# Agentless Backup for VMware and Hyper-V

Agentless backup is a method to back up virtual machines under a hypervisor without the need for backup agents on the virtual machines.

DPX has special features to protect VMs in supported virtual environments: VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V.

The following table outlines the features in Catalogic DPX, that are available for specific virtual environment:

| Features                                                              |        VMware        |   Microsoft Hyper-V  |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------- | :------------------: | :------------------: |
| Full Virtualization                                                   | :white\_check\_mark: | :white\_check\_mark: |
| <p>Instant Virtualization and<br>Rapid Return to Production (RRP)</p> | :white\_check\_mark: |                      |
| Agentless backup                                                      | :white\_check\_mark: | :white\_check\_mark: |
| File-level restore                                                    | :white\_check\_mark: | :white\_check\_mark: |
| Hypervisor plug-in                                                    | :white\_check\_mark: |                      |

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<mark style="color:blue;">**Tip.**</mark> For the VMware virtual environments, you can use VM recovery and agentless backup through either the web interface or the desktop interface. For the Microsoft Hyper-V environments, you have to use the web interface.
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## Agentless Backup for Microsoft Hyper-V

Catalogic Software provides DPX Block and Agentless data protection for virtualization to protect Microsoft Hyper-V environments. For block data protection, the DPX agent must be installed on each guest virtual machine that is protected by DPX. Both hosts and clusters are supported.

Agentless Hyper-V Backup eliminates the overhead of installing and maintaining a backup agent on each VM. DPX backs up the VMs through the Hyper-V host by using an agent installed on each Hyper-V host or cluster which must be added to the DPX Enterprise. The agent handles Hyper-V snapshot processing and communicates with the storage destination and master server. Agentless Hyper-V Backup supports auto-discovery and protection of new and modified VMs. For a complete list of operating system versions, see the following web page:

* Microsoft: [Supported Windows guest operating systems for Hyper-V on Windows Server](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/supported-windows-guest-operating-systems-for-hyper-v-on-windows)

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<mark style="color:blue;">**Note.**</mark> Backup and restore jobs for Microsoft Hyper-V can only be run through the DPX web interface.
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Catalogic DPX supports crash-consistent backup of all guest operating systems that are supported by Microsoft Windows Server 2016 and later using the Catalogic DPX agentless feature.

You can use Catalogic DPX with the following Microsoft Hyper-V versions:

* Microsoft Hyper-V for Windows Server 2022
* Microsoft Hyper-V for Windows Server 2019
* Microsoft Hyper-V for Windows Server 2016

The VMs to protect must be the Microsoft Hyper-V configuration versions of 8.0 or later.

## Agentless Backup for VMware

Agentless VMware Backup eliminates the overhead of installing and maintaining a backup agent on each VM. Catalogic DPX backs up the VMs through the VMware vCenter and the Catalogic DPX virtualization proxy server, each of which must be added to the Catalogic DPX Enterprise. The Catalogic DPX virtualization proxy server handles VMware snapshot processing and communicates with the storage destination and master server. Agentless VMware Backup supports auto-discovery and protection of new and modified VMs. For a complete list of operating system versions, please refer to the VMware Compatibility Guide on the VMware website.

Using Agentless VMware Backup to protect VMs has significant advantages, including simplified administration and tight integration with VMware vCenter. Users have a wide range of recovery options available. These include the same Instant Virtualization and Full Virtualization features available with DPX agent-based backups. In addition, _Instant VMDK_ allows rapid mapping of VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk) images back to the same VM or an alternate VM. VMDKs can also be mapped to physical servers to share data across physical/virtual boundaries.

DPX supports crash-consistent backup of all guest operating systems that are supported by vSphere 6.0 and later using the VADP interface and DPX’s agentless feature. Please refer to VMware’s compatibility website ([www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php](https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php)) for a complete list of operating system versions.

DPX supports application-consistent backup using DPX’s Agentless feature. Refer to [Chapter 15: Agentless Backup for VMware](https://docs.catalogicsoftware.com/dpx-4.9/chapter-15-agentless-backup-for-vmware) in the DPX 4.9.x User’s Guide.

Supported VMware vSphere

* VMware vSphere 8
* VMware vSphere 7.0
* VMware vSphere 6.7
* VMware vSphere 6.5

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<mark style="color:orange;">**Restrictions.**</mark>

* Catalogic DPX supports Virtual Volume (VVol) datastore for Agentless VMware backup to NetApp and vStor storage. VMware Virtual SAN (vSAN), a network-based storage solution with directly attached disks, does not support the SAN transport mode for VADP backup. As vSAN uses modes that are incompatible with SAN transport mode, if the virtual disk library detects the presence of vSAN, VADP SAN transport modes are automatically disabled. The other transport modes for VADP backup will continue to operate.
* Rapid Return to Production (RRP) requires a Storage vMotion and valid ESXi license on vSphere. See the [Rapid Return to Production](https://docs.catalogicsoftware.com/dpx-4.9/chapter-15-agentless-backup-for-vmware/rapid-return-to-production-rrp) section in the DPX 4.9.x User’s Guide.
* Ensure the latest version of VMware Tools is installed for your vCenter version.
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