In this post we will see how to protect virtual machines on Citrix XenServer or Citrix Hypervisor with Veeam v10 and their respective agents, allowing recovery on the same hypervisor or performing instant recovery or migration to VMware vSphere.
Introduction#
We all know that the hypervisors supported with integration (so far) by Veeam Backup & Replication are VMware and Hyper-V. Therefore, when we talk about other hypervisors such as Citrix XenServer (Citrix Hypervisor), Oracle VM, Proxmox to name a few, we will need to use Veeam Agents to perform full protection of the virtual machines.
Since we must use agents, in this case we will use Veeam Agent for Windows and Veeam Agent for Linux, which provide an excellent solution for performing a complete backup of the machines and also offer application consistency for databases or applications when required.
Of course, there are also other backup options depending on the needs of each environment, which you can review at:
Veeam Agent for Windows: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agentforwindows/userguide/backup_job_create.html?ver=40
Veeam Agent for Linux: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agentforlinux/userguide/backup_job_create.html?ver=40
Installed Citrix Hypervisor / XenServer environment#
In the lab I installed a single hypervisor node and its respective XenCenter for testing. The installed versions are the latest I could download from the Citrix page:
https://www.citrix.com/downloads/citrix-hypervisor/
The version used for the hypervisor and XenCenter is 8.2. Then I installed a Windows Server 2019 machine with Citrix VM Tools 9.0.42 and a CentOS 8 machine with Citrix VM Tools 7.20.0-1 to then back up both machines.
Protection Group#
When we talk about agents with Veeam, we should always manage them from a protection group, since this allows us to centralize management and organize, according to the company’s needs, the different servers that will use agents.
As seen in the image above, we see both servers with their respective agents installed. Remember that when creating the protection group, Veeam Backup & Replication will install the agent for Windows or Linux automatically.
After confirming the installation of the agents, Veeam Agent for Windows or Veeam Agent for Linux, we will create the respective Backup Jobs, which we will configure to back up the entire machine so we then have the Bare Metal Recovery option in case we want to fully recover the server on XenServer or on VMware vSphere.
Then we run the Backup Job for both servers and see the statistics when they finish.
XenServer Image Recovery#
Now comes the important part: performing the Bare Metal Restore, either Linux or Windows, to Citrix XenServer / Hypervisor. If you want to review the Veeam manual to see the procedure:
VAW: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agentforwindows/userguide/image_boot.html?ver=40
VAL: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agentforlinux/userguide/baremetal.html?ver=40
As you will see in the manual, for Windows you need to create the Recovery Media ISO, which you can do directly from the console and save wherever you see fit by clicking NNF.
For the case of backups with Veeam Agent for Linux, you must download the Recovery ISO from the Veeam downloads page:
https://www.veeam.com/linux-backup-download.html
Then copy both ISOs to the repository you have in Citrix.
And finally, create a virtual machine from XenCenter with the same virtual hardware characteristics to perform the recovery.
Then start the virtual machine with the ISO attached to perform the recovery.
Select “Network Storage” next, then “Veeam Backup Repository”, and assign an IP address where it says “Configure Network Settings”.
Then we enter the data for our Veeam Backup & Replication repository.
We select the backup we want to recover.
And we select to recover “Entire Computer”.
And then we proceed to the recovery of the virtual machine on Citrix XenServer / Hypervisor.
Then reboot and remove the recovery ISO to see the Windows boot and verify that the XenTools run:
And with this we finish the recovery of entire machines on XenServer.
Recovery to VMware#
One of the most beautiful features that Veeam Backup & Replication has is recovering any backup directly to VMware vSphere, which allows us to maintain a multicloud and hybrid strategy for data recovery. If you want to know more:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/performing_instant_recovery_vm.html?ver=100
Therefore, if you want to have the option to recover or migrate virtual machines from XenServer to VMware, you can do it with Instant Recovery directly from the Veeam Backup & Replication console.
When clicking on Instant VM Recovery, it will show us the Wizard for the recovery of the XenServer machine, and then we select the desired Recovery Point:
After selecting the restore point, we will enter the required VMware data and then click NNF.
And we can select whether we want to power on the machine and connect it to the network.
And we will see the status of the recovery:
Then it waits to perform the migration:
The machine is already working! Now we will perform the migration to the production vSphere datastore; we select the vSphere resources we will use.
Then either use proxies or leave them in automatic.
Finally review the summary of what will be done.
And lastly the statistics.
So with Veeam Backup & Replication you can protect your virtual machines on Citrix XenServer / Hypervisor and fully recover them on the same Xen, or recover / migrate to VMware vSphere.