Integrating Citrix XenServer and HP Data Protector

Introduction
This white paper describes a script-based solution that, when used together with standard Data
Protector functionality, enables online and offline backup and restore of
Virtual Machines hosted
on a
Citrix XenServer. For the supported version of Citrix XenServer for your version of Data
Protector, refer to the
HP Data Protector A.06.1x Virtualization support matrix.
Integration concepts
Types of backup
Using this integration, you can perform both online and offline backups. In both cases, only full
backups of virtual machines are available.
Online backup
Online backups are performed without stopping the virtual machines concerned, using the
snapshot functionality available on the Citrix XenServer. By creating a snapshot of a virtual
machine, a copy of the whole virtual machine is created, using the capabilities of the underlying
storage repository, and is saved as a template virtual machine. You can subsequently use this
template to restore the disks of the original virtual machine, or to create new virtual machines as
exact copies of the original at the time of the snapshot.
•
online The user selects which virtual machines Data Protector should back up without
disturbing their power states.
• allOnline Data Protector backs up all virtual machines present in the XenServer without
disturbing their power states.
Note: The types of storage repositories for which online backup is supported depends on the
version of XenServer that you are using. See
Special considerations on page 14.
Online backup is available for Virtual Hard Disk (VHD), Netapp and EqualLogic storage
repositories.
Offline backup
Offline backups are performed after first shutting down the virtual machines concerned. The
complete virtual machine is then saved as an .xva file using the Citrix export functionality.
You
can subsequently
import this file into any XenServer to create a new machine equivalent to the
one exported.
•
offline The user selects which virtual machines should be suspended and backed up.
•
allOffline All the virtual machines present in the XenServer are sequentially suspended
and backed up.
Disaster recovery
For disaster recovery, you need a backup of the disks that a virtual machine uses plus the
metadata for the virtual machine. With this integration, this is only possible with offline backup.
Backup processes
Online backup
The process used by the integration script for an online backup is as follows:
1. Check that snapshot operation is allowed for all the disks of the virtual machine.
2. Create a snapshot of the virtual machine.
3. Export the snapshot to the temporary backup folder as an .xva file.
4. Delete the snapshot.
2