[ovirt-users] Backup solution using the API

[Itamar Heim]

On 12/10/2014 01:06 PM, Blaster wrote:
> On 11/27/2014 9:12 AM, Keppler, Thomas (PEBA) wrote:
>>
>> Now, before I go into any more hassle, has somebody else of you done a
>> live-backup solution for oVirt? Are there any recommendations? Thanks
>> for any help provided!
>>
>
> I've been looking for a similar scheme for the last year.  It was not
> (really) possible in the past as there wasn't any way to destroy a
> snapshot w/o shutting down the VM.   Is this still the case, or are snap
> shots fully implemented now?
>
> Basically, I'd like to:
> Tell VM to flush it's buffers
> suspend VM
> take snap shot of boot virtual disk
> resume VM
> backup the virtual boot disk from the Hypervisor using standard commands
> (tar, cp, whatever)
> destroy the snapshot
>
> This would at least give some BMR capabilities of your VMs.
>
> Ideally, I'd also like to be able to create a snapshot from within the
> VM, do a yum update, see if I like it or not, if I do, then destroy the
> snap shot.  If I don't, I want to promote the snapshot and boot from
> that, then destroy the "original".
> (Yes, I know, BTRFS is supposed to be the solution to this with in the
> VM at some point, isn't it?)
>
> I have looked at the oVirt backup API wiki, but the code examples look
> more like pseudo code than real world examples.
>

that's "live merge". its in 3.5, but pending rhel/centos 7.1 (and 
accompanying 3.5.z patches around for bugs found during testing with 
that upcoming release)