Microsoft Hyper-V

You can use the Virtual Server Agent (VSA) to back up and recover virtual machine data in a Hyper-V cluster or a standalone Hyper-V server.

Key Features

Feature	Description	Additional information
Agentless backups and restores	Install the Virtual Server Agent on a Hyper-V node to act as a VSA proxy. A VSA proxy manages backup and restore operations for guest VMs in your environment, eliminating the need to install agents on guest VMs.	Deployment Planning System Requirements
"Incremental forever" data protection	After an initial full backup, you can perform ongoing incremental backups to capture changes for the source VM.	Backups
Changed Block Tracking	Commvault uses Changed Block Tracking (CBT) to identify changes for each incremental backup.	Changed Blocked Tracking
Restores	You can restore full VMs, disks, or guest files and folders	Restores
Disaster recovery	Replicate VMs to a warm recovery site to ensure that VMs are available in the event of a disaster or other outage. DR orchestration features include planned or unplanned failovers and failbacks.	Live Sync Replication
Simplified operational interface	The web-based Command Center interface uses smart defaults to simplify configuration and support streamlined operations.	Command Center
Self service for end users	The Web Console provides self service options for end users and groups.	Web Console
VM provisioning	End users can use the Web Console to provision VMs based on pre-defined templates.	VM Lifecycle Management
Advanced administration	The CommCell Console provides advanced options for Commvault operations. Using the CommCell Console, you can configure a virtualization client that serves as a single point of administration for all cluster nodes. You can perform backups and restores from the virtualization client, and perform other administrative tasks such as creating schedules and generating reports.	Creating a Virtualization Client
Automatic protection for all virtual machines in a cluster or server	By default, all virtual machines in a Hyper-V cluster or server are automatically selected for backup, to ensure that all virtual machines are backed up.	Excluding Unprotected Virtual Machines in the Default Subclient
Application-aware backups	Perform application-consistent backups without manually installing application agents on virtual machines. From the Command Center, you can use the Auto discover applications option to automatically find applications on servers and install the agents that can back up the applications. (For more information, see Automatic Discovery of Applications in the Command Center.)	Application-Aware Backups
Automatic discovery	To back up categories of virtual machines, you can create rules to automatically select virtual machines based on specific criteria. Automatic discovery is useful in environments where virtual machines are frequently added or removed.	Adding Subclient Content Using Discovery Rules
Protection of migrated virtual machines	The virtual machines in a cluster are seamlessly backed up even if virtual machine migrate to a different host. When the cluster is backed up, incremental backup cycles are also maintained.
Customized filters	To exclude virtual machines from backups, create rules to filter virtual machines.	Filtering Virtual Machines from a Backup
VM conversion	When restoring a VM, you can choose to restore to a different hypervisor. This capability can be used to migrate VMs to a different virtualization platform.	Virtual Machine Conversion
Reports	You can view detailed information about each backed up virtual machine, including information such as size of the data, the status of integration services, the guest operating system, and the host on which the virtual machine is running.	Reports for Virtual Server Agents
System Center plug-in	You can install the Commvault System Center plug-in to manage backups and recovery of Hyper-V virtual machines from within the System Center on the Command Center.	Installing and Launching the System Center Plug-In
Snapshot support	Use array snapshots to capture virtual machine data quickly, with minimal impact on the source VM, and use the snapshot as a source for backup copies.	Microsoft Hyper-V

Commvault Platform Features

The following features are available throughout Commvault and are not limited to the Virtual Server Agent.

Feature	Description	Additional information
Policy-driven data protection	Policies drive operations to meet service level agreements (SLAs).	Schedule Policies Storage Policies Subclient Policies Monitoring Policies
Block-level deduplication	Block-level deduplication compares blocks of data during backups. If virtual machines contain identical blocks of data, block-level deduplication eliminates the storage of redundant data and reduces the size of data in storage.	Deduplication Overview
Built-in compression	Commvault storage policies automatically enable compression to reduce the quantity of data sent to storage.	Data Compression Data Compression for VSA

Feature

Description

Additional information

Policy-driven data protection

Policies drive operations to meet service level agreements (SLAs).

Block-level deduplication

Block-level deduplication compares blocks of data during backups. If virtual machines contain identical blocks of data, block-level deduplication eliminates the storage of redundant data and reduces the size of data in storage.

Deduplication Overview

Built-in compression

Commvault storage policies automatically enable compression to reduce the quantity of data sent to storage.

Data Compression

Data Compression for VSA