2017/06 Backupsoftware: Fungusware Xackup

[Tobias Unsleber1709153996]

I yesterday had again a look into to the software Xackup from fungusware.

 

I did so 2 years ago. Back then it was catastrophic. Nothing really worked.

Total Scrap.

 

My experience yesterday was better, but I still hit several bad bugs in the

software within the first minutes of using it. Software crashes. Wrong behaviour.

Not working Features(Migration from server 2 server).

 

It clearly got better, since I installed the software on my Windows 10 Box

and created a backup job and the backup and restore worked right at start

even with XenServer 7.1.

 

But I do not dare to trust this software to make backups for me on a 

scheduled basis. Definitely not worth 69-99 EUR per year so far. Maybe

it's better after two further years.

[Filip Fronczak]

I completely disagree with your opinion.

I started to use Fungusware Xackup in October 2015 and I bought the Elite version after a short test period.

Since then I have been using Xackup in production environments both as a backup solution as well as a great way to migrate servers between XenServer pools.

Of course I can see some bugs or annoyances - for example the speed/performance information is false and a bit useless.

Nevertheless I have never had any serious problems with Xackup and it has never failed me.

It just does what it says - backups and migrations. 

When it comes to XenServer backup Xackup is for me the best bang for the buck!

[Avi Bluestein]

I too must disagree.

We have been using it in production. Indeed it has some bugs with the presentation and misbehavior when trying to abort backups - for instance - but other than that it's great for our weekly backups and we also use it for migration where other tools fail badly !

[Alan Lantz]

I tried it a few years back and it seemed at the time to work and something workable for an SMB. But we needed something a little more

resilient so went with UniTrends. Yep, more costly, but you typically get what you pay for.

 

--Alan--

 

[Avi Bluestein]

Well we back up hundreds of VMs with it over a long cycle on weekends. Again - could be better - especially in terms of configuration of backups etc. (small window with a very annoying check box mechanism) but it's a good bang for the buck, very easy to use and generally works without any need for intervention or tinkering with it.

 

To scale, I'd add support for tags and other features such as more readable reports (the logs are not friendly, non searchable and the icons and graphics are a bit 'childish').

 

Generally, proper backup seems to be neglected in many virtualization platforms. Vendors are focused on features and backup is always the least 'cool' feature though perhaps the most important.

[Alan Lantz]

Impressive you are managing over 100 VM's with Xackup. Of course now that I'm tied in with 

UniTrends I don't really want to change, change is hard ! 

 

--Alan--

 

[Avi Bluestein]

Xackup doesn't really care about the number of VMs... eventually it's a list of VM to backup up one by one or concurrently (which I learned is a bit stressing for XS).

 It's the UI that's annoying I agree totally (especially choosing them from a list).

 

The job itself gets done (least issues when aborting - which is quite nasty as it tries to go over all jobs when you click abort and produces a lot of un-nice noise).

 

[Silvio Balduzzi1709153051]

In past, I have used Unitrends and Xen Orchestra, but Xackup now is my preferred software for XenServer Backups. Furthermore, the pricing is very low.

I have used Xackup for migrating XenServer resources from 2 different datacenters and for migrating VMs from different pools; In all cases the result was perfect.

 

Silvio

[Sam Morreel]

Agree with @Filip.Fronczak_008, @Avi Bluestein and @Avi Bluestein. My experience with Xackup has been nothing short of trouble free. We are currently managing about 65 VMs and haven't hit any scalability  issues as of yet.

 

Xackup came through for us during a serious pool upgrade event recently, and we were able to use the direct migration feature to transfer 31 PROD VMs to another pool in about 12 hours.

 

Sam

[Skip Moore]

QQ for the group, I've never used Xackup and i'm relatively new to XENServer as well, it looks like their forums aren't around anymore so I can't look there BUT..... I tried a migration from one host to another, over the weekend, as a test. The VM shows "Migrated" but I don't have the option to actually START the VM. Any Idea what I did wrong? 

[John Anderson1709153534]

Hi,

 

Just came across this thread from a while ago.

 

We'd encourage people to try to re-engage with Xackup. We've changed many ways the product functions based on great advice from @Avi Bluestein1709162073and many others. The unstable/unpredictable days of XenServer 7.5 are over, so, go on give us a try.

 

If there's one thing we stand for is improvement, if you have a genuine bug or issue or idea, let us know! That's why we're in this game.

 

Regards

Fungusware.