Backup Strategy

[Foozy]

I'm in the process of migrating to proxmox pve from a kvm/virsh setup to easy the management of servers for my colleagues.
For the current setup backups are done via bash scripts I've written that shutdown the vm, extract the disk path from the xml definition, backup the disk and then restart the vm. All the VM disk/xml files are then rsynced to every other server so that we basically have every vm backed up to every other server, plus an extra offsite server (that's just storage not a vm host).

I've been running pve at home as a test I have 2 instances and have done migrations without issue and I can see the power of templating, however the backup options seem to be very restrictive with the only option being 'backup now', replication is also pretty restrictive having fixed timeframes for replication to occur. Currently running 45 vms spread over 4 servers and none of the are going to be particularly great for that volume of data flying about even with the 10 gig interfaces we use.

Is there a mechanism that I can use to essentially replicate what I've got with proxmox? I understand there's Proxmox backup but I'm trying not to have to fork out for extra hardware to run the backups - given the current strategy has been perfect.

 

[fiona]

Hi,
I feel like rather than doing backups to all other servers, replicating the VMs to all other servers is easier. Please note that replication is limited to ZFS. You mention that replication schedules are restrictive. How exactly? What would you need instead?

For backups, you can define backup jobs (see Datacenter > Backup in the UI) and choose a schedule there.

Replication and backup can run while the VM is running too, no need to shut down first, but you probably want to use the guest agent for filesystem freeze/thaw to improve consistency.

 

[Foozy]

Thanks for the reply.

All of the servers use hardware raid, ZFS isn't an option because of that. Since ZFS is required for replication then it's out of the window for us. This makes backups even more important. As I understand it we can't JBOD the disks because ZFS needs to bypass the raid card completely.

I say that the backup schedule options are resrictive because I get no option to select when they happen, other than the pre-defined list. I can't set a time or frequency that suits us. I had a brief moment of hope when I saw the help section that talked about the jobs.cfg, hoping I could just specify what I wanted in there but that seems to still use that predefined list.

I've looked into Proxmox Backup Server as a possible solution to this but:

Can I run it as a VM on multiple hosts without issue?
Can I restore backups from any backup server to any pve?
Can I sync backups across those backup servers?

We don't have a problem with shutting down VM's for backups, it's not affected us in the 5 years or so we've been doing that so it shouldn't be an issue but what I need to look at is how easily I can fire up that backup on a different proxmox host. I'd like a poor man's replication from a backup.

Obviously we're looking at transitioning to proxmox, and I've already migrated some VM's were running to one of the other (kvm/virsh) hosts we have - in itself trivial - to free up one of the servers so I can prep. for more testing but I'd ideally like to be sure that I'm not heading down a blind alley to start with.

When it comes to subscriptions can we buy a 'site' subscription or do we need to buy individual ones for each server instance (pve, pbs, pmg) ?

 

[fiona]

I say that the backup schedule options are resrictive because I get no option to select when they happen, other than the pre-defined list. I can't set a time or frequency that suits us. I had a brief moment of hope when I saw the help section that talked about the jobs.cfg, hoping I could just specify what I wanted in there but that seems to still use that predefined list.

The schedule can be edited freely, the list is just examples

I've looked into Proxmox Backup Server as a possible solution to this but:

Can I run it as a VM on multiple hosts without issue?

It's not recommended running PBS as a VM. You need to be careful not to loose it, or you'll need to re-install and re-add the datastore manually. That said, there are users doing it, just search the forums.

Can I restore backups from any backup server to any pve?

Yes, you need to add each PBS as a separate storage (and in case of encrypted backups have the key).

Can I sync backups across those backup servers?

Yes, PBS supports remotes and sync jobs for this purpose.

We don't have a problem with shutting down VM's for backups, it's not affected us in the 5 years or so we've been doing that so it shouldn't be an issue but what I need to look at is how easily I can fire up that backup on a different proxmox host. I'd like a poor man's replication from a backup.

If you want to keep stopping VMs, just choose stop mode backup.

When it comes to subscriptions can we buy a 'site' subscription or do we need to buy individual ones for each server instance (pve, pbs, pmg) ?

AFAIK, you need individual ones, but such questions are best sent to office@proxmox.com