ZStack Backup & Recovery - Easy, Reliable, Cost-effective

Efficient, Agentless Backup with Forever Incremental & CBT
Instant VM Recovery with Data Reduction & File-Level Restore
Scalable Protection with Cloud Archive & Offsite Backup Copy

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The Importance of ZStack Protection

ZStack Cloud combines compute, network, and storage into shared resource pools, including Local storage, Ceph, IP SAN/FC SAN, and NFS, all managed centrally. While this density defines an IaaS platform, it poses risks, as faults or outages can affect multiple workloads. Understanding these vulnerabilities is essential before exploring protection strategies.

Multi-tenant pooling widens the blast radius

Pooling compute, network, and storage across tenants on shared hosts means a single host or storage failure can jeopardize all workloads in that pool.

Snapshot trees protect against mistakes, not disasters

Snapshot chains are useful for configuration errors but offer no protection against storage pool failures or ransomware.

Mixed storage backends create uneven protection

A single cluster can combine Local storage, Ceph, shared block/LUN via IP SAN or FC SAN, and NFS mounts. A protection strategy focused on only one backend puts VMs on the others at risk, leading to inconsistent RPO and RTO.

Key Capabilities of Modern ZStack Protection

Host-level, agentless capture

Reading VM disk state at the hypervisor/host level rather than injecting an agent into every guest OS, so protection scales across a multi-tenant pool without per-VM software to license, patch or troubleshoot.

Incremental-forever change tracking

Capturing only the blocks that changed since the last run after an initial full capture, so backup windows stay short even as host and VM counts scale into the thousands.

Storage-backend-independent engine

One capture mechanism that works identically whether the volume sits on Local storage, Ceph, IP SAN/FC SAN LUNs or NFS - so RPO and RTO stay consistent across the whole cluster instead of varying by backend.

Immutable/air-gapped retention

Locking recovery points against modification or deletion for a defined retention window, isolating at least one copy from the production network to guarantee a clean, ransomware-resistant restore point.

Independent secondary repository

Writing backup data to storage that sits outside the primary storage pool and outside the management-node database, so a control-plane outage or primary storage-pool incident cannot also take out the recovery copy.

Recovery independent of the control plane

Granular file-level restore and near-instant VM boot-from-backup that don't require the source management node or storage pool to be healthy first - restoring service before root cause is even resolved.

How Vinchin Performs ZStack Protection

Efficient Backup & Data Reduction

Fast & Flexible Recovery

Flexible Backup Storage & Offsite Protection

Scalable Protection for Large Environments

Vinchin Backup & Recovery is designed to maximize backup efficiency while minimizing storage consumption.

Forever Incremental Backup

Forever Incremental Backup, powered by Vinchin SpeedKit, captures only changed data after the initial full backup, reducing backup windows and unnecessary data transfers.

Deduplication & Compression

Built-in Deduplication & Compression further reduce backup size by eliminating duplicate data blocks and compressing the remaining data.

BitDetector

BitDetector goes a step further by identifying and excluding non-essential data such as swap files, partition gaps, and unpartitioned space, ensuring that backup storage is used primarily for valuable data.

Instant VM Recovery

When downtime matters, recovery speed is critical. Instant VM Recovery can bring a protected VM and its key applications back online in as little as 15 seconds, helping organizations minimize service disruption after unexpected failures.

File-Level Recovery

For less severe incidents, File-Level Recovery allows administrators to restore individual files or folders directly to the production environment without recovering the entire VM. This makes it easier to handle accidental deletion, file corruption, or other partial failures quickly.

Flexible Backup Storage & Offsite Protection

Vinchin supports multiple backup destinations to help organizations build a more resilient data protection strategy.

Cloud Archive

With Cloud Archive, backups can be archived to popular public cloud storage platforms such as AWS S3, Microsoft Azure, and Wasabi, providing an additional storage tier away from the primary infrastructure.

Offsite Backup Copy

Offsite Backup Copy allows independent backup copies to be sent to remote backup storage, helping protect against site-level failures, cyberattacks, and natural disasters while supporting a stronger 3-2-1 backup strategy.

Scalable Protection for Large Environments

Backup Node Expansion

As virtualization environments grow, backup infrastructure needs to scale with them. Backup Node Expansion allows organizations to add additional backup nodes and distribute backup workloads across available computing resources. This architecture helps large environments with massive numbers of VMs process backup jobs more efficiently while avoiding excessive load on a single backup server.

