For many years I have been using Altaro VM Backup and it is now about time to write about it. This is one of the tools I rely on as part of my day-to-day operation, helping manage backup operations on this server.
Altaro VM Backup offers a single software to configure, manage and execute full virtual machine backups - it includes lots of features and I will list some of these here.
The main benefit here is the ability to create a backup strategy and stick to it - you will have lots of options to set, making sure your backups are reliable, fast and available for restore if you ever need it.
Altaro VM Backup is installed on your Hyper-V host - with an offsite backup server option is also available. Installation. I will look at the host installation only - which is basically a single Windows executable that will install a series of services and a Windows application to manage the platform.
Once installed you can start the Altaro VM Backup application and proceed with the configuration. Depending on your licensing model and infrastructure you can manage one or multiple hosts from a single UI - you will need to add Hosts to the configuration, including credentials.
Once you add a Host Altaro will find the VMs configured on that machine. You can then proceed with Backup locations - my backup strategy relies on speed and multiple location availability. I have some local storage with enough space for up to a week of daily backups. A second tier is an Offsite location - I am using an Azure Storage account - and this location is practically unlimited. Here I should note that offsite locations are Azure, Amazon S3 and Wasabi.
My first attempt of using an offsite backup with Wasabi. Although easier to configure I did not find the solution very reliable - mainly because every few backups Altaro would send a notification of a failed offsite copy operation. After a few searches, the error message seemed to be related to SSL certificates. I decided to spend a bit more time and configure my Azure Storage account for backup use. This should have been my first option - after moving to Azure I did not encounter any more errors and using an Australia West region made backups much faster.
I would like to see Backblaze added to this list but I have to admit Altaro VM Backup with Azure Storage is an exceptional experience.
Also part of your strategy should be Schedule and Retention. Altaro VM Backup allows me to easily create multiple schedules, weekly and monthly. You can also determine which of those will be followed by an offsite copy. In my case, the VMs are copied every day, one after the other with an immediate offsite copy.
Retention policies allow you to determine how long you will keep your copies. Your policy and VMs will determine how much local storage (and offsite storage) you will need. These retention policies are separate for local and offsite allowing you to strike a balance between a quick recovery and long term storage. There are two settings here that are important: your policy can be to retain a backup version for a specific amount of time and delete after a set number of days. Alternatively, you can add a GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) archiving policy, which can retain a weekly, monthly and yearly copy for a set time, regardless of the number of days in the original retention.
Altaro VM Backup offers a CDP (Continuous Data Protection) high-frequency backup, with backup operations running every five minutes - I did not get to test this as I don't think it would justify some of the resources needed.
Because I run a SQL-based database in one of the VMs, I have set the option for application-consistent backup. This means backups will communicate with services inside the virtual machines and make sure that those are in a consistent state before the operation starts.
Another setting that I take advantage off is the CBT (Changed Block Tracking), which takes advantage of the host VSS and tracks changes on VM storage. This makes backups operations much faster. T make backups faster I also use the Excluded Drive option. In my case I have VHDX files dedicated to the VMs pagefiles. By excluding those I make sure that in case of high pagefile utilisation these blocks aren't part of a backup. You just have to remember these will not be in the backup and in case of a restore the VM will create a pagefile on the default boot drive.
To help you manage space you have the option to Delete Backup Versions and remove old versions even if the Retention Policy has not kicked yet.
You have the option to turn encryption on for backups stored in offsite locations - which I recommend you do. In any case, you should make sure to store this encryption key safely as this will be required if restoring a backup from these locations.
You can obviously take a new backup at any time, which is useful immediately before planned work that carries any risk. You can select individual VMs and have the option to ship an offsite copy as well.
A good backup strategy requires that we are sure the backup works - mainly the restore option. Altaro VM Backup covers this in a number of ways. You can Test and Verify Backups which gives the option to check the local storage and one or multiple VMs to make sure these can be read. You can Schedule Test Drills which can either test and verify the backup files or perform a full test restore to make sure VMs can be attached to the hypervisor and booted. Either way, you know the files are consistent.
The restore options are plenty - and lucky I really never had to use any except for testing. You have options to restore a VM as a clone on the host hypervisor, restore a select VHDX file as well as browse backup files contents and restore select files from those.
You also have an option to boot directly from backup - this with two options: Verification Mode which will boot the VM from backup and allow you to connect to the VM to verify it works - with no changes being written back to the backup. Recovery Mode on the other hand allows you to boot the VM from the backup files, while a full restore is happening in the background. This second option is the one that gives you almost instant recovery in case of disaster.
While doing your backup, Altaro VM Backup will compress and deduplicate content and in my case, these operations result in 46% space-saving.
In addition to using a single UI to connect to multiple hosts, you also have the web-based option, available from the Altaro website. It allows practically all operations to be managed from a website, protected by an Altaro username and password, with the option to set 2FA. I say practically because a couple of operations - Sandbox Restore & Granular Restore - aren't available from the web. Other than this, the web access reduces the need to remote access your hosts from a console.
Licensing is pretty easy to understand, with four different editions with each being offered as a subscription or perpetual option. Each edition (Free, Standard, Unlimited and Unlimited Plus) have different feature tiers. For example, you will need an Unlimited Plus edition to be able to backup to Microsoft Azure Storage, while the Free edition covers backup schedule, live backups, compressions and restore clone, while retention manage is manual.
