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Rapid Recovery 6.6 - Installation and Upgrade Guide

Overview and System Requirements Installing Rapid Recovery Upgrading Rapid Recovery Managing Rapid Recovery licenses

Upgrading the Rapid Recovery Agent software

This topic addresses upgrading the Agent software that protects your machine in a Rapid Recovery Core. Be sure to read this section before you upgrade. If installing the Rapid Recovery Agent software for the first time, see the topic About installing the Rapid Recovery Agent software.

To take advantage of the latest features, Quest recommends that you upgrade the Rapid Recovery Agent software on machines that you want to protect with Agent-based protection. Generally, the same Agent installer executable program (standard, or web installer) can be used for a clean installation or to upgrade an existing version of Rapid Recovery Agent.

NOTE: There is one exception: if upgrading from a version of Agent prior to 6.2.0, please use the standard installer.

 

Caution: Before upgrading Agent, it is critical that you verify that the machine you want to protect is supported by the current version of Rapid Recovery Agent. See the topic "Rapid Recovery Agent software requirements" in the Rapid Recovery System Requirements Guide. If the operating system of the machine you want to protect is no longer supported, you may be able to run an earlier version of Rapid Recovery Agent on that machine and still protect it in the Core. However, if the version running on your protected machine is not supported by Quest, you may be asked to upgrade if you need assistance from Quest Data Protection Support. Logically, new features supported by Rapid Recovery Core may not be available on machines protected with an older version of Rapid Recovery Agent.

For information about getting the appropriate version of Rapid Recovery software, see Obtaining Rapid Recovery software. When the upgrade is complete, restart the machines as necessary, and then check the Core to verify that each upgraded machine is being protected.

Quest recommends installing or upgrading to the latest version of the Rapid Recovery Agent software on machines that you want to protect:

  • On every physical machine in your environment.
  • On every Hyper-V host or Oracle VM VirtualBox virtual machine you want to protect.
  • On every node in a Hyper-V cluster.

Optionally, you can protect VMware vCenter/ESXi virtual machines and Hyper-V virtual machines using our Rapid Snap for Virtual feature. This is also known as agentless protection. To protect VMs agentlessly, some additional requirements may apply (for example, installing VMware Tools or Hyper-V Integration Services, as appropriate). Application support for agentless protection of SQL Server and Exchange Server is included in Rapid Recovery as of release 6.2, but must be enabled explicitly. Naturally, when protecting machines agentlessly, you cannot take advantage of features unique to Rapid Recovery Agent. For a clear understanding of advantages of and limitations for agentless protection, see the topic “Understanding Rapid Snap for Virtual” in the Rapid Recovery User Guide.

If you opt not to use Rapid Snap for Virtual, then install or upgrade to the latest version of the Rapid Recovery Agent software on Hyper-V virtual machines, and on every VMware vCenter/ESXi virtual machine you want to protect with the Agent, instead of agentlessly.

Upgrading on a Windows machine

Following our support policy, Quest fully supports compatibility with the latest release of the prior major/minor version (6.4.0), and offers limited support for the latest maintenance release for the prior major/minor version (6.2.1).

You can upgrade supportedRapid Recovery Agent versions in place (without removing a prior version of Rapid Recovery Agent) for releases currently under full or limited support.

Practically speaking, while not currently supported, you can upgrade in place from AppAssure Agent release 5.4.3 or any version of Rapid Recovery Agent to Rapid Recovery Agent release 6.5.0.

When upgrading a version of AppAssure earlier than release 5.4.3, you must perform a two-step or three-step upgrade process, as described in the topic Upgrading AppAssure 5.x Core to Rapid Recovery Core. if you have the installers (which are no longer available from Quest), first update the machine to AppAssure release 5.4.3. Then run the Rapid Recovery release 6.x installer, as applicable. If you did not save installers, then uninstall the older version and then install the current version.

NOTE: Due to legal divestiture agreements between Dell and Quest, only rebranded versions of Rapid Recovery documentation and software (release 6.1.2 and later) can be downloaded from the technical documentation website and the Quest support website, respectively. If you have not retained the installer, Quest cannot provide it. In such cases, uninstall the earlier software version.

Caution: Before uninstalling AppAssure Agent, make sure the protected machine backs up to the Core. When you see the option to Uninstall the configuration settings and data, including all backup images and change logs, clear the option. You must retain settings and data. Then, perform a clean install of a supported Rapid Recovery version on the same machine.

Because there is more than one type of Windows machine, the steps for upgrading depend on the version of Windows installed. Upgrading a Windows machine includes the following options:

NOTE: When upgrading to Rapid Recovery Agent on Windows machines on which the software drivers have changed, you are prompted to restart your system. .

