Official status of support for multiple backup solutions

VictorSTS

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Oct 7, 2019
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Which is the official support status of doing PVE QEMU backups with PBS and other backup solutions?

Specifically, would like to know the support status from Proxmox PBS for:
  • Veeam
  • Hornetsecurity (Altaro)
  • Nakivo
There are a few use cases that may affect this:
  • Backing up the same VMs with different backup solutions.
  • Backing up different VMs with different backup solutions (i.e. a DC with Veeam, other VMs with PBS).
Of course, the other backup software should also support PBS also doing backups, which is something that I'm currently asking to each of them. I'm aware of some friction points like how each deals with the dirty map or the fleecing images, but there might be deeper implications like how each interact with QEMU or how bad it might be if a backup from two different solutions happens at the same time.

Thanks!
 
Do you mean with PBS using the same PVE API as PBS? I don't think that PBS and other backup solutions can send stuff to each other was your question suggests to me.
 
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Do you mean with PBS using the same PVE API as PBS?
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean with that.

I'm asking about the official support of Proxmox PBS to do backups of QEMU VMs in a PVE cluster that is also backed up by other backup solution (Hornet, Veeam, Nakivo), whether of the same VMs or different VMs for each backup software.
 
I think it's safe to say there is no official support for 3rd party products.
True, but at the same time, why would I want Support from Proxmox for my backup tool?
IMHO it does not matter, what PVE supports. If I use VEEM for my proxmox backup, the only thing that matters is IMHO that VEEAM supports backing up a PVE host.

Just like Windows does not officially support VEEAM as Windows Server backup.
 
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why would any vendor undertake this endeavor?
Because we could suppose that there is no support, which seems more or less expected given the way QEMU creates backups, but we we can as well think that there is no problem running different backup solutions given that no vendor or PVE docs states otherwise. I haven't found any specific mention about this on any yet, which is surprising.


why would I want Support from Proxmox for my backup tool?
Not me. That's not what I'm asking. I "just" want to know if PVE VMs support being backed up using different backup solutions being PBS one of them.
 
Whether it works and whether it is supported are two different things. Supported means it is being tested.

Considering that PBS uses bitmap to track changes between backups of the running VM, and that this is an interface provided by QEMU, it is conceivable that one or more products you listed utilize similar method in some way. That would mean invalid bitmap for the next run if whichever product was first.
Other potential issues would be unexpected state of the disks, etc.

With due respect, you title is "official support" , for that you want to reach out to Proxmox Sales team or use your official support channel. They will qualify your question parameters, and perhaps provide official answer. As currently asked it seems to be too broad for an answer in community forum.


Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox
 
It's not exactly what you asked for but I know of people who uses the ProxmoxBackupServer for backing up the vms and containers and additionally Veeam Agent or some other tool (e.G. barman or pg_dump for postgresql ) to have application-aware database or domain controller backups. So for the application specific stuff they basically treat the VM like a bare metal machine.
 
PVE VMs support being backed up using different backup solutions being PBS one of them.
Sure.
VEEAM supports PVE, so PVE backups are supported by VEEAM.
PBS supports PVE, so PVE backups to PVS are supported by Proxmox.

Supported means it is being tested.
Support means that someone will pick up the phone or give you the option to write a ticket.
As a rule of thumb, the more these companies depend on support contracts, the better the support is.
Because if their income depens on you not canceling the support contract, they do that by offering you good support.
That is why Proxmox or OPNsense or most OSS support rocks, and Microsoft support sucks.
 
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