After a VM has been placed under agentless protection, you can support the Exchange or SQL application installed on that machine.
Before you begin, the following prerequisites must be in place.
- Protect the VM with the Rapid Recovery Core. The option to enable application support is not available during the protection process. The button to enable this capability is displayed on multiple pages in the UI after the SQL or Exchange machine is placed under protection. For more information, see Protecting vCenter/ESXi virtual machines using agentless protection or Protecting Hyper-V virtual machines using host-based protection.
- Enable remote WMI access. To allow WMI access, you must install and configure Windows Remote Management on the target virtual machine (VM). For more information, see the Microsoft knowledge base article at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384372(v=vs.85).aspx.
- Grant administrative rights remotely to local users. Configure LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy by running the following administrative command prompt:
winrm quickconfig
- Obtain WMI root namespace access authorization. For the Core to connect to applications without the Agent, the VM must allow incoming network traffic on TCP ports 135 and 445, and to dynamically assigned ports 1024 to 1034.
- Allow remote access to SQL Server and Exchange. This prerequisite varies depending on the application you want to support.
- SQL: Configure the Windows Firewall by opening ports 1433 and 1434.
- Exchange: Open the TCP and UDP 389 ports.
- Integrate the guest with the host. Integration is done by installing the optimization package specific to the hypervisor:
- For ESXi VMs, use VMware Tools, which are required for agentless ESXi VM protection.
- For Hyper-V, use the Integration Services bundle, which is preinstalled on most Windows Server operating systems.
Complete the following steps to enable application support for agentlessly protected VMs.
- From the Core Console, go to the Machines page.
- Complete one of the following actions:
- To enable application support for single VM, click the Actions menu for that VM, and then click Enable application support.
- To enable application support for multiple VMs simultaneously, select the VMs, click the Application Support drop-down, and then click Enable application support.
- In the Edit Application Support dialog, enter the credentials for the VM.
A green icon is displayed next to the name of the protected machine for which application support is enabled.
If you want to add application credentials, you can do so by clicking SQL or Exchange at the top of the Summary page for the specific machine.
If you are protecting a Microsoft Exchange Server in your Core, there are additional settings you can configure in the Rapid Recovery Core Console, and there are additional functions you can perform.
A single setting, Enable automatic mountability check, is available in the Core Console related to Exchange Server. If enabled, Exchange server mountability checks are conducted automatically. This setting is available when the status for the protected machine is green (active) or yellow (paused).
For more information, see About Exchange database mountability checks.
You can also perform a mountability check on demand, from the Recovery Points pane on a protected Exchange server machine. For more information, see Forcing a mountability check of an Exchange database.
Following are functions you can perform for an Exchange server protected by the Core.
- Specify Exchange server credentials. Rapid Recovery Core lets you set credentials so the Core can authenticate to the Exchange server to obtain information.
For more information about setting credentials for Exchange servers, see Setting credentials for an Exchange server machine.
- Truncate Exchange logs. When you force log truncation of Exchange server logs, this process identifies the available space and reclaims space on the protected Exchange server.
For more information about truncating Exchange server logs on demand, see Forcing log truncation for an Exchange machine. This process can also be performed as part of the nightly jobs.
- Force a mountability check of an Exchange database. This function checks that Exchange databases are mountable, to detect corruption and alert administrators so that all data on the Exchange server can be recovered successfully.
For more information about forcing a mountability check on demand, see Forcing a mountability check of an Exchange database.
You can also force a mountability check to occur automatically after each snapshot. For more information about mountability checks, see About Exchange database mountability checks.
- Force a checksum check of Exchange Server recovery points. This function checks the integrity of recovery points containing Exchange database files.
For more information about forcing a checksum check on demand, see Forcing a checksum check of Exchange database files.
You can truncate Exchange logs and force a checksum check as part of nightly jobs. For more information about the tasks you can schedule as nightly jobs, see Understanding nightly jobs. For information on configuring nightly jobs, see Configuring nightly jobs for the Core.
In order to set login credentials, an Exchange server must be present on a protected volume. If Rapid Recovery does not detect the presence of an Exchange server, the Set Credentials function does not appear in the Core Console.
Once you protect data on a Microsoft Exchange server, you can set login credentials in the Rapid Recovery Core Console.
Complete the steps in this procedure to set credentials for each Exchange Server.
- In the left navigation area of the Rapid Recovery Core Console, select the protected Exchange server machine for which you want to set credentials.
The Summary page appears for the protected Exchange server.
- On the Summary page, from the links at the top of the page, click the downward-facing arrow to the right of the Exchange menu, and then from the resulting drop-down menu, select Set Credentials.
The Edit Exchange Credentials dialog box for the protected Exchange server appears.
- In the Edit Exchange Credentials dialog box, enter your credentials as follows:
- In the User name text field, enter the user name for a user with permissions to the Exchange server; for example, Administrator (or, if the machine is in a domain, [domain name]\Administrator).
- In the Password text field, enter the password associated with user name you specified to connect to the Exchange server.
- Click OK to confirm the settings and close the dialog box.
In order to force log truncation, an Exchange database must be present on a protected volume. If Rapid Recovery does not detect the presence of a database, the log truncation check does not appear in the Core Console.
When you force log truncation for a protected Exchange Server, the size of the logs are reduced. Complete the steps in this procedure to force log truncation on demand.
- In the left navigation area of the Rapid Recovery Core Console, select the protected Exchange server for which you want to force log truncation
The Summary page for the protected machine appears.
- At the top of the page, click the Exchange drop-down menu and select Force Log Truncation.
- In the resulting dialog box, click to confirm that you want to force log truncation.
The dialog box closes. The system starts truncating the Exchange server logs. If Toast alerts are enabled for this type of event, you see a message that the log truncation process starts.