About VM Protection and Recovery

Important: VMPR and its functionality has been removed from XenServer version 6.2.0 and higher. Applications, code, or usage that depend on VMPR will not function in XenServer version 6.2.0 and higher. The VM snapshot functionality and functionalities that depend on VM snapshot (other than VMPR) remain unaffected.

The VM Protection and Recovery (VMPR) feature provides a simple backup and restore utility for your critical service VMs. Regular scheduled snapshots are taken automatically and can be used to restore individual VMs.

VMPR works by having pool-wide VM protection policies that define snapshot schedules for selected VMs in the pool. When a policy is enabled, snapshots are taken of the specified VMs at the scheduled time each hour, day or week. If configured, these snapshots can also be archived automatically to a remote CIFS or NFS share, providing an additional level of security.

Several VMPR policies may be enabled in a pool, covering different VMs and with different schedules. A VM can be assigned to only one policy at a time.

XenCenter provides a range of tools to help you use the VMPR feature:

• To define VMPR policies, use the New VM Protection Policy wizard.
• To enable, disable, edit and delete VMPR policies for a pool, you use the VM Protection Policies dialog box.
• To edit a policy, open its Properties dialog box from the VM Protection Policies dialog box.
• To recover a VM from a scheduled snapshot, you simply select the snapshot on the Snapshots tab and revert the VM to it.
• To recover a VM from an archived scheduled snapshot, you import the snapshot, creating a new custom VM template, and then create a new VM from the template.