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Prerequisites for Hyper-V virtual machines
Updated over 7 months ago

This topic lists the prerequisites that you must read before configuring your Hyper-V hosts for backup.

Prerequisites

Before setting up Druva to back up your Hyper-V hosts, review the following requirements to prepare the host for backup:

  • Ensure that you log in as an administrator to the Hyper-V host that you want to back up.

  • Enterprise Workloads agent interacts with Volume Shadow Copy Service to back up your data. To ensure successful backups, make sure that the Volume Shadow Copy Service is running.

  • Note that virtual machine backups with Volume Shadow Copy Service is not applicable on Azure hosts with the Azure Stack HCI v21H2 operating system. For more information, see System Requirements for Hyper-V.

  • For Druva to use the Resilient Change Tracking (RCT) feature:

    • The agent version must be 4.7.5 or later, and

    • The agent must be installed on a Windows Server 2016 or later with virtual machine configuration version 6.2 or later. If the virtual machine is hosted on a Hyper-V cluster, then the virtual machine cluster functional level must be level 9 or higher.

  • Druva recommends that you use Microsoftโ€™s native VSS provider. If you are using a third-party VSS provider, you must configure Enterprise Workloads agents to recognize this provider.

  • Ensure that you enable Hyper-V role on the host.

  • Ensure that Druva service is running as administrator.



    โ€‹๐Ÿ“ Note
    โ€‹The administrator can be a service account or Local System Admin. The service account should be a part of the Administrator group.


  • Ensure that you set the shadow storage value according to the virtual machine size.

  • Correctly configure SMB shares. Windows Server VSS Agent Service must be installed on the server that hosts SMB shares.

  • Hyper-V host should have full control on SMB share. For a full list of requirements for SMB3 shares, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj612865.aspx.

  • Druva recommends that you enable Backup (volume recovery point) under Hyper-V Integration Services. If the Backup (Volume recovery point) is enabled, Druva can take a virtual machine backup without interrupting services on the virtual machine.



    โ€‹๐Ÿ“ Note
    โ€‹Integration Services are available for virtual machines with Windows guest OS. However, Microsoft provides Integration Services for certain Linux distributions also. For more information, see:


  • If you are installing and activating the agents on clustered hosts, ensure that Windows Remote Management (WinRM) is enabled. To enable WinRM, run the following command using the PowerShell:

1

winrm quickconfig

  • If you are installing and activating the agents on clustered hosts and you are using a domain user, ensure that the domain user can start or stop services on the host.

  • Ensure that the English language pack is installed on the Hyper-V hosts with a certified operating system that is localized to a language other than English. If the English language pack is not installed, the Management Console is unable to list the number of virtual machines running on the host. To add the English language pack on Windows, see Available Language Packs for Windows. [External link to Microsoft documentation]. Ensure that the Hyper-V host is restarted after you add the English language pack to it.

Supported operating systems

This section contains information about the Windows server that Druva supports.

Operating System

Editions

Windows

  • Windows Server 2022 (Standard and Datacenter editions)

  • Windows Server 2019 (Standard and Datacenter editions)

  • Windows Server 2016 (Standard and Datacenter editions)

  • Windows Server 2012 R2 (Standard and Datacenter editions)

  • Windows Server 2012 (Standard and Datacenter editions)

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard and Enterprise editions)


๐Ÿ“ Note
โ€‹If you are using SCVMM for managing virtual machines on Windows Server 2008 R2 hosts:

  • When you activate the Enterprise Workloads agent, select the type as standalone or cluster (based on your setup). Do not select the type as scvmm to register your hosts through SCVMM.

  • Druva does not support registration of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 hosts through SCVMM.


This section contains information about the Azure Stack HCI that Druva supports.

Operating System

Editions

Microsoft Azure

Azure Stack HCI v21H2


๐Ÿ“ Note
โ€‹Virtual machine backups with Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) is not applicable on Azure hosts with the Azure Stack Azure Stack HCI v21H2 operating system. Therefore, Druva does not support VSS backup and restore operations on these Azure hosts.


Partition type and file systems for file-level restore (FLR)

Windows:

  • Primary

  • Extended

  • Basic disk (Partition type: MBR/GPT)

  • Dynamic disk (Partition type: MBR. (simple/spanned volume)

Linux:

LVM (Simple/Spanned/Mirror/Stripped)

File-systems:

  • NTFS

  • FAT

  • FAT32

  • Ext2/3/4

  • XFS

Software requirements for FLR proxy

Before you deploy and activate the FLR proxy, ensure that following system requirements on the Hyper-V host are met for the proxy:

  • Memory: 2 GB

  • vCPUs: 2

This is a recommended configuration for two restore jobs. If you want to run multiple restore jobs, increase the memory and number of vCPUs.

Hardware requirements

  • Virtual Machine: 3 CPUs (Minimum)

  • 3 GB RAM (Minimum)

  • Free space: Druva app data utilizes 2% of the total source data.

Supported browsers

  • Google Chrome 78

  • Microsoft Edge 92

  • Mozilla Firefox 70

  • Safari 14

Network requirements

Druva communicates with your hosts to backup and restore data on your hosts. Druva talks to your Hyper-V host through ports and protocols that are secure for communication and transition of data.

Druva uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol for establishing the connection and initiating communication between Druva components and your Hyper-V hosts.

The following diagram depicts the ports and communication protocols that are used by Druva for secure connection and communication during the backup and restore operations.

Hyper-V_ports_and_ communication_protocols.png
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