Team Leader - Nutanix Technology Champion - Nutanix NTC Storyteller

Julien DUMUR
Infrastructure in a Nutshell

Backup

HYCU Backup : the complete guide

Published: 4 April 2025
Written by Julien D.
1 Comment
Categories: AHV, Backup, HYCU, Nutanix

It’s finally complete! After about thirty hours spent installing, configuring, and testing a lab environment, and writing each article, my ultimate guide to backing up a Nutanix cluster using the HYCU backup solution is finally complete.

In total, this represents:

  • 4,500+ words
  • 100+ screenshots
  • 30+ hours of work

To make it easier to find all my current and upcoming guides, I’ve created a dedicated link in the menu.

This comprehensive guide includes:

Backing up your Nutanix cluster with HYCU – Overview

Backing up your Nutanix cluster with HYCU – Technical prerequisites

Backup your Nutanix cluster with HYCU – Deploy the HYCU controller

Backing up your Nutanix cluster with HYCU – Initialization and basic configuration

Backing up your Nutanix cluster with HYCU – Adding a Nutanix cluster

Backing up your Nutanix cluster with HYCU – Adding a backup target

Backup your Nutanix cluster with HYCU – Update the HYCU controller

Backing up your Nutanix cluster with HYCU – Creating backup jobs

Backing up your Nutanix cluster with HYCU – Virtual machine protection

Backing up your Nutanix cluster with HYCU – Data restoration

HYCU Backup : Upgrade Path

The guide will likely evolve if I find other interesting elements to share to expand on my experience.

Remember that the security of your data will depend on the time you spend configuring your backup policies in advance.

Feel free to share your questions or concerns, or ask other people who have already implemented HYCU Backup for their feedback.

Other guides are coming soon… Stay tuned!

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HYCU 4.9.0 : Add a Nutanix AHV cluster

Published: 10 July 2024
Written by Julien D.
No comments
Categories: Backup, HowTo, HowTo-HYCU, HYCU

After writing an update to the article on deploying the solution, here is the update on adding a source to your HYCU controller.

Prerequisites for adding a Nutanix AHV cluster

Among the first prerequisites, the Data Service IP must be configured on your Nutanix cluster:

To be able to add a Nutanix AHV cluster as a source on your HYCU controller, you will need an account capable of connecting to your cluster and to your Prism Central if you have one.

I recommend using a dedicated account and not using the admin account of your cluster whose password will change regularly.

Last point, obvious but always good to remember, the HYCU VM and your cluster / Prism Central must be able to communicate.

Once all the prerequisites have been met, you can proceed to adding the cluster to your controller.

Adding the Nutanix cluster to HYCU

On your HYCU interface, in the toothed wheel at the top right, click on source:

Add your Nutanix cluster (IP_ADDRESS:9440) with the service account that you have dedicated to HYCU then click on “Next”:

Repeat the operation if you have a Prism Central:

Your cluster is added to your controller:

You can find it in the “HYPERVISOR” tab of the “Sources” window:

And on the home page of your HYCU controller:

Your Nutanix cluster is ready to be backed up.

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HYCU : Add a Nutanix Cluster

Published: 5 February 2024
Written by Julien D.
No comments
Categories: AHV, Backup, HowTo, HowTo-AHV, HowTo-HYCU, HYCU, Nutanix

In my previous tutorial, I showed you how to deploy the HYCU solution on your Nutanix cluster. It is now time to add your cluster to the software administration interface so that you can backup it.

Nutanix: Create a dedicated user

It is strongly recommended to create a dedicated user on your Nutanix cluster to manage the backup part with HYCU. To do this, go to “Settings” > “Local Users Management” and click on “New User”:

Complete the form with “Cluster Admin” and “Backup” rights:

The rights must be configured with “Cluster Admin” and “Backup”. The “Backup” right alone will not allow the HYCU solution to function correctly. Save, we can now add the cluster to HYCU.

