vRanger 7.8 - Installation/Upgrade Guide

HotAdd

To perform backup/restore/replication tasks using HotAdd, vRanger must be installed on a VM. Also:

•	HotAdd only works on SCSI and SATA disks. IDE disks and vRDMs are not supported.

•	Datastores for the target VMs must be accessible to the vRanger VM.

•	vRanger can only perform operations on VMs within the same data center.

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HotAdd cannot be used if the VMFS block size of the datastore containing the VM folder for the target VM does not match the VMFS block size of the datastore containing the vRanger VM. For example, if you back up a virtual disk on a datastore with 1 MB blocks, the proxy must also be on a datastore with 1 MB blocks.

•	Backing up thick disk requires the maximum disk size to be available. When backing up a thick disk, the vRanger VM’s datastore must have at least as much space available as the maximum configured disk size for the VM to be backed up.

•	When using vRanger with machine based HotAdd to backup encrypted VMs, the vRanger VM must also be encrypted.

•	When using vRanger with VA-based HotAdd to backup and replicate encrypted VMs, the VA must also be encrypted.

File-level restore (FLR): Windows

To perform FLR from a Windows® VM, the VM must be a supported disk type. For more information, see Supported disk types.

FLR: Linux

Review the following information to understand the functions and limitations of the vRanger Linux® FLR feature.

•	Linux FLR requires the vRanger VA.

•	vRanger requires you to recover the Linux files to an intermediate Windows® machine. When you recover Linux files to a Windows machine, you lose the file permissions.

•	The source VM properties need to show the operating system (OS) type as Linux. If this feature is not configured properly, vRanger cannot identify the savepoint as a Linux VM.

•	For a list of supported file systems, see Supported disk types and file systems.

Configuration requirements

HotAdd disk requirements

When using the HotAdd transport, the following disk restrictions and requirements apply.

•	HotAdd only works on SCSI and SATA disks. IDE disks and vRDMs are not supported.

•

HotAdd cannot be used if the VMFS block size of the datastore containing the VM folder for the target VM does not match the VMFS block size of the datastore containing the vRanger VM. For example, if you back up a virtual disk on a datastore with 1 MB blocks, the proxy must also be on a datastore with 1 MB blocks.