Step-by-Step Guide to Backup OpenStack Using Storware

OpenStack has moved from a niche choice to a mainstream destination for production workloads — especially as organizations diversify away from VMware following Broadcom’s licensing changes. As more critical workloads land on OpenStack, protecting them properly stops being optional.

This guide walks through backing up and recovering an OpenStack environment with Storware Backup and Recovery, step by step. It reflects the current release (7.5), and points to the technical documentation for version-specific details.

How Storware protects OpenStack

Before the steps, it helps to understand what’s happening under the hood, because it shapes how you configure things.

Storware is agentless. It talks directly to the native OpenStack APIs — Nova (compute/inventory), Cinder (block storage/volumes), Glance (images), and Neutron (networking) — rather than installing software inside every VM. Storware has supported OpenStack across all major distributions since 2019 and is Red Hat certified.

A few things worth knowing:

• It supports environments running KVM hypervisors with VMs on QCOW2 or RAW disks, including Ceph RBD volumes.
• Volume groups allow consistent backups of multi-disk VMs, so instances with several attached volumes are captured as a coherent whole.
• Backups can run incrementally to shrink backup windows and storage use.
• Backups can be sent to a wide range of destinations: local file systems, S3-compatible object storage (including immutable targets for ransomware resilience), tape, the Storware Cloud, and external providers.
• Licensing is universal — a single license covers OpenStack alongside every other supported platform, so there’s no per-hypervisor add-on to worry about.

The steps below use generic console navigation. Menu labels and exact paths can change between releases — always confirm against the current documentation at docs.storware.eu for your specific version.

Prerequisites

• An OpenStack environment set up and running (KVM-based).
• Storware Backup and Recovery installed and configured (version 7.5 recommended).
• A dedicated OpenStack service account with sufficient privileges, and — for Keystone v3 — the correct domain and project details.
• Network reachability from Storware to the OpenStack API endpoints and to the storage backend.
• A backup destination (backup storage) already configured in Storware.
• For Ceph RBD environments, the appropriate Cinder configuration in place (see the OpenStack/Ceph section in the documentation).

Step 1: Connect Storware to OpenStack

1. Log in to the Storware console. Open the console URL in a browser and sign in with administrative credentials.
2. Add the OpenStack environment. In the environments/infrastructure section, add a new environment and select OpenStack.
3. Enter the connection details. Provide the OpenStack API (Keystone) endpoint and the service-account credentials (username, password, project/tenant). If you use Keystone v3, specify the domain.
4. Test and save. Run the connection test to confirm Storware can reach the OpenStack APIs, then save.
5. Let inventory sync. Storware pulls in your instances and volumes. In large, multi-tenant clouds, 7.5’s faster and more granular inventory synchronization (with optional domain scanning and per-project updates) keeps this efficient.

Step 2: Define backup policies

1. Create a backup policy (SLA). In the policies/SLA section, create a policy that defines the schedule (for example, daily or weekly), the retention period, and the backup mode (full/incremental). For strong ransomware resilience, target an immutable backup destination.
2. Assign the policy to workloads. Select the OpenStack instances (or projects) you want to protect and assign the policy. Grouping by project or tag keeps large environments manageable.

Step 3: Perform the backup

1. Run an on-demand backup (optional). Policies run on schedule, but you can trigger a manual backup for any instance to validate the setup. In 7.5, multithreaded reads noticeably improve backup throughput for OpenStack workloads.
2. Monitor jobs. Track progress in the job monitoring view and confirm jobs complete successfully.

Step 4: Recover OpenStack instances

Storware gives you several recovery options — choose the one that fits the situation:

1. Identify the restore point. In the restore/backup view, select the OpenStack environment, the instance, and the backup point you need.
2. Choose the restore type.
   • Full instance restore — bring the whole VM back, either over the original or as a new instance.
   • Volume-level restore — recover specific Cinder volumes.
   • File-level restore — retrieve individual files without recovering the entire instance.
   • Restore to a different project or cloud — useful for testing, cloning, or migration.
3. Specify restore details. For a new instance, set the name, flavor, and network. Confirm the operation.
4. Monitor the restore job in the job view and verify the instance boots and behaves as expected.

Step 5: Verify and validate

• Check backups against the schedule regularly to confirm policies are running as intended.
• Run test restores — a backup you’ve never restored is a backup you don’t yet trust. Periodic test restores prove your restore points are usable and uncorrupted.
• Automate monitoring. Configure alerts and notifications for job status, and review logs and reports for anomalies.

Step 6: Maintenance and best practices

• Follow 3-2-1. Keep multiple copies across different media/locations, with at least one copy immutable or offline for ransomware protection.
• Keep software current. Run supported versions of both OpenStack and Storware (7.5 is a free upgrade for customers with an active support agreement) for compatibility and security.
• Plan and test disaster recovery. Document restore procedures and rehearse them — readiness is proven by drills, not intentions.
• Maintain audit trails. Retain backup and restore logs for compliance and reporting.

Bonus: using backups to migrate into OpenStack

Because Storware’s migration path reuses the same backup engine, the workflow above doubles as a migration tool. As of version 7.5, you can back up VMs from VMware vSphere, Citrix Hypervisor, or XCP-ng and cross-restore them directly into OpenStack — no separate migration appliance and no extra licensing. For teams executing a post-Broadcom move to OpenStack, that turns migration into the same controlled, well-understood operation as recovery.

Conclusion

Protecting OpenStack with Storware comes down to a repeatable loop: connect via the native APIs, define policy-driven backups, recover at the granularity you need, and validate with regular test restores. Do that on a current release, target immutable storage, and rehearse your DR — and your OpenStack environment stays protected as it takes on more of your production estate.

For version-specific steps and screenshots, always refer to the official documentation at docs.storware.eu.