HYCU: Add a new source

To add a new source to HYCU, you must visit the toothed wheel at the top right of the interface, then click on “Source”:

In the window that appears, there are 4 tabs available:

  • Hypervisor: this is where we add the Nutanix or VMWare hypervisors which are to date the only compatible HYCU hypervisors
  • Cloud: to back up your Google Cloud or Azure environments
  • File Servers: intended for file servers including Nutanix Files, NetApp OnTap or Dell PowerScale
  • Physical Machines: to backup physical servers

The tab that interests us here is “Hypervisor”, click on “New” then fill in the different available fields:

Enter the URL of your cluster either in IP format as in my screenshot, or in HTTP format: https://ip-address:9440, as well as the login and password of the account previously created on your cluster.

Click “Next” to access the optional addition of Prism Central login information, fill out the form with Prism Central “admin” authentication information if desired, then click “Next”:

If you have correctly filled in the information from the previous forms, a validation message appears and you can save the configuration:

Your cluster is now added to your HYCU solution and you can start backing up your virtual machines:

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HYCU: Nutanix deployment

Published: 29 November 2023
Written by Julien D.
1 Comment
Categories: AHV, Backup, HowTo, HowTo-HYCU, HYCU, Nutanix

HYCU provides a free Community Edition version of its backup solution for owners of a Nutanix Community Edition installation. Here’s how to get it and deploy it on a cluster.

What is HYCU?

HYCU is a backup software for hyperconverged IT environments. The HYCU solution provides data protection for platforms such as Nutanix, Google Cloud Platform and VMware by supporting backup, recovery and

data management for these specific environments. HYCU offers a simplified approach to data backup and recovery compared to the competition.

Here are the main key features of HYCU:

Simplified backup and recovery: HYCU simplifies the data backup and restoration process by automating recurring tasks. This helps reduce administration by teams and speeds up recovery when needed.

Integration with specific environments: HYCU is designed to integrate seamlessly with platforms such as Nutanix, VMware and Google Cloud Platform, providing a solution optimized for these environments.

Backup policy management: Setting custom backup policies based on specific business needs, such as backup frequency, data retention, etc.

Application backup: HYCU now offers to backup your SaaS applications such as Office 365, Jira, Okta, and many others.

Resource optimization: HYCU has been designed and optimized to have a minimal impact on the overall performance of the environment.

Reporting and Monitoring: The tool offers reporting and monitoring tools to track backup status, policy compliance, and overall backup system health.

Disaster Recovery: HYCU provides options for rapid and reliable recovery with the ability to quickly restore data in the event of a disaster or major outage.

Now that the introductions are done, let’s get down to business!

Setup files download

We will start by retrieving the files necessary for deploying the HYCU solution directly from the publisher’s site.

To do this, go to: https://www.hycu.com/get/trial-start

Then select “Nutanix” in the Private Cloud & Data Center category:

You will then need to complete the following form:

Select Nutanix again from the list of available environments:

Then select the type of hypervisor installed on your cluster, in our case it is obviously the Nutanix AHV hypervisor:

PLEASE NOTE: I remind you that this tutorial shows how to deploy HYCU on a Nutanix Community Edition environment for homelab use. If you wish to put this solution into production, I invite you to contact a distributor of the solution in order to obtain a quote for a license adapted to your environment.

Finally click on “download .qcow2” to start downloading the image:

Now that the file is recovered, we can move on to the installation.

Prerequisites for deployment

Before deploying, we will ensure that our Nutanix cluster is ready to receive HYCU.

For sizing the virtual machine, you will need the following resources:

Given that we are in a lab context, the smallest sizing will be largely necessary. Make sure you have these resources available on your cluster before deploying.

A service account on the Nutanix cluster with “cluster admin” rights will also be required. On the Prism Element interface, in “Settings > Local User Management”, click New User:

Then complete the form before validating, remembering to check “Cluster Admin” in the “Roles” section:

Configuring the Data Services IP is also recommended. In “Settings > Cluster Details”, fill in the ISCSI Data Services IP field with a dedicated IP address (that is not yet assigned to other hardware):

You also need internet access and an available IP address for your HYCU virtual machine.

