Hyper-V Backup Plug-in Data Sheet

iSCSI SAN Storage Software / Resources / Data Sheets / Hyper-V Backup Plug-in Data Sheet

Hyper-V Backup Plug-in Data Sheet

Total Hyper-V Backup of virtual machines

Microsoft Hyper-V has so far occupied strong positions in thousands of server rooms worldwide. Backup software in Hyper-V environments has become a necessity inducing companies to look for a reliable solution that can provide fast backup, restore and recovery operations on a regular basis. There is a critical need for a solution that will be easily set up and managed and won’t complicate the set of procedures of an ordinary IT department.
Hyper-V Backup Plug-in provides fast and easy backup and reliable virtual machine restore; it reduces storage space requirements, introduces simple management and has affordable price for SMBs.

About the product

Hyper-V Backup Plug-in provides customers with maximum reliability, simplicity, and speed of a virtual machine backup that eliminates VM downtime and painful halts in hypervisor operations. It is an ideal solution for Microsoft Hyper-V-based infrastructures. Not only does it allow fast and efficient transfer of VM data to any storage, but it utilizes built-in Deduplication technology that minimizes disk space requirements.
Ease of installation, use, a wide range of features, and an affordable price make Hyper-V Backup a perfect fit for medium and small-sized companies that operate multiple Hyper-V servers. Backups can be performed to both NAS and SAN that provide configuration flexibility in environments with existing storage infrastructure.

Single vendor – Double use

With Hyper-V Backup customers get the storage and backup software from the single vendor. StarWind provides the end-to-end storage virtualization tool and backup data protection developed exclusively for Hyper-V environments.

Using Hyper-V Backup customers can

• Work within the intuitive familiar interface enjoying the flat learning curve
• Be sure that all storage and backup software upgrades will be fully compatible and seamless
• Enjoy cross-application features
• Use single Management Console for both SAN storage and backup plug-in

The key advantages

• Global Deduplication: size of archives reduced by 80%
• Instant VM recovery: single-click VM restore
• Sandbox mode: launch of VM directly from archive for test
• Agentless architecture: no VM downtime for software installation or backup operation

Easy to setup and use

The solution was designed with the word “easiness” in mind, therefore it provides:

• Single-click setup on a server with the preinstalled Hyper-V role
• Single-click setup on a server with the preinstalled Hyper-V role
• Automatic post-processing of archives in a storage pool (e.g. deduplication, compression, removal, merging)
• Recovery of any virtual machine within seconds

Agentless architecture

Hyper-V Backup has no agents on Guest systems. Since the whole process is managed by the Host system, there is no need for VM downtime for either the product installation or the backup process. Such an agentless approach increases performance and ensures simple reliable backup and restore procedures.

Instant virtual machine recovery

Data recovery, automatic virtual machine restart, and VM launch directly from an archive are fast since virtual machines are stored in their original VHD-file format. Windows-native VHD format makes archives transparent for third-party vendors’ software. Starting from Windows 7, archives are available for the read/write operations without any additional software. It is possible to copy an archive and simply launch a VM from it.

Global Deduplication

This unique technology allows elimination of redundant data in both individual VM’s archives and between all stored VMs within a storage pool. This feature is highly efficient in virtualized environments where archives of VMs running the same OS can be deduplicated with high ratios that allow huge storage space savings.

Sandbox mode

Sandbox enables virtual machine launch from an archive in an emulated virtual environment to test its operability or to process data while saving an archive. For the restore operation in Sandbox, a VM clone is created, reconfigured, and recovered from an archive.

Windows-native VSS service

Support of this service ensures time consistency of data within an individual virtual machine and between all VMs running on a Hyper-V host.

Incremental backup

Along with a full backup of an entire virtual machine, Hyper-V Backup provides incremental backup. It stores only files that have changed since the last backup operation. It is the fastest backup type (because it saves increments only), which allows considerable reduction of storage space requirements.

SAVE SPACE

Reduce amount of data sent over the network using built-in Deduplication and Incremental Backup capabilities.

SAVE Time

Enjoy fast and efficient transfer of VM data to any storage and instant VM recovery.

SAVE MONEY

Reduce cost and maximize virtualization outcomes by saving on additional hardware and software.

Background of the Hyper-V Backup development

StarWind Software Inc., known as a vendor of the storage virtualization software for hypervisors, acknowledged the importance of data backup in virtualized environments. Such position induced the company to the development of a backup solution that provides total backup of Hyper-V virtual machines.

Benefits of Hyper-V Backup

• Ease of installation and use
• Sandbox mode for VM tests
• Data Deduplication
• Support of original VM file format
• Support of native Windows VSS services
• Incremental backup
• Support of CSV
• Outstanding performance
• Reduced TCO

Hyper-V-optimized software allowing the use of

• Native Hyper-V API for operation with Guest systems
• Microsoft VSS for correct synchronous mirroring of the virtual machine image
• VSS-volumes for the clustering systems

System Requirements

Supported Guest operating systems (32/64 bit):

• Microsoft Windows XP SP2/Windows Vista/Windows 7
• MS Windows Server 2003
• MS Windows Server 2008 R2
• Linux-based ОS

Licensing

StarWind Hyper-V Backup plugin provides a unique license that covers an exact number of Hyper-V hosts required by a customer at a time of purchase. The licensing is not limited to the number of VMs per a single Hyper-V host and not affiliated with a number of CPUs on a physical server.

Technical Support 24/7

StarWind provides the prospects and customers with qualified support services at the stage of software deployment, configuration and maintenance. StarWind support team is available at: www.starwiindsoftware.com/support