Quest recommends users carefully read and understand the Rapid Recovery Installation and Upgrade Guide before installing or upgrading. See the section "Installing Rapid Recovery" for a step-by-step general installation approach. The approach includes requirements for a software license and for an account on the Rapid Recovery License Portal; adherence to the system requirements; installing a Core; creating a repository; and protecting machines with the Agent software or agentlessly. It also suggests use of the QorePortal.

All existing users should read the section "Upgrading to Rapid Recovery." This content describes upgrading factors, provides an overview of upgrading, and includes procedures upgrading Core, and upgrading Agent on Windows and Linux machines.

Additionally, Quest requires users to carefully review the release notes for each release, and the Rapid Recovery system requirements for that release, prior to upgrading. This process helps to identify and preclude potential issues. System requirements are found exclusively in the Rapid Recovery System Requirements Guide.

When planning an implementation of Rapid Recovery, for guidance with sizing your hardware, software, memory, storage, and network requirements, see Quest Knowledge Base article 185962, Sizing Rapid Recovery Deployments."

If upgrading from a currently supported major and minor version of Rapid Recovery Core (6.1x or 6.2x), then run the latest Core installer software on your Core server. If upgrading from a version of AppAssure or Rapid Recovery Core that is not currently supported, use a two-step upgrade process. First, upgrade using a supported Core installer such as 6.2.1; then run the latest Core installer software.

If using replication, always upgrade the target Core before the source Core.

To protect machines running supported operating systems with the latest Rapid Recovery Agent features, upgrade or install Rapid Recovery Agent on each.

Caution: Ensure that you check system requirements for compatibility before upgrading. For protected machines with operating systems that are no longer supported, you can continue to run older supported versions of Agent. In some cases, you can protect those machines agentlessly.

You can use the same installer executable program (standard, or web installer) to perform a clean installation or to upgrade an existing version of Rapid Recovery Core, Rapid Recovery Agent, or the Local Mount Utility. If upgrading from versions earlier than release 5.4.3, you must first upgrade to 5.4.3 and then run a more recent installer on the same machine. For more information, see the Rapid Recovery Installation and Upgrade Guide.

When upgrading a protected Linux machine from AppAssure Agent to Rapid Recovery Agent version 6.x, you must first uninstall AppAssure Agent. For more information and specific instructions, see the topic "Installing or upgrading Rapid Recovery Agent on a Linux machine" in the Rapid Recovery Installation and Upgrade Guide.

You can also use the Rapid Snap for Virtual feature to protect virtual machines on supported hypervisor platforms agentlessly. Important restrictions apply. For more information on benefits or restrictions for agentless protection, see the topic "Understanding Rapid Snap for Virtual" in the Rapid Recovery User Guide.

For information on downloading Rapid Recovery software, see Obtaining Rapid Recovery software.

License requirements

New Core users must purchase a long-term subscription or perpetual license to use Rapid Recovery.

Some Rapid Recovery Core users start with a trial license, which uses a temporary license key for the duration of the trial. After the trial period expires, you can continue to restore from existing backups, but cannot perform new backups or replication until you purchase a long-term subscription or perpetual license. You must then activate the license on the Rapid Recovery License Portal, download Rapid Recovery license files, and associate them with your Core.

For more information about licensing, see the following resources:

• For information about activating your new license and obtaining Rapid Recovery license files for your Core, see Product licensing in these release notes.
• For information about managing licenses from the Rapid Recovery Core, including uploading license files to associate them with the Core, see the topic "Managing Rapid Recovery licenses" in the Rapid Recovery Installation and Upgrade Guide.
• For information about managing license subscriptions and license groups on the license portal, see the latest edition of the Rapid Recovery License Portal User Guide.