Preventive Service Planning
Abstract
This document details the backup and restore requirements for hypervisors (Microsoft® Hyper-V and VMware) and for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Version 10.1.7.
Content
This document is divided into linked sections for ease of navigation. Use the following links to navigate to the section of the document that you require:
Hyper-V requirements
Configuration
| IBM Spectrum Protect Plus | Microsoft Hyper-V on Windows Server 2016 | Hyper-V Server 2016 | Microsoft Hyper-V on Windows Server 2019 | Hyper-V Server 2019 |
| V10.1.0 |  |
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Beginning with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus V10.1.5, you can protect virtual machines (VMs) that are enabled to use the Hyper-V Replica feature. Depending on your Hyper-V environment, you might be required to update some service level agreement (SLA) policies when you update your system environment to IBM Spectrum Protect Plus V10.1.5 or later levels. For more information, see Additional steps for updating virtual machines in Hyper-V Replica environments
Restrictions
- Windows file indexing and file restore operations on volumes residing on dynamic disks are not supported.
- For Hyper-V data, backup and restore operations are supported only for virtual hard disks (VHDX).
- File indexing and file restore operations are not supported from restore points that were copied to cloud resources or repository servers.
- File cataloging, backup, point-in-time restores, and other operations that invoke the Windows agent will fail if a nondefault local administrator ID is entered as the Guest OS Username when you define a backup job. A nondefault local administrator is any user ID that was created in the guest operating system and has been granted the administrator role.
Software
Ensure that the newest Hyper-V integration services are installed:
- Ensure that the 64-bit Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package is installed on the VM guest machine, before you start restore operation from a backup image.
- For Microsoft Windows environments, see Supported Windows guest operating systems for Hyper-V on Windows Server
- For Linux® environments, see Supported Linux and FreeBSD virtual machines for Hyper-V on Windows
Connectivity
Ensure that the following connectivity requirements are met:
- The network adapter that is used for the connection must be configured as a client for Microsoft Networks.
- The Microsoft Windows Remote Management (WinRM) service must be running.
- Firewalls must be configured to enable IBM Spectrum Protect Plus to connect to the server by using WinRM.
- The IP address of the machine that you register must be reachable from the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server and from the vSnap server. The Hyper-V server must have a WinRM service that is listening on port 5985.
- All servers, proxies, applications, and hypervisors that are added to the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus environment must be registered by using a Domain Name System (DNS) name or Internet Protocol (IP) address.
- If DNS names are used, they must be resolvable over the network by the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server and the vSnap server. All IBM Spectrum Protect Plus components must also be resolvable by their DNS names. If the Hyper-V server is part of a cluster, all nodes in the cluster must be resolvable by DNS.
- If DNS is not available, you must add the server to the /etc/hosts file on the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server by using the command line. If more than one Hyper-V server is set up in a cluster environment, you must add all of the servers to the /etc/hosts file.
- When you are registering the cluster in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, register the Failover Cluster Manager.
- Ensure that the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Service is running on all Hyper-V servers, including cluster nodes. In the Services window, set the startup type for the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Service to Automatic so that the service is available when the Hyper-V server or cluster node starts.
- Troubleshooting tip: If the IP address of the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server is changed after an initial Hyper-V base backup is created, the target iSCSI qualified name (IQN) of the Hyper-V resource might be left in a bad state. To correct this issue, from the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator tool, click the Discovery tab. Select the old IP address, then click Remove. Click the Target tab and disconnect the reconnecting session.
Prerequisites and operations
Ensure that the Software and Connectivity requirements are met.
Before you start a backup or restore operation, ensure that your system meets the following requirements:
- Register the providers that you want to back up. For instructions, see Adding a Hyper-V server
- A service level agreement (SLA) policy is configured.
- Assign appropriate roles and resource groups to users who will be running backup and restore operations. Grant users access to resources and roles by using the Accounts pane. Add the user to the local administrator group on the Hyper-V server.
Review the following information about creating backup and restore jobs:
- Use a backup job to back up Hyper-V data with snapshots. For instructions, see Backing up Hyper-V data
- Hyper-V restore jobs support Instant VM Restore and Instant Disk Restore scenarios, which are created automatically based on the selected source. For instructions, see Restoring Hyper-V data
VMware requirements
Configuration
| IBM Spectrum Protect Plus | VMware vSphere 6.0* | VMware vSphere 6.5* | VMware vSphere 6.7* | VMware vSphere 7.0* |
| V10.1.0 | |
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*The base level and later updates and patch levels are supported.
Review the following information about supported functionality:
- Backing up and restoring encrypted VMs is supported with vSphere 6.5 and later.
- IBM Spectrum Protect Plus supports VMware VM tags.
- IBM Spectrum Protect Plus V10.1.5 and later protects VMs that are managed by a VMware Cloud (VMC) on an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC). For more information, see IBM Spectrum Protect Plus for VMware Cloud on AWS
Restrictions
- Restored VM templates cannot be powered on after recovery of a VM.
- Secure Shell (SSH) keys are not a valid authorization mechanism for Windows platforms.
- Physical RDM (pRDM) volumes do not support snapshots. VMs that contain one or more raw device-mapping (RDM) volumes that are provisioned in pRDM mode are backed up. However, the pRDM volumes are not processed as part of the VM backup operation.
