Data Transmission
Vinchin offers various data transmission options for users to perform VM backup. Users can choose flexibly from the following transmission options based on user demands and the actual virtual and backup infrastructure deployments.
LAN
The local area network (LAN) can be the production network or a dedicated network for transmission. With this option chosen, VM data will be transferred using the TCP/IP connection between the source virtual platform and the target backup storage.
Encrypted Transmission
When VM data is being transmitted over the network, Vinchin Backup & Recovery will encrypt the transmission path to guarantee the data is not compromised during backup and restore processes.
LAN-free
For virtual infrastructures with central storage servers, system administrators usually use a storage area network, to improve data storage efficiency, redundancy, and flexibility.
To backup virtual machines within this kind of virtual infrastructure, users can use the existing SAN for virtual machine backup and recovery. It is also called LAN-free backup.
The benefits of implementing LAN-Free backup and recovery are as follows:
The backup and recovery data flows will only go through the SAN without passing it through the hosts and production network.
Minimize the impact on critical business operations.
The highly efficient backup and recovery process can minimize possible business downtime.
More backup job sessions can be scheduled for shorter RPOs.
Backup data can be transferred from the production storage area to the backup storage area directly via SAN using Fibre Channel (FC), Internet SCSI (iSCSI), or NFS protocols.
To transfer via SAN (LAN-free), you need to add a LAN-free path from the Resources > Virtual Infrastructure > LAN-free page first.
HotAdd
HotAdd is a VMware ESXi server capability which enables the VM virtual disks to be directly attached to the backup server VM, the backup server VM can then read data blocks from/to the virtual disks directly bypassing the hypervisor's (VMware ESXi) TCP/IP stack.
Vinchin Backup & Recovery provides 2 ways to utilize HotAdd transport for VMware vShpere virtual machine backup.
If your Vinchin backup server is installed as a VM within the VMware ESXi cluster, you can directly enable HotAdd transport mode.
If your Vinchin backup server is installed on a physical machine, to be able to utilize HotAdd transport functionality, you need to install Vinchin backup proxy as a VM within the VMware ESXi cluster.
Notice
HotAdd only works with SCSI disks but not IDE disks.
NBD
Network Block Device (NBD) is a network protocol allows Vinchin Backup & Recovery to access block devices of the VMs over the network for backup and restore activities.
Currently, NBD transport protocol is supported with Huawei FusionCompute virtual platform.
ImageIO
Vinchin Backup & Recovery use ImageIO API perform full or incremental backups for VM without temporary snapshots. With the implementation of ImageIO API, you can use CBT for incremental backups, and also no backup plugin installation required.
ImageIO API is applicable with the following virtual platforms:
RedHat Virtualization version ≧ 4.4.7
oVirt version ≧ 4.4.7
OLVM ≧ 4.4.8
Backup Proxy
Vinchin backup proxy is an optional backup infrastructure component dedicated for VMware virtual platform, it can utilize the HotAdd technology of the ESXi server for efficient VM backup.
If you are backing up your VMware virtual platform through LAN, and your Vinchin backup server is installed on a physical machine, you can choose to install a Vinchin backup proxy VM on the ESXi cluster for implementation of HotAdd backup.
If your Vinchin backup server is installed as a VM on the ESXi cluster, then Vinchin backup proxy installation is not required, because the backup proxy functionality is already built-in on the Vinchin backup server VM.
Transmission Network
Transmission network is set for eliminate the impact on business-critical services while in backup. If you have a separated network (e.g., storage network) for VM backup, please specify the network address in the Transmission Network field in “network/prefix_length” format, e.g., 172.16.0.0/16.
Backup over a transmission network is applicable with the following virtual platforms:
VMware vSphere
Citrix Hypervisor (XenServer)
XCP-ng
Red Hat Virtualization (RHV)
oVirt
Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM)
Proxmox VE
Sangfor HCI
ZStack Cloud
H3C CAS/UIS