Nutanix backup choices expand

Options for Nutanix backup are growing for customers using the hyper-converged vendor’s AHV hypervisor.

At Nutanix’s European .NEXT user conference last week, backup software market leader Veritas pledged AHV support in NetBackup 8.1 and Comtrade Software updated its HYCU software built specifically for Nutanix backup.

Nutanix lists 10 data protection vendors that support AHV. Veritas, Veeam Software, Commvault and Comtrade have the greatest integration with AHV, according to Nutanix. Cohesity, Rubrik, Arcserve, Unitrends, Cloudian and Sureline Systems also support AHV.

Most Nutanix customers still use VMware hypervisors, but close to one-quarter of the customers have adopted the vendor’s KVM-based AHV hypervisor.

Veritas claims NetBackup support will enable faster backup and recovery of Nutanix virtual workloads though its protection technologies. Veritas supports AHV with its NetBackup Cloud Catalyst appliances that enable deduplication of data in the public cloud. NetBackup will also enhance the Nutanix backup process with its parallel streaming technology that backs up data across multiple hyper-converged nodes simultaneously and its CloudPoint cloud-based snapshots.

Comtrade Software said HYCU 2.0 for Nutanix backup will add support for VMware’s ESX hypervisor, Microsoft Exchange and DR across remote sites. Comtrade also said it plans support for Nutanix Acropolis File Services (AFS) in the first quarter of 2018. It will also become one of the first partners in the Nutanix Calm marketplace, allowing customers to download and install HYCU by clicking on a blueprint from the marketplace.

Comtrade launched HYCU in June to protect AHV virtual machines, and claims more than 20 paying customers.

HYCU 2.0 is planned for later in 2017. It can broaden the HYCU customer base through support of ESX, which is used by about 65% of Nutanix customers.

“ESX support is often asked for by customers,” said Subbiah Sundaram, Comtrade’s vice president of products. “Customers who want to migrate from ESX to AHV want staging areas. We’re adding that and making it easier for customers to experiment.”

Sundaram said HYCU will use Nutanix snapshots instead of VMware’s VADP to protect ESX.  He said that avoids VM stun, which is when I/O latency makes the VM unresponsive.

HYCU adds support of Exchange to its previous support of Microsoft SQL Server and Active Directory. It will enable mailbox level recovery and allow customers to clone entire instances for text and development. Comtrade is also adding the ability to restore databases from one SQL Server to another.

For DR, HYCU will enable Nutanix customers to set up standard Nutanix Protection Domains for VMs at remote sites, set up DR replicas at a DR site and restore directly to the remote site from the replicas.

Comtrade will begin trials for AFS backup with the expectation of adding it to HYCU 3.0 in early 2018. Sundaram said HYCU will also add parallel stream backups, spreading the backup load across up to eight Nutanix nodes.