type section to VM backup.

Virtual machines

In this section select the Virtual Machines that you want to include in the backup process, and click the Which VMs button. That will make another view - Your servers - appear.

At this point, you can select one of the available ESXi/vCenter servers (from those that are already connected to Xopero ONE) and select which virtual machines you want to protect. You can choose between two options: Protect all, which will take into account all VMs available on the selected server, or Select VMs which will allow you to add only chosen VMs.

VMware backup options

This is the most important section if it comes to the safety, efficiency, and reliability of your backup plan. Xopero ONE gives you several features to keep your data consistent, you can backup only what's needed and use the fastest way to do so.

By clicking the Edit button next to the VMware backup options section you can configure the following options:

Application-aware - VSS-based feature that creates a consistent backup of Virtual Machine and the applications running on it (Windows Server operating systems running applications like Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Active Directory). Using Xopero ONE you can Enable application-aware backup on the supported guest operating system (recommended), but also Continue backup in case of application errors (if the switch is set to ON, then the application will continue the backup in case of Application-aware feature error only).

Changes processing (CBT) - a feature that allows you to configure the way how the differential/incremental backups will be performed. You can select your choice between:

VMware CBT(recommended) - is a VMkernel feature that keeps track of the storage blocks of virtual machines as they change over time.
Xopero ONE Classic method - isn't a very efficient, but very helpful way in the case when VMware CBT fails. This option compares the data block by block to define the changes between the previous and the current backup. There're two additional settings dedicated to the first choice (VMware CBT) - you can automatically Enable CBT in VMware for all VMs included in the backup and Reset CBT for every full copy to prevent any issue related to CBT.

Virtual machine state - an optional feature that allows you to select the status(or statuses) at which the backup should be performed. If the machine is in a different state than selected, then it won't be included in the backup process.

Transport method - defines how Virtual Machines should be transferred between the VMware and Worker. There are four options to choose from:

Automatic (recommended) - Xopero ONE will verify what options are available for specific workers and where will be used.
HotAdd - is available only for Virtual Appliance worker (read more about virtual appliances in this article: VMware Management). It takes a snapshot and creates a linked close of the target virtual machine. The disk is attached to the worker, which reads the linked clone's virtual disks for backup.
SAN - this mode requires applications to run on a backup server with access to SAN storage containing the virtual disks to be accessed. a SAN backup worker must be a physical machine. The data in this mode is read directly from the VMware LUN storage where a virtual disk resides.
LAN - also known as NBD/NBDSSL. In this mode, the ESXi host reads data from the storage and sends it across a network to the worker; it's usually used when no other transport method is available.

Skip SWAP and empty blocks - Xopero ONE gives you the possibility to reduce the copy size by using two additional options:

Skip SWAP files and partitions - if this option is switched ON, then Xopero ONE will skip swap partitions and files, which works as 'virtual memory' and stores the temporary data that is not in the use by RAM memory.
Skip empty blocks -in case that option is ON, the application will skip empty blocks (that are not needed in backup) and reduce the backup size.

Worker - is a device that is directly responsible for the backup process of your Virtual Machines. You can have many workers and use different workers for each backup plan. A worker can be both a physical machine or a virtual machine. Remember that you need to use Virtual Appliance to use transport methods like HotAdd

Devices with macOS are not supported as Worker devices in VMware backup plans in Xopero ONE.

Backup storage

In this part, select one of the locations assigned to your Xopero ONE as storage.

Scheduler and retention

Now define scheduler and retention to your data.