Nutanix provides a number of options for you to backup your Nutanix Files data. Following modern data protection methodologies, Nutanix provides administrators and users quick restore access using a combination of some of the following methods:
Self Service Restore:
Administrators can enable SSR at any time for SMB or NFS shares. You can view and restore removed or overwritten files, which allows you to choose a share snapshot from the same file at different times during the file’s history. Administrators can configure a snapshot schedule at the file server level that applies to all shares in the file server.
Protection Domains and Consistency Groups:
Nutanix provides integrated, automated disaster recovery between Nutanix clusters. A Nutanix Files cluster can be protected with Prism and uses the same asynchronous replication with protection domains and consistency groups as any other Nutanix cluster. When you create a file server, Prism Automatically sets up a corresponding protection domain, which it annotates with Nutanix Files cluster name. Once you’ve protected Nutanix Files, all future operations on it update the corresponding consistency group in protection domain
Cluster Migration, Failure, and Restoration:
In the event of a Nutanix Files cluster failure, restore Files in a remote cluster by initiating the Activate workflow, which restores from the last good snapshot. If you’re moving your file services because you need to shut the cluster down, as with a planned outage, the Migrate workflow shuts down all the FSVMs and takes a final snapshot for replication. You run the Migrate workflow from the Nutanix cluster that owns the active protection domain. You initiate both the Activate and Migrate workflows from the Data Protection menu in Prism. After you run either the Activate or Migrate workflow, you also need to activate the file server instance, which you can do from the File Server menu in Prism
Nutanix cloning does not effect the original Files cluster, it offers improved support for a variety of use cases including but not limited to Backups at the primary and secondary sites, File server recovery from a specific point in time, file server clone for testing or development
Third party backup integration:
Traditional NAS backup approaches like Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) have core limitations. Problems like complexity, performance (including the need for periodic full backups), and scale led Nutanix to develop a more modern backup solution: a changed file tracking (CFT) API that third-party backup vendors use. This API speeds backup times because it does not perform a metadata scan across your file server, which could contain millions of files and directories. The API enables scale as backups can occur across multiple FSVMs in parallel. The API also reassures customers aren’t locked into any one solution as backups taken using the Nutanix Files API can be restored to other vendors.
HYCU Backup and Recovery is integrated with the Nutanix Files CFT API
Commvault version 11 service pack 15 is also integrated with the Nutanix Files CFT API as of the 3.5 release
For more detailed information on the Backup process and integration with third party vendors please refer to the following document:
https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/solutions/details?targetId=TN-2041-Nutanix-Files:top_backup_and_disaster_recovery.html