Proxmox Backup Software

Bacula Enterprise’s unique compatibility with diverse types of virtual environments also includes Proxmox and Proxmox clusters. Bacula enables true enterprise-grade backup and recovery of the Proxmox open-source server virtualization environment. It makes Proxmox backup and restore operations as fast and simple as possible, and brings all the advantages of Bacula’s especially broad feature set to benefit the user with increased operational efficiency and reduced costs.

Proxmox VE is a powerful and lightweight open source server virtualization software, optimized for performance and usability. Offering maximum flexibility and using the Proxmox API, Bacula is fully integrated and can back up and recover data from Proxmox, including its two virtualization technologies – Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and container-based virtualization with Linux Containers (LXC) – and / or QEMU virtual machines.

Bacula’s Proxmox module provides Incremental backupcontact us for more details.

Bacula’s Proxmox Backup Strategies

Bacula’s capabilities for Proxmox backup can be exploited in two different ways: by installing Bacula Enterprise File Daemon on each Guest, or by creating image backups using Bacula’s Proxmox module.

The first method does not use the Proxmox module, but instead a Bacula Enterprise file daemon is installed on every VM to operate properly. Treating your virtual servers as physical ones by equipping them with Bacula Enterprise File Daemon nevertheless allows for a variety of Bacula Enterprise features and advantages, including:

  • Jobs verification;
  • File level compression capabilities;
  • Individual file restoration;
  • Backup accuracy;
  • Spyware and ransomware detection via checksum comparison;
  • Exclusion of specific files or folders, and more.

The second backup strategy uses Bacula’s Proxmox module, and prioritizes image backups as the main backup method. This module offers far higher performance, efficiency and speed of use. With the Proxmox module, there is no need to install Bacula’s file daemon onto every VM. Data is saved either as raw images (QEMU VMs), or as .tar archives (LXC VMs). The snapshot technology is used to both read and save the contents of your disks, and the Proxmox API is utilized after that to dump these copies in a place specified the system administrator.

With Bacula’s Proxmox module, Bacula has no need to go through the Client filesystems to read and analyze the data. The overall toll on the infrastructure from this backup method is therefore lighter than with the other one. Bacula’s Proxmox module offers a number of industry leading advantages, and its backup and restore operations are examined more thoroughly here.

Here are some of the Proxmox backup software features:

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Snapshot-based online backup of any Proxmox VM including QEMU and LXC Guests. Snapshot mode generates live backup which minimizes the downtime of a VM during the the backup process.
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Restore complete virtual machine image to original or alternate Proxmox hypervisor
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Ability to automatically scan Proxmox clusters to create Bacula Enterprise configurations for each virtual machine

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Full image-level Proxmox backup
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Restore QEMU VM archive (.vma) to alternate directory
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Restore LXC VM archive (.tar) and configuration to alternate directory
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“bwlimit=” which specifies if the backup should be performed with an I/O bandwidth limitation. Limit the I/O bandwidth of backup operations on the hypervisor side and avoid I/O overhead, preventing the exhaust of hard disk resources.

Further help on Proxmox backup:

  • Does Bacula support your storage type? Take a look at out storage backup solutions.
  • Training is available in different locations, depending on the Certified Bacula Systems Training Center you choose.
  • Interested in MS Exchange backup and recovery? Take a look at our Exchange Server tool.