Overview

During hypervisor-based snapshot processing, changes to virtual disks are redirected to delta files until the backup operation completes. In environments with high I/O activity, these delta files can grow rapidly and increase storage consumption. After the backup completes, the snapshot commit process merges these changes back into the base virtual disks, which can introduce additional I/O activity and temporarily affect workload performance.

The plugin enables Veeam Backup and Replication to use storage-based snapshots that are created directly on the IBM Storage Virtualize system. By offloading snapshot operations from the hypervisor to the storage layer, the plugin reduces reliance on delta files and minimizes snapshot commit overhead.

This approach improves backup efficiency by reducing the impact on production workloads, optimizing storage utilization, and shortening backup and recovery operations. It also enables scalable and consistent data protection by leveraging the advanced snapshot capabilities of IBM Storage Virtualize systems.

The following diagram illustrates how storage snapshots are used to create backups of virtual machines.

In system scope, where volumes are not associated with a partition, vector snapshots are supported. This capability enables snapshot creation at the individual volume level.

In partition scope, snapshots are created at the volume group level rather than at the individual volume level because vector snapshots are not available.

The following diagram illustrates the topology configuration for a highly available storage partition in an IBM Storage FlashSystem environment integrated with Veeam Backup and Replication.

For more information about use of storage snapshot capabilities, see Storage System Snapshot Integration - User Guide.