This is unreleased documentation for SUSE® Virtualization v1.9 (Dev).

Introduction to Backup and Restore

A robust backup and restore strategy is essential for protecting the workloads that run on SUSE® Virtualization. Because SUSE Virtualization manages virtual machines as native Kubernetes objects (through KubeVirt), a complete strategy must protect both the data stored in virtual machine volumes and the Kubernetes resources that define each virtual machine and its dependencies.

This section introduces backup and restore for SUSE Virtualization, defines the key terms, helps you set recovery objectives, and describes the available tools and how to integrate them.

What to protect

When you plan how to protect a virtual machine, consider the following components:

  • Virtual machine volumes: The root volume and any data volumes that hold the guest operating system and application data. These volumes may be provisioned by the built-in SUSE® Storage storage or by an external Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver.

  • Virtual machine definitions: The Kubernetes resources that describe the virtual machine, such as the VirtualMachine and VirtualMachineInstance objects, along with dependencies like persistent volume claims, secrets (for example, cloud-init configuration), and network attachment definitions.

  • Cluster configuration: The broader cluster state that is required to rebuild an environment during disaster recovery.

In this section

Backup Definitions

Defines the terms used throughout this section, including Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO), snapshots and backups, and crash- and application-consistent backups.

Backup Types

Explains full backups, incremental backups, and snapshots in depth, including the advantages, disadvantages, and typical uses of each.

RPO and RTO Recommendations

Recommends recovery objectives for critical systems (such as enterprise databases), standard systems, and archive data, with the justification for each value.

Backup Tools

Gives an overview of the supported tools — the built-in capabilities, Velero, Veeam Kasten, and CloudCasa — and their areas of application.

Integrating Velero, Integrating Veeam Kasten, Integrating CloudCasa

Provide configuration, automation, and recovery testing guidance for each tool.

Best Practices

Collects practices for reliable protection, including the 3-2-1 rule, consistency, and how often to test backups and validate recovery.

Getting started

If you are new to backup and restore on SUSE Virtualization, the simplest option is the built-in virtual machine backup, snapshot, and restore functionality, which requires no additional software and exports backups to an NFS or S3-compatible target. See Built-in Virtual Machine Backup, Snapshot & Restore.

Built-in backup support is currently limited to SUSE Storage volumes. To back up virtual machines that use volumes provisioned by an external CSI driver, use one of the Kubernetes-native tools described in Backup Tools.