Azure Backup Server is recognized in the industry for protection of Microsoft workloads and environments. It protects key Microsoft workloads such as SQL, SharePoint and Exchange as well as virtual machines running on Hyper-V. Today, we are announcing support for protection of VMware virtual machines with Azure Backup Server. This will allow enterprise customers to have a single backup solution across their heterogeneous IT environment.
If you are new to Azure Backup Server and want to enable Microsoft Azure Backup Server, you can download Microsoft Azure Backup Server and start protecting your infrastructure today. If you already have Azure Backup Server installed, please download and install Update 1 to get started with VMware backup. Refer to the documentation for more details on backing up vCenter 6.5/6.0/5.5 using Azure Backup Server.
Here are the four simple steps to configure VMware server and Azure Backup Server to protect VMware VMs.
1. Enable a secure SSL communication between Azure Backup Server and VMware server
2. Add a new user with certain minimum privileges
The set of privileges described in the above video are applicable for a vCenter 5.5 user account. If you are creating a vCenter 6.0 user account, the following table captures the privileges that you need to assign to the user account that you create:
| Privileges for vCenter 6.0 user account | Privileges for vCenter 5.5 user account |
| Datastore.AllocateSpace | Network.Assign |
| Global.Manage custom attributes | Datastore.AllocateSpace |
| Global.Set custom attribute | VirtualMachine.Config.ChangeTracking |
| Host.Local operations.Create virtual machine | VirtualMachine.State.RemoveSnapshot |
| Network. Assign network | VirtualMachine.State.CreateSnapshot |
| Resource. Assign virtual machine to resource pool | VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DiskRandomRead |
| Virtual machine.Configuration.Add new disk | VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOff |
| Virtual machine.Configuration.Advanced | VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create |
| Virtual machine.Configuration.Disk change tracking | VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk |
| Virtual machine.Configuration.Host USB device | VirtualMachine.Config.HostUSBDevice |
| Virtual machine.Configuration.Query unowned files | VirtualMachine.Config.AdvancedConfig |
| Virtual machine.Configuration.Swapfile placement | VirtualMachine.Config.SwapPlacement |
| Virtual machine.Interaction.Power Off | Global.ManageCustomFields |
| Virtual machine.Inventory. Create new | |
| Virtual machine.Provisioning.Allow disk access | |
| Virtual machine.Provisioning. Allow read-only disk access | |
| Virtual machine.Snapshot management.Create snapshot | |
| Virtual machine.Snapshot management.Remove Snapshot |
3. Add VMware Server to Azure Backup Server
4. Protect VMware VMs with Azure Backup Server
Additional resources:
- Browse documentation or reach out to the Azure Backup forum to support
- Tell us how we can improve Azure Backup: Contribute new ideas and vote on existing ones
- Follow us on Twitter and Channel9