- File cataloging, backup, point-in-time restores, and other operations that invoke the Windows agent will fail if a nondefault local administrator ID is specified as the Guest OS Username when you define a backup job. A nondefault local administrator is any ID that has been created in the guest operating system and has been granted the administrator role.
- Windows file indexing and file restore operations on volumes residing on dynamic disks are not supported.
Software
- Ensure that the most recent version of VMware Tools is installed on VMware VMs.
- Ensure that the 64-bit Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package is installed on the VM guest machine, before you start restore operation from a backup image.
Connectivity
For VMware hypervisor connectivity requirements, see System requirements: IBM Spectrum Protect Plus V10.1.7
Privileges
vCenter Server privileges are required for the VMs that are associated with a VMware provider. These privileges are included in the vCenter Administrator role.
If the user that is associated with the provider is not assigned to the Administrator role for an inventory object, the user must be assigned to a role that has the required privileges, as described in Virtual machine privileges
Prerequisites and operations
Ensure that the Software, Connectivity, and Privileges requirements are met.
Before you start a backup or restore operation, ensure that your system meets the following requirements:
- Register the providers that you want to back up. For instructions, see Adding a vCenter Server instance
- A service level agreement (SLA) policy is configured.
- Assign appropriate roles and resource groups to users who will be running backup and restore operations. Grant users access to resources and roles by using the Accounts pane.
Review the following information about creating backup and restore jobs:
- Use a backup job to back up VMware resources such as VMs, datastores, folders, vApps, and datacenters with snapshots. For instructions, see Backing up VMware data
- In IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, you can create proxies to run VMware backup jobs by using vStorage API for Data Protection (VADP) in Linux environments. The proxies reduce demand on system resources by enabling load sharing and load balancing. For instructions, see Managing VADP backup proxies
- VMware restore jobs support Instant VM Restore and Instant Disk Restore scenarios, which are created automatically based on the selected source. For instructions about creating VMware restore jobs, see Restoring VMware data
Amazon EC2 requirements
EC2 data is stored in Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Block Store (EBS) snapshots rather than the vSnap server. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus manages these snapshots for backup and restore operations.
Prerequisites and operations
- To protect Amazon EC2 data, first add an account for your EC2 instances in IBM Spectrum® Protect Plus, and then create jobs for backup and restore operations for those instances.
- To add an EC2 account to IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, access keys are required. Access keys are long-term credentials for an Identity and Access Management (IAM) user or the Amazon Web Services (AWS) account root user.
- For information about how to create an IAM user with access keys and the permissions that are required for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, see Creating an AWS IAM user
- For increased security, avoid using the AWS account root user for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. For more information about the root user, see the AWS Identity and Access Management User Guide
Before you start a backup or restore operation, ensure that your system meets the following requirements:
- When an Amazon EC2 account is added to IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, an inventory of the instances that are associated with the account is captured. For more information, see Adding an Amazon EC2 account
- Ensure that one or more SLA policies are configured for the EC2 instances. For instructions, see Creating an SLA policy for Amazon EC2 instances
- Assign appropriate roles and resource groups to users who will be running backup and restore operations. Grant users access to resources and roles by using the Accounts pane.
Review the following information about creating backup and restore jobs:
- You can use a backup job to back up data in an Amazon EC2 instance. For instructions, see Backing up Amazon EC2 data
- You can use a restore job to restore EC2 data from a backup copy. You can restore data to the original availability zone or to a different availability zone in the same region, with different types of recovery options and configurations. For instructions, see Restoring Amazon EC2 data
Ports
The following ports are used by IBM Spectrum Protect Plus hypervisors.
| Port | Protocol | Initiator | Target | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 443 | Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) | IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server and VADP proxy host | Hypervisor: VMware Elastic Sky X Integrated (ESXi) host and vCenter | Provides access to ESXi and vCenter for managing operations. |
| 443 | TCP | IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server | Hypervisor: Amazon EC2 | Provides access to AWS for managing operations. |
| 902 | TCP | IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server and VADP proxy host | Hypervisor: VMware ESXi host | Used for the Network File Copy (NFC) protocol, which provides a file-type-aware File Transfer Protocol (FTP) service for vSphere components. By default, ESXi uses NFC for operations such as copying and moving data between datastores. |
| 5985 | TCP | IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server | Hypervisor: Microsoft Hyper-V | Provides access to the Microsoft WinRM service for Windows-based servers. |
| 5986 | TCP | IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server | Hypervisor: Microsoft Hyper-V | Provides access to the Microsoft WinRM service for Windows-based servers. |
| Port | Protocol | Initiator | Target | Description |
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| 22 | TCP | Hypervisor | vSnap server | Provides access for troubleshooting and maintenance tasks on vSnap servers by using SSH protocol. |
| 111 | TCP and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) | Hypervisor: VMware ESXi host | vSnap server | Used for Network File System (NFS) file sharing by the vSnap server. |
| 2049 | TCP and UDP | Hypervisor: VMware ESXi host | vSnap server | Used for NFS file sharing by the vSnap server. |
| 3260 | TCP | Hypervisor: Microsoft Hyper-V | vSnap server | Used for Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) data transfer by vSnap servers. |
| 20048 | TCP and UDP | Hypervisor: VMware ESXi host | vSnap server | Used for NFS file sharing by the vSnap server. |
Related Information
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Document Information
Modified date:
22 June 2021
UID
ibm16325247