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vRanger 7.8.6 - Installation/Upgrade Guide

Introduction Before you install System requirements and compatibility Installing vRanger Upgrading vRanger

Single license limitation

vRanger is available in three versions: vRanger SE, vRanger Backup & Replication, and vReplicator. Outside of an extended trial period — for more information, see Extended trial licenses — only one version of vRanger can be licensed on a machine at any one time. For example, you cannot license vRanger SE and vReplicator on the same machine.

vRanger installation overview

A complete vRanger installation includes four components: the vRanger server, the vRanger database, the vRanger virtual appliances (VAs), and at least one repository. The following topics provide information on the options available for each component.

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Installing the vRanger server
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Installing the vRanger database
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Installing the vRanger virtual appliance (VA)
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Creating a vRanger repository
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Configuring vCenter permissions

Installing the vRanger server

vRanger can be installed either on a physical server or in a VM. As long as the vRanger machine meets the specifications detailed in System requirements and compatibility, application performance should be similar regardless of which option is chosen.

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Virtual machine (VM): When installing vRanger in a VM, you eliminate the need for dedicated hardware while maintaining high performance. Due to the lower cost and increased flexibility, this approach is recommended. For information on installing in a VM, see Installing vRanger in a virtual machine (VM).
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Physical machine: The primary benefit of installing vRanger on a physical server is that the resource consumption of backup activity is off-loaded from the virtual environment to the physical proxy. For more information on installing on a physical server, see Installing vRanger on a physical server.

Regardless of which approach you chose, vRanger can leverage the vRanger VAs to perform backup, restore, and replication tasks. This option provides greater scalability while distributing the resource consumption of data protection activities across multiple hosts. For more information, see Installing the vRanger virtual appliance (VA).

Available backup transports

vRanger supports multiple data transport options for backup and restore tasks. The vRanger backup and restore wizards automatically selects the best transport option available based on your configuration. The available transports are:

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VA-based HotAdd: Mounts the source VM’s disk to the vRanger VA deployed on the source host or cluster. This method allows vRanger to have direct access to the VM data through the VMware® I/O stack rather than the network.
This method is the preferred transport method, and is available regardless of where vRanger is installed. The vRanger VA must be deployed to the source host or cluster for this transport to be available.
 
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NOTE: If the host is not properly licensed, or the VA cannot access the storage for the source VM, HotAdd is not available. If a VA is configured and HotAdd is not available, a network backup is performed from the VA.
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Machine-based HotAdd: If vRanger is installed in a VM, this method mounts the source VM’s disk to the vRanger VM. This method allows vRanger to have direct access to the VM data through the VMware I/O stack rather than the network. With this method, the backup processing activity occurs on the vRanger server.
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VA-based LAN: Transfers the source VM’s data from the source disk to the vRanger VA over the network. With this method, the backup processing activity occurs on the vRanger VA.
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Machine-based LAN: If there is no vRanger VA deployed, vRanger transfers the source VM’s data from the source disk to the vRanger machine over the network. With this method, the backup processing activity occurs on the vRanger server.
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Machine-based SAN: If there is no VA configured, vRanger determines whether the vRanger server is configured for SAN backups. This method is a high performance configuration that requires vRanger to be connected to your fibre or iSCSI network. In addition, the VMFS volumes containing the VMs to be protected must also be properly zoned and mapped to the vRanger server.
 
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NOTE: For machine-based transports, the “machine” referenced is the vRanger machine — physical or virtual.

The transport method describes only how data is read from the source server, not how the data is sent to the repository.
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