Citrix Hypervisor Instant VM Restore
Create Instant Restore Job
To recover an Xenserver VM by instant restore, please go to VM Backup > Restore > Instant Restore page.
Find the VM that you wish to recover from the backup job in which the VM is included. Click on the + icon to show the restore points of the VM, and then select a desired restore point.
Target Host: After selecting the target restore point, please select a Xenserver host to run the instant restore VM. If your Vinchin Backup & Recovery has V2V migration licensed, and if you have connected other virtualizations to Vinchin, you can select a host of another virtualization as the restore destination.
Backup Node: If your Vinchin Backup & Recovery has multiple networks, you can select a preferred network to run the instant restore VM, for example, except LAN you have also connected Vinchin to the target virtualization via a 10Gb (storage) network, you can choose the IP of the 10Gb network from the dropdown list. Make sure with the selected IP, Vinchin Backup & Recovery can connect to the selected host, otherwise the instant restore job will fail.
VM Configurations: These settings are optional, but if needed, you can change the VM name, power state, number of vCPUs, size of RAM, virtual network to be connected to, etc.
Virtual Disk: The virtual disk settings are unmodifiable because instant restore does not involve restoring VM virtual disks to production datastore.
Other Settings: If the VM backup data is encrypted (Data Encryption enabled in the backup job), when restoring the VM you need to provide the data encryption password in the Encryption password field for verification, otherwise without the data encryption password, the VM cannot be restored. If the backup data has not been encrypted, the Encryption password option will not be shown.
When done with the above settings, optionally change the job name and then click on OK to create the Xenserver instant VM restore job.
Run Instant Restore Job
After creating a new instant restore job, you will be redirected to the Monitor Center > Jobs page, and you’ll be able to see the instant restore job you had created in the job list, it will be in the Pending state.
To start the instant restore job, please click on Options, and then select Start Job. The job status will change to Starting, it will take a while (usually a few seconds to a minute depending on the backup storage performance) for the restore process to be completed, when the job status changes to Running the VM is ready to use.
If you configured the VM power state preset as On, after the instant restore process is done, the VM will power on automatically and you'll get the services of the VM back online.
But if the power state preset is Off, you need to manually turn on the VM after the instant restore process is done. You should not turn on the instant restore VM until the instant restore job status changes into Running state, otherwise, the VM might become abnormal and the instant restore will fail.
During the instant restores VM runtime, you'll find that in the Citrix Hypervisor(Xenserver) storage list, there's a new NFS datastore, and the storage server should be Vinchin Backup & Recovery, please do not unmount the NFS datastore, otherwise the instant restore VM will become offline. When the instant restore job is terminated, Vinchin Backup & Recovery will automatically unmount the NFS storage.
Notice
All the data of the instant restore VM is stored on Vinchin backup repository which is mounted to the selected Xenserver host as an NFS datastore, if you terminate the instant restore job, all the data of the instant restore VM will be deleted from the Xenserver host (including newly generated data during the runtime of instant restore VM). If you wish to keep the instant restore VM and its newly generated data, do not stop the job until you have migrated all data to the Xenserver production datastore.
Do not create a snapshot on the instant restore VM, or change any virtual disk settings. Otherwise, the instant restore VM might crash and newly generated data might be lost.
Create Live Migration Job
Live migration is a feature based on an instant VM restore job, the migration operation is recommended to be done during non-business hours.
To perform a live migration of an instant restore VM, please go to Monitor Center > Jobs page. Click on Options of an instant restore job and then select Migration, on the New Job screen complete the following settings of a live migration job.
Target Host: Please select a Xenserver (could be another virtualization) host on which you wish the VM to be migrated to.
Notice
When creating an instant restore job to restore Citrix Hypervisor(Xenserver) VMs, the target virtualization can be Citrix Hypervisor(Xenserver) or another virtualization (if your Vinchin Backup & Recovery has V2V Migration licensed), no matter which virtualization you had selected as the instant restore destination, the live migration destination can be only the same virtualization as you had selected for instant restore.
VM Configurations: The VM configuration settings for live migration VM are optional, but the modifications you had done for the instant restore VM will be applied to the live migration VM too, so, if you had modified the VM configurations for the instant restore VM and you do not wish to apply the same modifications for live migration VM, please change the settings accordingly.
Transfer via: If the migration destination is Citrix Hypervisor(Xenserver), then users could choose to transfer the backup data from the backup repository to the production datastore via LAN, SAN (LAN-free), also you can set the Transmission Network if you have a separate network. If migrating to other virtualizations, the transmission options will be different. For more information on the transmission options, please refer to Data Transmission.
Transfer Threads: By specifying the number of transfer threads, you can enable multithreaded transmission to improve the processing speed of the live migration job. The default value for multithreaded transmission is 3, even if you can set the value from 1 to 8, but usually 3 threads will be enough.
When done with the above settings, click on OK to create the live migration job.
Run Live Migration Job
After creating a live migration job, you will be redirected to the Monitor Center > Jobs page. And the instant restore job on which you had created the live migration job, the job type will change from Instant Restore to Migration. By clicking on the job name, you'll be able to view the detailed VM migration process.
The migration process can be divided into 3 stages.
Stage 1:
Migrate the original backup data from the backup repository to the production datastore. This stage will take a while depending on the backup data size and the transmission network speed.
Stage 2:
Migrate the new and changed data from the backup repository to the production datastore, and when this stage is completed, the instant restore VM will be powered off.
Stage 3:
Migrate the new and changed data during the powering off the process of the instant restore VM to the production datastore, and when this stage is completed, the live migration VM will be powered on (if the power state preset is On during creating the live migration job).
But if the power state preset is Off, you need to manually turn on the live migration VM after the live migration process is fully completed. You should not turn on the live migration VM until the instant restore job status changes from Migration to Running state again, otherwise the VM might become abnormal and the live migration will fail.
The above-mentioned processes are automatic, and the whole process can guarantee data consistency, when the live migration is completed, the live migration VM will take over all services of the instant restore VM with the virtual disks in the production datastore.
Stop Instant Restore Job
After the live migration is completed, the instant restore job is still in a running status. But the VM created by the instant restore job had already been powered off and all the data had been migrated to the live migration VM. Now you can stop the instant restore job and delete it.
To delete the instant restore job, please go to Monitor Center > Jobs page. Find the instant restore job that had already been performed live migration, click on Options, and then select Stop. A dialog will be shown to warn you that stopping the instant restore job will lose all new and changed data during runtime of the instant restore VM since you had already performed live migration for the instant restore VM, so please click on OK to confirm.
Stop the instant restore job, it involves the following procedures:
- Delete the instant restore VM.
- Unmount the NFS datastore.
- Clear the new and changed data of the instant restore VM within Vinchin backup repository.
Notice
- Make sure you have performed a live migration for the instant restore VM before stopping the instant restore job, otherwise you'll lose all new and changed data during the runtime of the instant restore VM.
- Throughout the whole process of instant restore and live migration, the original backup data from which runs the instant restore VM will always remain unmodified, it will be mounted as an NFS storage in a read-only state. The new and changed data of the instant restore VM will be stored somewhere else within the backup repository.