Backing Up Virtual Machines

Table Of Contents

 Datastore clusters with disabled Storage DRS are not shown. Instead, their individual datastores

are shown in the form DatastoreClusterName/DatastoreName.

3.4.9 Backing up fault tolerant machines

Agent for VMware does not back up virtual machines with the VMware Fault Tolerance feature

enabled, and you cannot select them for backup under Virtual machines. If you include a group

containing a fault tolerant machine in a backup plan, this machine will be automatically excluded.

To back up a fault tolerant virtual machine, do one of the following:

 Turn off VMware Fault Tolerance, then turn it on after performing the backup.

Note that you should "turn off" rather than "disable" it. You can turn Fault Tolerance off and on

when required using vSphere scripts. Normally this works, but unnecessary actions (such as

removing or creating the secondary virtual machine) take time and resources. Also, the machine

reliability is reduced during the backup.

 Install Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux in the guest operating system.

An Acronis Backup Advanced license (p. 7) assigned to the host enables you to install agents in an

unlimited number of guest systems.

For more information about how to install the agent, see the installation documentation.

After you install the agent and add the machine to the management server, the machine appears

under Machines with agents in the All machines with agents group. When creating a backup

plan, select the machine here rather than under Virtual machines. Or, you can connect the

console to the machine directly as to a physical machine.

3.4.10 Backing up independent disks and RDMs

Agent for VMware cannot back up Raw Device Mapping (RDM) disks in physical compatibility mode

or independent disks. The agent skips these disks and adds warnings to the log. You can avoid the

warnings by excluding independent disks and RDMs in physical compatibility mode from the backup

plan.

If you want to back up these disks, install Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux in the guest

operating system.

An Acronis Backup Advanced license (p. 7) assigned to the host enables you to install agents in an

unlimited number of guest systems.

For more information about how to install the agent, see the installation documentation.

After you install the agent and add the machine to the management server, the machine appears

under Machines with agents in the All machines with agents group. When creating a backup plan,

select the machine here rather than under Virtual machines. Or, you can connect the console to the

machine directly as to a physical machine.

You might want to use a different backup strategy for independent disks or RDMs in physical

compatibility mode. For example, if these disks contain frequently changing databases, you can back

them up more often than the operating system, or use different settings for them. In this case, create

a separate backup plan for these disks.