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Create a VM Protection Policy

June 3, 2019
Contributed by:  C

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 6.2.0 and higher. The VM snapshot functionality and functionalities that depend on VM snapshot (other than VMPR) remain unaffected.

Use the New VM Protection Policy wizard to create a VM Protection policy that identifies the VMs in the pool that you want to snapshot, the type of snapshot to be created (disk-only or disk and memory), and the snapshot and archive schedules. You can also configure email notification for snapshot and archive event alerts in the wizard.

To open the New VM Protection Policy wizard: on the Pool menu, click VM Protection Policies to open the VM Protection Policies dialog box, and then click New to start the wizard.

Selecting the VMs to protect

All the VMs in the pool are listed on this page of the wizard. If a VM is already included in a VM Protection policy, the name of the policy is shown. A VM can be assigned to only one policy at a time, so if you assign it to the new policy, it will be removed from its current policy (you will be asked to confirm this).

Selecting snapshot type

Scheduled VM snapshots can be either disk-only snapshots or disk and memory snapshots.

  • Disk-only snapshots store the VM’s disks (storage) and metadata. They are crash-consistent and can be performed on all VM types, including Linux VMs.
  • Disk and memory snapshots save the VM’s disks (storage), metadata, and its current memory state (RAM). Note that this type of snapshot can be very large.

Setting the snapshot schedule and retention period

Snapshot schedule options:

  • Hourly snapshots A snapshot of the specified VM or VMs will be taken each hour at the specified time.
  • Daily snapshots A snapshot of the specified VM or VMs will be taken each day at the specified time.
  • Weekly snapshots A snapshot of the specified VM or VMs will be taken at the specified time on the specified days of the week. You can select one or more days.

Snapshot retention policy

Under Number of snapshots to keep , specify how many scheduled snapshots you want to retain. When the number of scheduled snapshots taken exceeds this value, the oldest one will be deleted automatically.

Note: The upper limit for the Maximum number of scheduled snapshots is 10.

Setting an archive schedule

Scheduled snapshots can be automatically archived to a remote CIFS or NFS share, if required. You can define a daily or weekly archive schedule that is independent of the snapshot schedule, or simply have every scheduled snapshot archived as soon as it is taken (the Archive after every scheduled snapshot option). You cannot define an archive schedule that is more frequent than the snapshot schedule.

Archive naming conventions

The archive folder name combines the VM name and the first 16 characters of the VM UUID. For example:

VM Name VM UUID Archive folder name
Win7_Test_1 cb53200c-bbd8-4c12-a076-e2eb29b38f06 Win7_Test_1-cb53200c-bbd8-4c

Archived scheduled snapshots placed in the archive folder are named YYYYMMDD-HHMM.xva. For example:

20100624-1830.xva
20100624-1836.xva
20100625-0031.xva

Configuring email alerts

Email notifications can be sent when system alerts are generated for any scheduled snapshot or archive operations. By default, VMPR event email notification is turned off.

Create a VM Protection Policy

June 3, 2019
Contributed by:  C

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