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System Requirements for Protecting VMware VMs with Commvault

Verify that your environment meets the requirements for protecting VMware VMs with Commvault.

Access Nodes

Windows

  • 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)

    Note

    Microsoft ended mainstream support for all versions of Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2—including Hyper-V Server 2012 and Hyper-V Server 2012 R2, and Core Editions—on October 10, 2023.

Linux

Do either of the following:

  • Deploying a Linux Access Node for VMware.

  • Deploying a Linux Access Node for VMware Using vCenter.

  • 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 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.

      • 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

Support for Linux access nodes for VMware is enabled by default for the HyperScale 1.5 Appliance and HyperScale X. You can select appliance nodes to act as Linux access nodes.

For Linux access nodes, disable lvmetad to avoid issues with HotAdd operations during backup and recovery.

Hard Drive

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

VMware vCenter Server

The following versions are supported for vSphere, vCenter, vCenter Server Appliance, and ESX/ESXi:

7.x (all minor updates), 8.x (all minor updates)

For any ESXi servers, the VADP is not available in the free version of ESXi. The Essentials licensing level or higher is required.

VMware Cloud Director

VMware Cloud Director 10.6, 10.5, 10.4, 10.3

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 may be necessary 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.

Guest VM Requirements

Component

Requirements

VM 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

VM operating system

All Guest Operating Systems supported by VADP

VMware Tools on VMs

Install the latest version of VMware Tools supported by the host on each VM. At a minimum, the version of VMware tools on VMs must also be supported on the host; unsupported versions must be upgraded.

VMware Transport Considerations

Licensing

In vSphere 5.0, the SCSI HotAdd feature is enabled only for vSphere editions Enterprise and higher, which have Hot Add licensing enabled. No separate Hot Add license is available for purchase as an add-on. In vSphere 4.1, Hot Add was also enabled in the Advanced edition. Customers with vSphere Essentials or Standard editions are not able to perform proxy-based backup, which relies on SCSI HotAdd. Those customers must use alternate transport modes.

SCSI Controllers

HotAdd relies on the SCSI protocol. With VDDK 6.5 or later, VMware recommends the paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) controller. (For more information, see Virtual Disk Development Kit Release Notes.) For older VDDK versions, use the LSI SCSI controller. HotAdd does not support IDE disks.

For more information, see System Requirements for Virtual Server Agent with VMware.

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