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Before You Begin

In this article

    Before you add an off-host backup proxy, check the following prerequisites.

    • You must assign the off-host backup proxy role to a physical machine. For evaluation purposes, you can assign the off-host backup proxy role to a VM. For more information, see System Requirements.
    • Versions of a Microsoft Hyper-V host and off-host backup proxy must coincide. For example, if you use a Microsoft Windows Server 2012 machine with the Hyper-V role enabled as a Microsoft Hyper-V host, you must deploy the off-host backup proxy on a Microsoft Windows Server 2012 machine with the Hyper-V role enabled.
    • The source Microsoft Hyper-V host and off-host backup proxy must be connected via SAN to the shared storage that supports VSS hardware providers.
    • To create and manage volume shadow copies on the shared storage, you must install and properly configure a hardware VSS provider that supports transportable shadow copies. The hardware VSS provider must be installed on the off-host proxy and source Microsoft Hyper-V host. The hardware VSS provider is typically distributed as a part of client components supplied by the storage vendor.
    • If you plan to perform off-host backup for a Microsoft Hyper-V cluster with CSV, you must deploy an off-host backup proxy on a host that is not a part of the cluster. If the off-host backup proxy is deployed on a node of the cluster, the cluster will fail during VM data processing.
    • [For off-host backup proxies processing VMs on SMB3] The Local System account of the off-host backup proxy must have full access permissions on the Microsoft SMB3 file share.
    • [For off-host backup proxies processing VMs on SMB3] The off-host backup proxy must be located in the same domain where the Microsoft SMB3 server resides. Alternatively, the domain where the Microsoft SMB3 server resides must be trusted by the domain in which the off-host backup proxy is located.