Introduction
HPE VM Essentials offers a streamlined virtualization solution designed for small to medium-sized environments. In my previous blog post, Navigating HPE VM Essentials Part 1, I introduced this platform and discussed its potential impact.In this update, I aim to provide a high-level overview of the user experience with HPE VM Essentials and demonstrate how to configure backups in such an environment. This includes insights into the provisioning interface and the integration with Veeam's backup solutions
Environment Setup
For this functional test, I configured a simple environment to explore backup strategies for HPE VM Essentials. A physical Windows server was set up to act as the Veeam Backup & Replication server. All necessary Veeam roles, including the backup server, proxy, and repository, were installed on this single server to streamline the testing.
Additionally, the test leveraged a physical HPE VM Essentials cluster, which housed the source VMs designated for backup. It's important to note that this testing focused solely on functionality, not on scalability or performance, ensuring a straightforward demonstration of how Veeam can protect virtual machines within an HPE VM Essentials environment.
HPE VM Essentials UI Overview
Accessing the HPE VM Essentials console is straightforward. By navigating to the specified URL and entering your credentials, you're presented with an overview screen rich with details about your VM Essentials cluster. While this console provides a comprehensive view of your environment, for the purposes of this blog, we'll focus on the Provisioning tab, where you can manage and view your running instances.
Within this environment, which is admittedly small for testing purposes with only three virtual machines, you can see each VM's details, including their names and IP addresses. It's crucial to assign meaningful names to VMs, as the default naming convention can lead to clutter (e.g., "instance1"). Proper naming helps in quickly identifying the operating system or the application's purpose, crucial for efficient management. On the right side of the interface, typical options for power management, similar to those found in other hypervisor environments, are available.
I navigated to the Create Instance wizard by clicking on the “Add” button displayed on the screen. This process allows you to create a new Windows Server 2022 VM, starting with naming the instance and assigning it to a particular environment. While more elaborate tagging might be used in a production setting, I kept it simple for this test. You can customize the VM's specifications in terms of CPU and memory, with options to scale quite substantially depending on your needs. Additionally, the interface allows for the addition of extra disks beyond the root, providing flexibility like other hypervisor provisioning experiences.
Upon selecting the desired operating system image—in this case, Windows Server 2022—I chose the HPE VM Essentials host within our cluster for provisioning.
I’ll discuss the Automation step later in this blog, so we won’t cover that just yet.
Finally, the Create Instance wizard offers a review page for confirming settings before completing the task.
Configuring Backup with Veeam
To protect the VMs within the HPE VM Essentials environment, we utilize Veeam Protection Groups. These groups are configured to safeguard workloads using Veeam Agents for both Windows and Linux. This setup ensures that each virtual machine is backed up efficiently and reliably. For more detailed guidance on setting up protection groups and using Veeam Agents, please refer to the relevant sections of the Veeam Agent Management Guide.
To set up a backup for VMs in our environment, we'll begin by creating a new protection group in the Veeam Backup & Replication interface. Start by navigating to the "Create Protection Group" option in the Inventory View, where you'll assign a name to the new group and add the appropriate computers. For this test, I manually added two Linux servers. Veeam offers multiple options for protecting and listing computers, and those can be explored further in the Veeam User Guide.
After this process, you will see the new group and its servers listed in the inventory pane.
However, simply adding servers to a protection group is not enough; they must also be included in a backup job. To accomplish this, navigate to your protection group and create a new backup job. Again, you’ll want to follow our user guide to read about all the steps to configure a backup job with protection groups. I’ve included some of the screenshots here, though.
Assign a name to the job and verify that the protection group is listed for backup.
Choose your backup mode, repository, and any guest processing settings on the next sections of the backup job wizard.
Finally, like any Veeam job, you can set the schedule to run automatically or per your needs. Running the job immediately is also an option when you complete the setup by ticking the appropriate box before clicking "Finish."
Automation of Backup Tasks
In the Create Instance wizard within HPE VM Essentials, there's a noteworthy "Task" option that prompts the question: how can it be utilized to automate processes? This feature allows you to execute any automated tasks you desire during the VM creation process.
Our team is exploring the potential of this feature by creating a task that automates the addition of new VMs into the appropriate Veeam protection groups, thereby ensuring they are automatically included in backup schedules. The envisioned task involves running a script that detects the VM as either Windows or Linux, retrieves its hostname, and uses the Veeam Backup & Replication API to assign the VM to the correct protection group. This approach exemplifies how leveraging the automation capabilities of HPE VM Essentials could significantly enhance backup operations.
The Backup section on this screen deserves a mention. Expanding this, you would see that HPE VM Essentials equates "backups" with VM snapshots. While this may be a decent first step as a restore point creation, it does not fulfill the 3-2-1 backup strategy necessary to fully protect a production environment. This underscores the need for a robust backup solution through a partner like Veeam.
Conclusion
HPE is one of Veeam's oldest alliance partners with a rich set of co-innovation features together. This motivates us to support HPE's newly-released hypervisor solution, and we were happy to be among the first ISVs with lab access to the product. The HPE VM Essentials platform presents itself as a viable hypervisor alternative, boasting an intuitive interface that simplifies the provisioning of workloads and the execution of automated tasks. Although I have not spent an extensive amount of time in the environment, my initial impression of HPE VM Essentials is positive, with its user-friendly administration and promising expansion on its features. While further comparison with more mature hypervisors like VMware and Hyper-V is best left to subject matter experts, my experience suggests it is a competitive option for customers.
The functional test of Veeam's backup strategies within an HPE VM Essentials environment proved successful. While potential direct Veeam integration with HPE VM Essentials may be on the roadmap, users of HPE VM Essentials can effectively protect their workloads by utilizing Veeam Agents. This approach serves as a robust interim solution while waiting for potential direct integration, similar to those already established with Proxmox, VMware, and Hyper-V.
Stay tuned for developments as Veeam and HPE continue to collaborate, bringing co-innovative solutions to meet customers’ evolving virtualization and backup needs!
