How to Restore a Virtual Machine in KVM using Vembu BDR Suite

KVM hypervisor is usually utilized as a virtualization layer in a Kernel Virtual Machine. Having an open source architecture for Linux distributions, it streamlines management and improvises the overall performance of virtual environments. Well, that explains why it’s important to restore a backed up virtual machines to a KVM at the time of a disaster.

In this blog, we will discuss about how to restore a virtual machine in KVM using Vembu BDR Suite.

Vembu BDR Suite is an extensive backup solution for backup and disaster recovery. It has its own suite of products such for VMware, Hyper-V, disk image backup. The Vembu BDR Suite works in both Windows and Linux based environments. You can configure your backups through VMware vSphere, Hyper-V and Image backup as well. To restore your Physical/Virtual machine on a KVM hypervisor, you have to install Vembu BDR Server in Linux environment.

This blog will guide you on restoring a server on KVM considering Ubuntu 16.04 OS . Install KVM player in Ubuntu 16.04 and configure your backup through VMware vSphere/ vCenter. Once the backups are scheduled, vembu creates five different types of file format such as VHD,VHDX,VMDK, flat-VMDK and RAW formats virtually without using any additional storage. Whenever Vembu BDR Server requests to add hardware, your KVM software will start allocating resources virtually by interacting with real hardware. Using RAW file format VMs can be instantly created on KVM hypervisor.

Outline for Configuring Backup and KVM Restore using Vembu BDR Server

1. Vembu BDR Suite Installation Guide for Linux
2. How to Install KVM in ubuntu 16.04?
3. How to configure backup using Vembu BDR Server?
4. How to Restore back to KVM in Vembu BDR Server?

1. Vembu BDR Suite Installation Guide for Linux

Verify this link to install Vembu BDR Suite
https://www.bdrsuite.com/pdf/guide/vembu-bdr-server-linux-installation-guide.pdf

2. How to Install KVM in Ubuntu 16.04?

• Run this command using terminal to Install KVM

$ sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-bin virtinst bridge-utils cpu-checker

• To verify KVM Installation run this command

$ kvm-ok

• If KVM is successfully installed on your machine, you will find a message, displayed as “KVM acceleration can be used”.

3. How to configure backup using Vembu BDR Server?

• Login Vembu BDR Server
• Add VMware vSphere Host credentials and save it
• Then choose a server to configure your backup and click next

Configure Scheduling

User can configure their backup schedule based on their requirement. Here, user can choose their backup schedule as Run Every/Daily/Weekly.

• Run Every – Once full backup is completed, it will run incremental backup as per user schedule
• Run Daily – This option will run incremental backup once in a day
• Run Weekly – This option will run incremental backup once in a week. Users can select the week’s day and time on which the incremental backup should run

Configuring Retention Policy

Vembu VM Backup provides forever incremental backup, where a user can have ‘n’ number of incrementals. When retention count reaches the limit, old incrementals are automatically purged to the latest incremental as per the user’s configuration.

• Review your backup configuration settings once and save the backup

4. How to Restore back to KVM in Vembu BDR Server?

• Login into Vembu BDR Server (Installed in Linux environment) -> Goto Recovery-> Choose the backup job to perform restore

Choose any one of the recovery options and proceed to click restore.

• Quick VM Recovery – This option helps to instantly restore the backed up virtual machine
• Disk/Partition recovery – This option helps you to restore backed up machines at Disk/Partition level
• File Level Recovery – This option helps you to restore your individual files and folders present in the Virtual machine
• Disk Management Mount – This option lets you instantly attach backed up data virtually to the Vembu virtual drive as a VHD/VHDX file and proceed with restore process
• Download – This option is preferred, when a user wants to download the backed up VM in any one of the different file formats- VHD, VMDK, VHDX, VMDK-Flat and RAW to recover the VM on a different hypervisor

Let’s enable restore with Quick VM recovery option for Instant boot.

• Choose the required timestamp and restore data

• To boot a backup machine, you need to select the recovery point and assign the RAM size for the VM

• Review your configuration settings once and click next to proceed to an instant boot for your VM

• Within few minutes, the backed up physical/virtual machine will be recovered on KVM hypervisor
• To open restored physical machine Goto Applications -> System tools -> Virtual machine manager

• Open the selected VM by right clicking on it

Conclusion

Thus restoring a physical/virtual machine on a KVM hypervisor will become very beneficial using the Vembu BDR Suite. It provisions resources efficiently and boost up the performance of the virtual environment. Most importantly, disaster recovery will no more be a thing a worry when the RTO is less than 15 mins.

Experience modern data protection with this latest Vembu BDR Suite v.3.8.0 FREE edition. Try the 30 days free trial here: https://www.bdrsuite.com/vembu-bdr-suite-download/

Got questions? Email us at: vembu-support@vembu.com for answers.

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