As for specific ports and other particularities, I will leave you the pleasure of going through the documentation: https://download.hycu.com/ec/v4.8.1/help/en/HYCU_UserGuide.pdf

Deploying the HYCU virtual machine

The deployment of HYCU is very simple and is divided into 4 steps:

To upload the image previously downloaded to your cluster, on Prism Element in “Settings > Image configuration”, click on “Upload Image”:

Remplissez le formulaire en veillant impérativement à nommer l’image créée comme le .qcow2 que vous téléchargez (dans le cas présent, il faut la nommer hycu-4.8.1-274) et cliquez sur Save :

You now have to wait while the image downloads. As soon as it is finished, in the “VM” menu, in the Table display, click on “Create VM”:

Complete the form fields as follows:

In the “Disks” section, click “Add new disk”, select “Clone from Image Service” and find the previously downloaded image:

Then add a second 32Gb disk:

Finally, in the “Network Adapters (NIC)” section click on Add New NIC and select a VLAN to which to connect the VM network card:

Now click on “Save”, the VM is now created, start it then open a console on it. On the first screen, select “HYCU Backup Controller”

On the following screen, fill in the requested information:

The software then applies the configuration provided and proceeds to finalize the installation of the VM. This may take a few minutes and the system will notify you once the installation is complete.

Then enter the IP address that you entered during configuration in your browser like this: https://ip-du-serveur:8443

Log in using admin/admin credentials to access the administration console.

Votre HYCU Backup Controller est désormais déployé. Nous verrons dans un prochain article comment réaliser les configurations de base (ajout du cluster, définition d’une destination, création d’une policies…).

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Backup : Setup a Wasabi’s Bucket on HYCU

Published: 25 November 2022
Written by Julien D.
No comments
Categories: Backup

HYCU is a global leader in multi-cloud backup as a service that aims to simplify data protection, storage and recovery for businesses.

Having a dedicated server under Nutanix Community Edition at home, I deployed a HYCU instance to perform backup tests.

I’ll show you how to add a Wasabi bucket on a HYCU instance to outsource backups. Wasabi is a low-cost, high-performance cloud-based S3-compatible enterprise storage object with no charges for data egress or API calls and no complex storage tiers.

Wasabi account creation

Wasabi is obviously a paid offer ($5.99 / To / month), but you have 30 days to test the service (without having to provide a means of payment).

To get started, you need to create an account with Wasabi: https://wasabi.com/sign-up/

Once the account is created, you have access to your Wasabi interface:

We can now move on to creating the bucket.

Wasabi bucket creation

To start creating the bucket, just click on “Create Bucket” on the home page of your space :

Then, enter the name you want to give to this bucket, select the region, note the DNS corresponding to the selected region and click on “CREATE BUCKET”:

The bucket now appears in the list of your buckets:

In order for HYCU to access this bucket, an access key must also be created.

Wasabi access key creation

To create the Wasabi access key, click on “Access Key” in the side menu :

Then on “CREATE NEW ACCESS KEY” at the top right :

Write down the access key and secret key somewhere because you won’t be able to view it afterwards:

The Wasabi part is over, let’s move on to HYCU.

Wasabi bucket setup on HYCU

On the admin interface of HYCU, in the left side menu, click on “Targets” and then “Add” on the top right.

Fill in the target name, enable compression and click “Next” :

Fill in the information requested, in particular the type, the target (which depends on the datacenter you chose when creating the bucket), the name you chose for your bucket and the access keys :

Click on “Save” once all the information has been filled in and if everything is good, your bucket is then added to the HYCU interface.

All you have to do is configure your policies to use this new bucket.

Creation of the HYCU policy

In the side menu, click on “Policies” then on “New” at the top right and fill in the configuration information you want to apply to this backup:

Validate then add VMs to this policy in order to protect them directly from the list of detected VMs:

Your virtual machines are now backed up to your S3 Wasabi compatible storage space.

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