Backup Support for Nutanix AOS 7

If you've been holding off on upgrading to AOS 7 due to backup vendor support, we've crossed that bridge! Let's take a quick look at the current landscape of AHV and AOS releases, and then do a quick rundown of the current support from a few major backup vendors to see how they are landing with the latest AOS releases.

Time to queue up some AOS 7 and AHV 10 upgrades!

Note: I will keep AOS release slightly 7.1 out of scope here as it's a target release for the Nutanix/Dell PowerFlex external storage support, but if it's supported by one of the vendors below, I'll call it out.

AOS and AHV Release Cycles

I've touched on this previously, but starting with the introduction of AOS 7.0 and Prism Central 2024.3, Nutanix is departing from the previous release cycles of LTS/STS/eSTS releases to a Unified Release Model across the following products:

• AOS, AHV
• Prism
• NCC, Foundation
• Flow Network Security (FNS) and Flow Virtual Networking (FVN)

Don't take my word for it, read up on it in this post.

So now that we have a standard release model, this will hopefully give Backup vendors faster time to market through a consolidated release cycle for AOS and AHV, rather than potentially having to support LTS/STS/eSTS releases.

This alignment ultimately accelerates backup vendor readiness, reduces support friction, and increases reliability for joint customers running data protection solutions on Nutanix. So a win/win/win all around - Nutanix, Backup Vendors AND customers!

Backup Vendor Support

So let's jump in and see where a few of the major vendors are at supporting AOS 7. While there are many backup vendors out there, here a few I'll highlight here:

• Cohesity
• Rubrik
• Veeam
• Commvault

Cohesity Support for AOS 7

Cohesity recently updated their Support Matrix for Nutanix AHV to include AOS 7, I'll say they snuck it on me as I've been waiting for this one to drop, but was expecting possibly having to wait for a 7.2.x release to get this support. But surprisingly, after qualification they have updated the matrix to provide support for AOS 7.0.1 not only on the current LTS release of 7.1.2, but back to 6.8.2, the previous LTS release. While the 7.2.x release is still under a controlled deployment strategy, it's good to see that AOS 7.0.1 as well as 7.1 are being supported, in a fairly short timeframe.

Rubrik Support for AOS 7

Rubrik CDM support for AOS 7.0.x was introduced in CDM version 9.1.3-p10 and above, while 6.10 support was released in 9.1.3-p6 and later.
The latest CDM release available today is 9.3.1, but unlike some of the other vendors in this post, doesn't indicate anything with AOS 7.1 support - yet...

Veeam Support for AOS 7

Veeam introduced support for AOS 7 in the Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV 7 release, which is compatible with Nutanix AOS versions 6.5.x – 7.1 and Prism Central version pc.2022.6 (or later). The previous release, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV 6 supported Nutanix AOS versions 6.5.x - 6.7.x, 6.10.x. The nuance with Veeam and AHV support is provided by an add on to the Backup and Replication (B&R) product, highlighted in the image below. So a customer that has B&R deployed, moving to Nutanix AHV they will deploy some additional plugins, as well as VMs within the AHV environment to support the protection of those workloads. Reference architecture for Veeam B&R with Nutanix AHV leveraging Prism Central is shown below.

Commvault Support for AOS 7

While I don't work much with Commvault, based on Commvault's AHV System Requirements, AOS 7.0 support was released with Commvault release 2023E (11.32). This release specifically calls out support for Nutanix AHV versions 4.6, 4.7, 5.0, 5.1.x.x, 5.5.x.x, 5.6.x, 5.8.x, 5.9.x, 5.10.x, 5.11, 5.15, 5.16, 5.17.x, 5.18.x, 5.20.x, 6.0, 6.5, 6.7, 6.8, 6.10, and 7.0.

The previous release of 2022E (11.28) only supported up to AOS 6.5, so this release didnt pick up the latest (and last) LTS release of 6.10.

Note: Interestingly enough, starting with release 11.36, the System Requirements also now shows support for AHV environments that utilize Dell PowerFlex as the backend storage solution, BUT does not indicate that AOS 7.1 is supported - which is the PowerFlex specific AOS release.

Wrap Up

I'm excited to see the Unified Release Model giving backup vendors and other solution providers greater ability to drive value quicker into the Nutanix platform, regardless whether that is on-premises or within the NC2 deployments (AWS, Azure and GCP). It's great to see many of the mainstream backup providers already supporting the AOS 7.x releases!

Have feedback or feel like I'm missing your favorite backup solution, reach out to me!