Backing Up Virtual Machines
Table Of Contents
- 1 About this document
- 2 Supported virtualization platforms
- 3 Backup at a hypervisor level
- 3.1 Features and capabilities
- 3.2 Limitations
- 3.3 What does a virtual machine backup store?
- 3.4 Working in VMware vSphere
- 3.4.1 Getting started with Agent for VMware
- 3.4.2 Installation of Agent for VMware
- 3.4.3 Operations with agents
- 3.4.4 Flexible configuration of the agents
- 3.4.5 Using a locally attached storage
- 3.4.6 Configuring ESX(i)-related options
- 3.4.7 Support for VM migration
- 3.4.8 Support for datastore clusters and Storage DRS
- 3.4.9 Backing up fault tolerant machines
- 3.4.10 Backing up independent disks and RDMs
- 3.4.11 Backing up virtual machine templates
- 3.4.12 Privileges for VM backup and recovery
- 3.5 Working in Microsoft Hyper-V
- 3.6 Backing up Linux logical volumes and MD devices
- 3.7 File-level recovery
- 3.8 Virtual machines on a management server
- 3.9 VM-specific backup and recovery options
- 3.10 Limitations for backup and recovery options
- 4 Backup from inside a guest OS
- 4.1 Working with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization
- 4.1.1 Overview of the RHEV platform
- 4.1.2 How Acronis Backup works with RHEV
- 4.1.3 Backup and recovery of RHEV virtual machines
- 4.1.4 Migrating a physical machine to a virtual machine
- 4.1 Working with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization
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3 Backup at a hypervisor level
Backup at a hypervisor level (also known as agent-less backup) means the ability to back up and
recover virtual machines without installing agents into the guest systems. This functionality becomes
available by using Acronis Backup Agent for VMware or Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V.
Agent for VMware can be imported or deployed to a VMware ESX(i) host as a virtual appliance.
Agent for VMware requires either of the following licenses to work:
Acronis Backup Advanced for VMware
Acronis Backup Advanced Universal License
Agent for Hyper-V needs to be installed directly on a Hyper-V host.
Agent for Hyper-V requires either of the following licenses to work:
Acronis Backup Advanced for Hyper-V
Acronis Backup Advanced Universal License
3.1 Features and capabilities
Backup at a hypervisor level includes the following main features and capabilities.
Disk-level backup
Backup of entire machines or individual disks or volumes.
During backup, a virtual machine can be running, stopped, suspended, or switching between the
three states.
Disk-level recovery
Recovery of entire machines, individual disks or volumes to a new or existing virtual machine.
A virtual machine has to be stopped during the recovery to this machine. By default, the software
stops the machine automatically.
File-level recovery (p. 30)
Recovery of individual files and folders to a network share, FTP or SFTP server.
Cluster support
Backup and recovery of clustered virtual machines.
Support for VMware vMotion (p. 19)/Microsoft Migration
A backup plan is executed no matter which host the machine is running on.
Simultaneous backups of virtual machines (p. 32)
An agent can simultaneously back up as many as 10 virtual machines. The exact number is
defined by the user.
Incremental conversion to a virtual machine
An agent can convert a disk-level backup to a virtual machine of the corresponding type: VMware
ESX(i) or Microsoft Hyper-V. Conversion of an incremental backup updates the machine instead
of creating it from scratch.
Flexible configuration of the agents (p. 14)
Applies to VMware vSphere only