Latest Nakivo Backup & Replication 8.5 provides a new feature called Replication from Backup that allows to reduce the snapshot overhead optimizing resources and time.
When backup and replication processes take place, both need to create a snapshot of the virtual machine to protect consuming production network and compute resources.
How Replication from Backup works
When the backup and replication jobs are executed on the same VM, the software creates two independent snapshots using compute resources, network bandwidth affecting the application performance.
During the configuration of the replication job, the Replication from Backup feature allows the administrators to limit the required snapshots to create using as source virtual machine the data stored in the repository. These data are then injected in the replica.
In large environments this solution saves time and resources limiting the load on the production network. Using the backup as source data for the replication, the production network is used during the backup process only.
Replication jobs can be configured to be executed on a specific schedule or triggered from backup automatically.
Configure a Replication from Backup job
In the Nakivo's dashboard, select Create > VMware vSphere replication job from main menu.
In the Source tab of the New Replication Job Wizard, select the Backup Repositories option from the View drop-down menu. This option allows you to pick a specific virtual machine directly from the backup repository.
From available repositories, select the virtual machine's backup to use as VM source for the replication then click Next.
Specify the Container, Datastore, Network and VM folder for the replica then click Next to continue.
Specify the desired Schedule for the replication then click Next.
Define the retention by entering the requested recovery points to keep and click Next.
Specify the Job name for the replica then click Finish.
Run the Replication job
From the dashboard, right click the just created Replication job and select Run Job option to execute the job immediately.
Select Run for all VMs then click Run.
The replication process takes place.
In the Replication from Backup configuration procedure, you can notice fields App-aware mode and Change tracking are not present. These parameters are not required to be set since the source VM comes from a backup, therefore in a "power off" state where data don't need to be processed for consistency.
Configuring the replication for the same virtual machine using the traditional replication method instead, these fields are present and need to be set in the configuration page to get a consistent replica and to reduce the data sent over the network.
Replication from Backup feature brings the advantage of offloading the production network reducing the time required to complete the replica since only the snapshot for the backup process is created.
Nakivo Backup & Replication 8.5 can be downloaded as 30-day trial for testing purposes.
