Creating Plans to Protect Data › How to Create a Host-Based Virtual Machine Backup Plan › Review the Prerequisites and Considerations

Review the Prerequisites and Considerations

Verify if you have completed the following prerequisites:

• Log in to the Console.
• Prepare a host-based backup proxy server where you have installed Arcserve UDP Agent (Windows).
• To run functions such as Preflight Check, pre/post commands, or application log purge, update the virtual machine in the node list view of the Arcserve UDP Console with one of the following credentials for the guest virtual machine:
  • Built-in administrator user credentials.
  • Built-in domain administrator user credentials.
  • For other administrator credentials, disable the User Account Control (UAC) on the guest virtual machine.
• To be able to perform a database level restore (for Exchange and SQL Server) or granular level restore (Exchange) after a backup, the following prerequisites must be met:
  • The VM must support the application consistent backup. For more information on application consistent backup, see How to Create Application Consistent Snapshots for VMware or How to Create Application Consistent Snapshots for Hyper-V.
  • For VMware VM, the VMware Tools snapshot quiescing method must be used in the backup plan.
  • For Hyper-V VM, Arcserve UDP needs to automatically deploy an utility into the guest OS of VM to gather the application metadata during a backup. The guest OS of the VM needs to be accessed from either the backup proxy server or Hyper-V host using a network. At the same time, the VM node must be updated with proper administrative credentials in the node list view of Arcserve UDP Console. For some reasons, if the guest OS of the VM cannot be accessed from the backup proxy server and Hyper-V host both, follow these steps to manually install the utility in the guest OS of VM:
    1. Log in to the backup proxy server and navigate to the following folder:

       <Arcserve UDP installation path>\Engine\BIN (Example, C:\Program Files\Arcserve\Unified Data Protection\Engine\BIN)
       

    2. Locate the executable file VMICService_32.exe or VMICService_64.exe.
    3. Copy the executable file to any a folder inside the guest OS of the VM. (If it is a 32-bit OS, copy VMICService_32.exe, otherwise copy VMICService_64.exe).

       For example, you can create an ISO image by including this executable file and mount it to the DVD device of the VM.

    4. Log in to the guest OS of the VM and run VMICService_32.exe -install or VMICService_64.exe -install.
• Install the server component and create Data Stores if you want to store the backup data in the recovery point server.
• Review the prerequisites to back up an Oracle database.
• Review the Compatibility Matrix which provides the supported operating systems, databases, and browsers.

The following prerequisites are for hardware snapshots:

For Hyper-V

• Install a VSS hardware provider on the Hyper-V servers and to support the transportable snapshot install the VSS hardware provider on the backup proxy server. A typical configuration of a VSS hardware provider include:
  • Specifying a server that controls the LUN
  • Specifying the disk array credentials to access the disk array

  For more information on configuring the VSS hardware provider, contact your hardware provider vendor.

• The Hyper-V server and the proxy server must have a similar operating system version.
• If Hyper-V server belong to a cluster, the proxy server should not be part of the Hyper-V cluster.

For VMware

• Arcserve UDP supports NetApp iSCSI and NetApp NFS LUNs.
• To create a hardware snapshot for VMware, add the storage array to the Console. For more information on adding a storage array, see Add a Storage Array.
• To use the hardware snapshot, Flexclone license is mandatory for Netapp storage arrays running with data ONTAP operating in 7-Mode and Cluster mode.

Consider the following points before you back up the VM:

• How a volume defragmentation can affect continued backups

  The volume defragmentation by Windows native tool affects the size of the block-level backups because Arcserve UDP continues to incrementally back up all changed blocks. It means that blocks that shifted during the defragmentation are included in the backup, even if no data has changed in the files. As a result, the backup size increases. This is an expected behavior.