Supported virtualization platforms

The following table summarizes how various virtualization platforms are supported.

* In these editions, the HotAdd transport for virtual disks is supported on vSphere 5.0 and later. On version 4.1, backups may run slower.

** Backup at a hypervisor level is not supported for vSphere Hypervisor because this product restricts access to Remote Command Line Interface (RCLI) to read-only mode. The agent works during the vSphere Hypervisor evaluation period while no serial key is entered. Once you enter a serial key, the agent stops functioning.

Limitations

• Fault tolerant machines

  Agent for VMware backs up a fault tolerant machine only if fault tolerance was enabled in VMware vSphere 6.0 and later. If you upgraded from an earlier vSphere version, it is enough to disable and enable fault tolerance for each machine. If you are using an earlier vSphere version, install an agent in the guest operating system.

• Independent disks and RDM

  Agent for VMware does not 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 protection plan. If you want to back up these disks or data on these disks, install an agent in the guest operating system.

• Pass-through disks

  Agent for Hyper-V does not back up pass-through disks. During backup, the agent skips these disks and adds warnings to the log. You can avoid the warnings by excluding pass-through disks from the protection plan. If you want to back up these disks or data on these disks, install an agent in the guest operating system.

• Hyper-V guest clustering

  Agent for Hyper-V does not support backup of Hyper-V virtual machines that are nodes of a Windows Server Failover Cluster. A VSS snapshot at the host level can even temporarily disconnect the external quorum disk from the cluster. If you want to back up these machines, install agents in the guest operating systems.

• In-guest iSCSI connection

  Agent for VMware and Agent for Hyper-V do not back up LUN volumes connected by an iSCSI initiator that works within the guest operating system. Because the ESXi and Hyper-V hypervisors are not aware of such volumes, the volumes are not included in hypervisor-level snapshots and are omitted from a backup without a warning. If you want to back up these volumes or data on these volumes, install an agent in the guest operating system.

• Linux machines containing logical volumes (LVM)

  Agent for VMware and Agent for Hyper-V do not support the following operations for Linux machines with LVM:

  • P2V migration, V2P migration, and V2V migration from Virtuozzo. Use Agent for Linux to create the backup and bootable media to recover.
  • Running a virtual machine from a backup created by Agent for Linux.
• Encrypted virtual machines (introduced in VMware vSphere 6.5)
  • Encrypted virtual machines are backed up in an unencrypted state. If encryption is critical to you, enable encryption of backups when creating a protection plan.
  • Recovered virtual machines are always unencrypted. You can manually enable encryption after the recovery is complete.
  • If you back up encrypted virtual machines, we recommend that you also encrypt the virtual machine where Agent for VMware is running. Otherwise, operations with encrypted machines may be slower than expected. Apply the VM Encryption Policy to the agent's machine by using vSphere Web Client.
  • Encrypted virtual machines will be backed up via LAN, even if you configure the SAN transport mode for the agent. The agent will fall back on the NBD transport because VMware does not support SAN transport for backing up encrypted virtual disks.
• Secure Boot
  • VMware virtual machines: (introduced in VMware vSphere 6.5) Secure Boot is disabled after a virtual machine is recovered as a new virtual machine. You can manually enable this option after the recovery is complete. This limitation applies to MVware
  • Hyper-V virtual machines: For all GEN2 VMs, Secure Boot is disabled after the virtual machine is recovered to both new virtual machine or an existing virtual machine.
• ESXi configuration backup is not supported for VMware vSphere 6.7.