Upgrading Rapid Recovery Agent on a Linux machine

If upgrading from one release of Rapid Recovery Agent to another, please be aware of the following points:

  • You must remove the local software repository created by previous installations of the Rapid Recovery Agent software. Steps are included to help you determine if a local repository exists and to remove it.
  • A new local repository is created automatically when you install the repository package using the package manager to upgrade from a supported earlier release of Rapid Recovery Agent to the current release.
  • A single procedure addresses both installing the Rapid Recovery Agent software on any compatible distribution of Linux, and upgrading from one version of Rapid Recovery Agent to a later version. See the topic Installing or upgrading Rapid Recovery Agent on a Linux machine.

NOTE: As a best practice, to ensure that the proper Rapid Recovery kernel module version is used to protect your machine and continue taking incremental snapshots, the best practice is to restart the machine after completing your upgrade of the Rapid Recovery Agent software.

Upgrading AppAssure Agent to Rapid Recovery Agent on a Linux machine

When upgrading a Linux machine from AppAssure Agent to Rapid Recovery Agent, perform these basic steps:

  1. Optionally, back up the agent ID information associated with that protected machine.

    For more information, see Backing up and restoring the AppAssure Agent ID.

  2. Completely remove the AppAssure Agent software from the machine using the AppAssure install script.

    For more information, see Uninstalling the AppAssure Agent software from a Linux machine.

  3. Install Rapid Recovery Agent.

    For more information, see the procedure Installing or upgrading Rapid Recovery Agent on a Linux machine.

  4. Configure the Rapid Recovery Agent software on the upgraded machine.

    For more information, see Configuring the Rapid Recovery Agent on a Linux machine.

  5. Restore the agent ID.

    This process is also described in the topic Backing up and restoring the AppAssure Agent ID.

    NOTE: After updating Rapid Recovery Agent, the first snapshot will result in a base image, creating a new recovery point chain.

For new installations, or if the drivers have changed in the version of the Rapid Recovery Agent software to which you are upgrading, you are prompted to restart your system.

Upgrading Rapid Recovery Agent on a Linux machine

For steps to upgrade the Rapid Recovery Agent, see the procedure Installing or upgrading Rapid Recovery Agent on a Linux machine.

Managing Rapid Recovery licenses

This section contains information about managing licenses for your Rapid Recovery Cores, protected machines, hypervisors, and appliances.

This section includes the following topics:

Understanding Rapid Recovery licenses

There are three types of Rapid Recovery software licenses:

  • Trial, which stops taking snapshots after 14 days,
  • Subscription, which has an expiration date, and
  • Perpetual, which has no expiration.

Many Rapid Recovery users start with a trial license, which has limited capabilities. After 14 days, if the circumstance requires, a group administrator can extend the trial license by 28 days. Otherwise, you can purchase and register a subscription or perpetual license.

NOTE: For information about entering license key or file information (for example, to update or change a trial license to a valid long-term license), see Updating or changing a license.

Quest delivers Rapid Recovery licenses in a file. A license file contains a pool of licenses that you can distribute to the machines that you want to protect. This pool is reflected on the Rapid Recovery License Portal. For each license type previously listed, there are two types of license pools:

  • Enterprise. Each license in this pool can be applied to an installation of the Rapid Recovery Agent or one socket on a hypervisor host using agentless protection, regardless of space used.
  • Capacity. These licenses cover the data you protect, measured in terabytes (TBs), regardless of the number of Rapid Recovery Agents installed or sockets you have. If you exceed the amount of space allocated to the license you purchased, you must purchase another license.

Capacity licensing supports two models:

  • Front-end capacity licenses. Software installations use a front-end capacity license model, in which the capacity specified in the license limits the amount of data (in TB) from the volumes under protection. Front-end capacity is measured based on the amount of data on protected machines prior to compression and deduplication.
  • Back-end capacity licenses. DL series backup appliances use a back-end capacity license model, in which the capacity specified in the license limits the size of the repository (in TB) you can use on the appliance.

NOTE: DL series backup appliances were discontinued after release 6.2. If using a DL appliance, you can continue to run Rapid Recovery Core release 6.2 or earlier releases and be supported by defect fixes and security updates under your current support terms.

