Protecting Hyper-V Guests using Agentless Protection with Rapid Recovery (4039757)

Protecting Hyper-V Guests using Agentless Protection with Rapid Recovery

To protect a Hyper-V server agentlessly, you do not need to install the Rapid Recovery Agent on any VMs. You only need install it on the host machine or cluster node. The Agent protects the virtual hard disk on the host and converts any changes on the hard disk files to a volume image or disk image, depending on the file system.

NOTE: The Hyper-V agentless feature is compatible only with Windows Server 2012 R2 and later.

NOTE: Rapid Recovery supports the VHDx disk file format. It does not support the VHD format.

When a host or node is running, Rapid Recovery creates an application-consistent backup. If the host is not running, no backup can be created.  If one of the nodes is not running, then Rapid Recovery can continue taking snapshots of the VMs on the cluster.

NOTE:  For an application-consistent snapshot, you must have the SCSI Controller installed on each VM.  Without this controller, the result is always a crash-consistent snapshot.

Agentless Hyper-V protection has many of the same capabilities as traditional protection where the Agent is installed on every VM, including:

• Archiving
• Recovery point integrity checks
• Mounting recovery points
• Auto discovery of new VMs (unique to agentless protection)
• Replication
• Restoring VMs
• Restoring CSVs
• Restoring on CIFS using VHDX format
• Restoring files in a guest VHDX format
• Rollup
• Virtual export to Hyper-V VMs and other hypervisors, including ESXi, VMware Workstation, and VirtualBox

However, there are limitations to consider when choosing agentless Hyper-V protection.  Capabilities that are not performed include:

• Exchange mount integrity check
• SQL attachability check
• Live Recovery
• Restoring VMs on CIFS using VHD format
• Restoring files in a guest VHD format

NOTE: For best performance, it is recommended that the maximum concurrent transfers for the Hyper-V host or node be set to 1, which is the default setting.

NOTE: Agentless protection of Hyper-V VMs may fail if the Rapid Recovery Core is installed on the same Hyper-V host. Please make sure that Core machine is either VM itself, or a separate physical server.

For more information on this topic, please see:

• Rapid Recovery Basic Administration Course - Web Based Training (WBT)
• Rapid Recovery Administration: Module 4 – Agent Installation and Machine Protection

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Use these steps to protect one or more machines on a Hyper-V virtual host using agentless protection:

CAUTION: If you use agentless protection, it is recommended that you limit protection to no more than 200 VMs at once. For example, do not select more than 200 VMs when using the Protect Multiple Machines Wizard. Protecting more than 200 VMs results in slow performance. There is no limit to how many VMs a Core can agentlessly protect over time. For example, you could protect 200 VMs today and another 200 VMs tomorrow.

1. On the Rapid Recovery Core Console, click the Protect drop-down menu, and then click Protect Multiple Machines. The Protect Multiple Machines Wizard opens.
2. On the Welcome page, select one of the following options:
   • Typical 
   • Advanced (show optional steps)
3. Click Next
4. On the Connection page of the wizard, from the Source drop-down list, select one of the following options:
   • Hyper-V Cluster
   • Hyper-V Server
5. Enter the host information and logon credentials as described in the wizard.
6. Click Next.
7. On the Machines page, select the VMs that you want to protect.
8. Optionally, if you want to automatically protect new VMs when they are added to the host, select Auto protect new virtual machines.
9. Click Next.
10. On the Protection page, select Default or Custom. 
11. At the completion of the wizard, the Hyper-V Agentless machines will appear under the Hyper-V Server.