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System Requirements for Virtual Server Agent with VMware

The following requirements are for the Virtual Server Agent for VMware.

Proxy Computer Requirements

The VSA proxy machine must be one of the following types of machines:

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2025 x64 Editions (Standard, DataCenter, and Core)

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2022 x64 Editions (Standard, DataCenter, and Core)

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only) x64 Editions (Standard, DataCenter, and Core)

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2016 x64 Editions (Standard, DataCenter, and Core)

  • For Linux proxy support, use one of the following options:

    • Deploy a File Recovery Enabler for Linux (FREL) to serve as a Virtual Server Agent proxy for VMware. For more information, see Configuring a Linux Proxy for VMware.

    • Install the Virtual Server Agent on a Linux machine that runs any of the following operating systems:

      • Oracle Linux 8.x or 9.x

      • RHEL 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 7.8, 7.9, 8.x, or 9.x

        Note

        • For RHEL/OEL 9.0 and 9.1 VSA access nodes, if the libssl.so.3 and libcrypto.so.3 VDDK 8.0.1 load fails, upgrade openssl-libs to the latest version to use VDDK 8.0.1. Upgrading will protect the VMware workloads.

        • To use a machine that runs RHEL 7.7 as a VSA proxy, you must install the pcre-devel-8.32-17.el7.x86_64 package.

        • For a machine that runs RHEL 8.x or 9.x, to install operating system packages that are required to enable automatic installation of Mono, register the machine with Red Hat.

      • Rocky Linux 8.x or 9.x

      For more information, see Deploying a Linux Machine as a VSA Proxy.

    • Linux proxy support for VMware is enabled by default for the HyperScale 1.5 Appliance and HyperScale X. You can select appliance nodes to act as Linux proxies.

For information on hardware requirements for the VSA proxy machine, see Hardware Specifications for Virtual Server Agent.

Hard Drive

Verify that at least 100 GB free space is available for installing the Virtual Server Agent.

VMware vCenter Server Support

The following versions are supported for vCenter Server and vCenter Server Appliance. vCenter Server support includes support for vSphere, Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK), ESX or ESXi, and file system versions as provided by the vCenter version.

For more information, see Correlating build numbers and versions of VMware products.

Generally, each version of the VDDK supports vCenter Server for the two previous major versions and for the next minor version. For example, VDDK 8.0.1 can be used with vCenter Server 7.x, or 8.0 Update 1.

When VMware issues new versions or updates, Commvault tests against the current service pack before announcing support. For new VMware versions or updates released between Commvault service packs, and for earlier supported versions or service packs, Commvault provides continuing support, including Hot Fixes as needed to address VMware changes to functions that affect backup and recovery.

vCenter Server Versions

  • 8.x (all minor updates)

  • 7.x (all minor updates)

ESX Host Support

Before configuring backup of any ESXi servers, ensure that you are using Essentials licensing level or higher. The vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) are not provided with the free version of ESXi.

VDDK Support

For each Commvault service pack, the Virtual Server Agent includes the latest supported VDDK.

Multiple versions of the VDDK are included with the Virtual Server Agent. The appropriate VDDK for the vSphere version is loaded automatically when required. For more details, see VDDK Support for the Virtual Server Agent.

Customers can also update the VDDK manually. Do not place VDDK files in the VDDK installation in the Commvault base directory. Only install a newer version of the VDDK for proxies running on Windows. For Linux proxies, use a VDDK version that is included with the Virtual Server Agent package.

VDDK 5.5 or later is required for vSphere 5.5 support.

With VDDK 5.5 and later, 32-bit libraries and binaries are no longer supported.

VMware Cloud Director

VMware Cloud Director 10.6, 10.5, 10.4, 10.3

Virtual Machine Hardware

Version 4.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, 11.0, 13.0, 14.0, 15.0, 17.0, 18.0, 19.0, 20.0, 21.0

Virtual Machine Operating Systems

All Guest Operating Systems supported by VADP.

VMware Cloud on AWS

For Service Pack 11 and later, Commvault supports VMware Cloud on AWS.

For more information, see Support for VMware Cloud on AWS.

Datastore Support

  • Network File System (NFS)

  • Virtual Machine File System (VMFS)

  • Virtual storage area network (vSAN)

  • VMware Virtual Volume (VVol)

VMware Tools on Virtual Machines

The latest version of VMware Tools supported by the host should be installed on each virtual machine. At a minimum, the version of VMware tools on virtual machines must be supported on the host; unsupported versions must be upgraded. For more information about VMware Tools support for Windows and Linux guest VMs, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

open-vm-tools

For Linux guest VMs running the following operating system releases, open-vm-tools can be used:

  • Fedora 19 and later

  • Debian 7.x and later

  • openSUSE 11.x and later

  • Recent Ubuntu (12.04 LTS, 13.10 and later)

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 and later

  • Oracle Linux 7.0 and later

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 and later

For more information, see VMware support for open-vm-tools (2073803).

Port Requirements

In an environment with firewalls, the vCenter, ESX servers, and Virtual Server Agent must be able to communicate with each other. To ensure that all components can communicate through the firewall, ensure that the ports for web services (default: 443) and TCP/IP (default: 902) are opened for bidirectional communication on each of these machines.

Additional port requirements can apply for the MediaAgent when you use specific features such as Live Browse, Live File Recovery, and Live Mount. For more information, see Entering Required Firewall Settings.

Prior to performing any backup or restore operations, ensure that the following port requirements are met.

Note

If a non-default port is used with VDDK 5.5, backup or restore operations can fail. See KB Article VMW0013.

vCenter

  • Port for web service (default: 443) must be opened. If vCenter is configured to use non-default ports, the non-default ports must also be opened.

ESX Server

  • Ports for web service (default: 443) and TCP/IP (default: 902) must be opened for the vStorage APIs for Data Protection.

VMware Cloud Director

  • A port for the vCloud REST API (default: 443) must be opened.

Subclient with multiple proxies

  • If you are using multiple proxies in a single subclient, open the CVD port (by default 8400) for all proxies in the subclient, to enable the coordinator node and other proxies to communicate. The CVD port is used to establish communication between proxies using a randomly selected port; to enable communication between proxies you must configure the Commvault firewall.

Allocation Unit Size of NTFS Volumes

The cluster size or the allocation unit size of an NTFS volume in a virtual machine must be multiple of 1024 bytes per cluster. You can set the cluster size before formatting a volume. The default cluster size is 4096 bytes per cluster.

Microsoft Visual C++

The following Redistributable Package is installed automatically. The Redistributable Package can co-exist with other versions of this software.

  • Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable Package

  • Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable Package

DISCLAIMER

Certain third-party software and service releases (together, "Releases") may not be supported by Commvault. You are solely responsible for ensuring Commvault’s products and services are compatible with any such Releases.

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