If you upgrade your DL series backup appliance to Rapid Recovery Core release 6.6 or later, you will lose some appliance-specific features. The Appliance tab does not appear in the standard Rapid Recovery Core Console, since it is not relevant to the software-only version of the Core. Similarly, the DL Appliance Configuration Wizard is replaced by the standard Rapid Recovery Core installer. Repositories are created and managed from the Repositories page, as described in the Repositories section of the Rapid Recovery User Guide. Finally, the Core does not support the Rapid Appliance Self Recovery feature. For more information on installing Rapid Recovery Core, see the Rapid Recovery Installation and Upgrade Guide. For help with upgrading your DL appliance to the software-only Rapid Recovery Core release 6.6, contact Quest Data Protection Support.

In release 6.6, a Core can use only one license pool type. For example, if your Core uses a capacity-based license pool, it cannot also use an enterprise license pool. The reverse is also true.

License pool types cannot be combined into a single license file. For example, you cannot include an enterprise license pool and a capacity license pool under the same perpetual license.

License files are text files that end with the .lic file extension. The following are examples of license files:

  • License files can appear as nine characters in length, consisting of three groups of numbers, each separated by a hyphen; for example, 123-456-789.lic.
  • Software-based licenses can appear in the format Software-<Group name>.lic, with the group named after the customer name or account; for example, Software-YourCompany.lic.
  • DL appliance licenses can appear in the format <Appliance Series>-<Group name>.lic, with the group named after customer name account; for example, DL4X00 Series-YourCompany.lic.

Rapid Recovery supports these license types in two modes: the standard phone-home mode, and non-phone home mode, which has several limitations. Subscription licenses run only in phone-home mode. Perpetual and trial licenses can use phone-home or non-phone home licenses. To see how this mode affects the use of personal data in Rapid Recovery, see the topic "Managing privacy." To see restrictions on non-phone home licenses, or information on obtaining a license using this mode, see "Obtaining and using non-phone-home licenses." These topics are in the Rapid Recovery User Guide.

Rapid Recovery lets you manage licenses or contact the license server directly from the Core Console by selecting [Settings] (Settings) from the icon bar and clicking Licensing.

 

The Licensing settings include the following information:

License Details:

  • [Change License]Change License. Lets you change an existing license associated with the Core by uploading a license file or entering a license key.
  • [Add]Add License. This option is available only for DL series backup appliances and lets you upload a license file or entering a license key.
  • [License Portal Group]License Portal Group. This option opens the license portal for group management.
  • License type. Types of licenses include Trial, Subscription, or Enterprise. For more information, see the topic "Understanding software license types" in the Rapid Recovery License Portal User Guide.
  • License status. Indicates the status of the license. An active status ensures snapshots can continue as scheduled. If the license is blocked, or expired, or if the Core has not been able to communicate with the Rapid Recovery License Portal past the grace period, snapshots are paused until the license status is corrected.
  • License key expires in.This option is available only when using a subscription license, and shows the duration of time before the subscription expires, in days.

License Constraints:

  • Maximum snapshots per day. Indicates the number of backups that are limited by the specific license.

License Pool:

  • Pool size. The license pool is the number of non-trial licenses available to allocate across groups and subgroups in the Rapid Recovery License Portal. The size of the pool determines how many licenses can be allocated. For more information, see the topic "Understanding license pools" in the Rapid Recovery License Portal User Guide.
  • Used by this Core. Indicates the number of machines from the license pool that are protected by this Core.
  • Total used in group. Indicates the total number of machines protected within the same license group as this Core.
  • Phone home disabled. If visible, this status indicates that the Core does not communicate with the Rapid Recovery License Portal or the QorePortal. Auto update is disabled, and no personal information is communicated between the Core and Quest Software Inc. or any other entity, in compliance with GDPR policies.

License Server. These settings apply to standard (phone home) licenses. These settings are not applicable for appliances and other non-phone-home licenses:

  • License server address. Displays an active URL for the license server associated with this Core.
  • Last response from the licensing server. Indicates whether the last attempted communication with the license server portal was successful.
  • Last contact with licensing server. Displays the date and time of the last successful contact with the licensing server.
  • Next attempt to contact the licensing server. Indicates the next scheduled date and time to attempt communication with the licensing server.
  • Contact Now. This button contacts the license server on demand. Use this option after making changes to your license configuration, to register changes immediately rather than waiting for the next scheduled attempt.

For more information on licenses, see theRapid Recovery License Portal User Guide.

For more information on updating or changing a license key or file, see Updating or changing a license.

Users of DL series backup appliances can also add licenses to the Core if necessary. For more information, see Adding a license.

For more information on contacting the license portal server, see Contacting the Rapid Recovery License Portal server.

You can also view licensing information for a single protected machine. For more information, see Viewing license information on a machine.

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