Configure and validate backups for Microsoft Hyper-V VMs

To protect Microsoft Hyper-V VMs, add the Hyper-V hypervisor, choose access nodes, select the VMs to protect, and assign a backup plan.

Backup configuration

Start the configuration

1. From the Command Center navigation pane, go to Explore > Service catalog.

2. On the Virtual machines tile, click Configure.

3. Click Microsoft Hyper-V.

4. Click Add hypervisor.

Infrastructure page

1. Select a MediaAgent for node discovery and network gateway.

Hypervisor page

1. Enter a display name for the hypervisor.

2. Enter the hostname or cluster name.

   For standalone Hyper-V servers, use the server hostname.

   For failover clusters, use the cluster name.

3. Create credentials with the username and password for the Hyper-V user account that has the role you created in Configure permissions for Microsoft Hyper-V VMs.

Access nodes page

1. Select access nodes for the hypervisor.

   For automatic discovery, click Discover to find Hyper-V nodes registered with Commvault.

   For manual selection, select specific nodes from the list.

Add VM group page

A VM group is a set of VMs that share the same backup frequency, retention, and storage settings, as defined in the backup plan.

After you complete these steps, you can create additional VM groups for the same hypervisor to apply different backup plans or to organize VMs by workload.

1. Enter a name for the VM group.

2. Select the VMs to include in the VM group.

   In most environments, use rules to dynamically select VMs. You can also select VMs directly. For more information, see Configuring VM groups, sets of VMs to back up with the same settings.

Plan page

1. Select a backup plan.

   For information about backup plans, including steps to create them, see Understand and create backup plans.

2. Click Submit.

Validation

Verify the configuration

Confirm the following:

• The Hyper-V hypervisor appears in the list of configured hypervisors.

• The VM group contains the expected VMs.

• The backup plan is associated with the VM group.

Run a backup

Run a backup for the VM group you created to confirm that backups work correctly.

You can also test backups for some individual VMs.

1. From the Command Center navigation pane, go to Protect > Virtual machines.

2. Click the VM group.

3. Click Back up.

4. Select Incremental or Full, and then click Run.

Confirm that the backup completed successfully

1. From the Command Center navigation pane, go to Monitor > Jobs.

2. Locate the backup job for the VM group.

3. Confirm that the job status is Completed.

If the job fails, review the error details. Common causes include permission issues, network connectivity problems, and snapshot failures in the Hyper-V environment.

Test a restore

To confirm you can restore data, perform a simple file restore.

1. From the Command Center navigation pane, go to Protect > Virtual machines.

2. Click the VM group, and then click a VM.

3. In the Recovery points tile, select a recent backup.

4. Click Restore.

5. Select Guest files, and then restore a small file or folder.

6. Verify that the restored data is accessible.