Administrator's Guide

6 Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2014
 Agents for VMware, formerly known as Agents for ESX(i), run as virtual appliances.
Agent for VMware performs backup and recovery of ESX(i) virtual machines without installing
agents into the guest systems.
The following components run in the management cluster:
 Management Server needs to be installed on a virtual machine running Windows.
The management server integrates with vCenter Server (the one that is allocated for the
resource group), deploys Agents for VMware, and manages backup and recovery.
The management server stores its configuration, logs and statistics in Microsoft SQL databases.
The databases can be attached to the SQL Server Express instance that is installed by default with
the management server, or to any other SQL Server instance accessible by the management
server.
 Agent for vCloud runs on a Linux virtual machine, which also serves as the web server. The agent
is delivered as an Open Virtualization Format (OVF) template.
Agent for vCloud provides a graphical user interface to the users. The agent queries vCloud
Director for the list of users who can log in to the service and the list of virtual machines. Based
on the users' choices, the agent instructs the management server when and how to back up the
selected virtual machines. The agent retrieves the protection statuses of virtual machines directly
from the management server database. The agent also generates reports about the backup
service usage.
Software that is necessary for using Acronis Backup Advanced for vCloud
vCloud users interact with Acronis Backup Advanced for vCloud by using a web browser. To log in to
the backup service, they use the same credentials as they use to log in to vCloud Director. The web
browser connects to the agent's web server and displays the information that the agent provides.
The amount of information depends on the user rights in vCloud Director.
Acronis Backup Management Console enables you to connect directly to the management server.
This connection is required to integrate the management server with vCenter Server and to deploy
Agents for VMware. Once these operations are completed, the console is not necessary for
functioning of Acronis Backup Advanced for vCloud. However, you may need it for deploying
additional agents, for troubleshooting, and for other administrative tasks. The console can be
installed along with the management server or on any other machine that has network access to the
management server.
Agent for vCloud obtains events from vCloud Director via the RabbitMQ Server AMQP broker. If you
do not have RabbitMQ Server, add it to your vCloud infrastructure.
Installation example
The following diagram illustrates a typical installation and interaction of the components. In our
example, we assume that vCloud Director uses Microsoft SQL databases. Therefore, we can place the
management server databases on the same virtual machine with vCloud Director databases.
However, the management server databases must run on a separate SQL Server instance.
Acronis Backup Management Console is installed on the same virtual machine with the management
server.