Highlights of Vinchin Backup Solution for ZStack

Automatic VM Backup

Once-off/Flexibly scheduled VM backups after simple settings

Agentless Backup

Get VM Backup started easily without cumbersome agent installation

BitDetector

Save backup storage by in-depth data blocks extraction

CBT Alternative for ZStack

Make incremental backups faster with Vinchin SpeedKit

Instant VM Recovery

Shorter RTOs to 15 seconds via NFS Mounting

Unified Web Console

Streamline overall management of backup environment

Consolidate Your ZStack Cloud Infrastructure with Vinchin

ZStack Cloud 3.5
ZStack Cloud 3.7
ZStack Cloud 3.8
ZStack Cloud 3.9
ZStack Cloud 3.10

ZStack Cloud 4.0.1
ZStack Cloud 4.3.0
ZStack Cloud 4.3.28
ZStack Cloud 4.4.16
ZStack Cloud 4.5.1

ZStack Cloud 4.6.11
ZStack Cloud 4.7.11
ZStack Cloud 4.8.0
ZStack Cloud 5.X.X

Consolidate Your ZStack ZSphere Infrastructure with Vinchin

ZStack ZSphere 4.X.X

What You Get for ZStack with Vinchin

Recovery

points independent of the cluster

A copy of every protected VM that survives a primary storage-pool or management-node failure.

Consistent RPO/RTO

across storage backends

The same protection behavior whether a VM sits on Ceph, Local storage, a SAN LUN or NFS.

Minutes

not hours, to restore critical VMs

Instant Restore boots VMs directly from backup storage while the underlying issue is resolved.

Lower

storage overhead

Incremental-forever capture with deduplication and compression, rather than repeated full backups.

One console

for mixed virtualization estates

Manage ZStack backup alongside VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox and other supported platforms.

Migration

path off ZStack if you ever need one

Agentless bidirectional V2V migration keeps future platform changes an option, not a project.

Vinchin Wins Trust from Global Brands

The leading technological solutions provider of Mexico

Leon Advisors System Limited Company

Mexico / XenServer

"With Vinchin Backup & Recovery, we can easily backup our virtual infrastructure and quickly verify the data in a minute by its instant recovery feature. It's very good product, with best price and best support team. You don't need to worry if meeting any problem during your usage."

The Leading Bank of Haiti

Unibank S.A.

Haiti / VMware&XenServer

"Vinchin Backup & Recovery is the perfect choice when backing up a mixed virtual environment is needed. Its high performance eased our mind knowing our critical data is always safe under its reliable and efficient protection."

The second oldest university of Portugal

University of Evora

Portugal / oVirt

"We are using oVirt to support the project with computation resources for calculations for simulating proteins and SARS-CoV-2. With Vinchin Backup & Recovery, the security of our data is guaranteed. It's so helpful for us to work at the frontline of the fight against COVID-19."

Hear from Customers

ZStack Protection Resources & Insights

White Paper

Vinchin & ZStack: Integrated Backup and Disaster Recovery for ZStack Cloud/ZSphere

Webinar

Joint Launch of ZStack × Vinchin Cloud Data Protection Solution

WATCH NOW

Blog

How to Backup ZStack VM in Vinchin Backup & Recovery?

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Streamline ZStack backup and recovery while ensuring workload protection and service availability.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: Which ZStack storage backends does Vinchin work with?

A: Backup jobs work across the primary storage types ZStack supports in a cluster, including Local storage, Ceph, shared block storage over IP SAN/FC SAN, and NFS-mounted storage.

Q2: What ports need to be open between Vinchin and ZStack?

A: The Vinchin backup server needs access to the ZStack platform on ports 8080, 29203 and 29204. Without these open, you won't be able to add the platform or run backup jobs.

Q3: Do I need to install the plugin on every host, or just one?

A: Every host in the ZStack cluster needs the backup plugin installed and matched to that host's exact ZStack version. If the plugin is uninstalled from a host without reinstalling it, backup jobs for VMs on that host will fail.

Q4: Does Vinchin interfere with ZStack's own snapshot trees?

A: No. Vinchin's backup jobs operate independently of ZStack's native volume snapshot chains and snapshot trees - the two can coexist, though they serve different purposes: native snapshots for quick reverts, Vinchin backups for an independent recovery point.

Q5: What happens if I add new VMs to ZStack after the backup job is created?

A: With Auto-join backup enabled at the platform, cluster, host or folder level, newly added VMs are automatically included in existing backup jobs - no need to manually edit the job each time.

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