Requirements and Limitations for VMware Backup Proxies

Before you assign the role of a VMware backup proxy, check the following prerequisites and limitations.

Connection to Storage

The following list shows possible connections between the machine and storage that keeps backups of this machine. The first connection is the most efficient, the last one is the least efficient.

• A machine used as a VMware backup proxy should have direct access to the storage on which VMs reside or the storage where VM data is written. This way, the VMware backup proxy will retrieve data directly from the datastore bypassing LAN.
• The VMware backup proxy can be a VM with HotAdd access to VM disks on the datastore. This type of proxy also enables LAN-free data transfer between the host and the VMware backup proxy.
• If neither of the above scenarios is possible, you can assign the role of the VMware backup proxy to a machine whose network is located closer to the source or the target storage to which the proxy will connect. In this case, VM data will be transported over LAN using the NBD protocol.

General Requirements and Limitations

• The role of a VMware backup proxy can be assigned to the following machines:

• Physical or virtual Microsoft Windows machine
• Physical or virtual Linux machine

• The machine must meet the system requirements. For more information, see System Requirements.
• The account that you specify when adding a server must have permissions described in Permissions.
• You must add the machine to the Veeam Backup & Replication console as a managed server.
• If you back up proxies that use the Virtual appliance (Hot-Add) mode to process VM data, the change block tracking mechanism (CBT) will be disabled. For more information on CBT, see Changed Block Tracking.
• If you back up encrypted VMs that use the Virtual appliance (Hot-Add) mode, make sure backup proxies are also encrypted. For more information, see Encrypted VMs.
• A VMware backup proxy should be as close to the source data as possible with a high bandwidth connection. Consider a good connection between proxy and repository.

Requirements and Limitations for VMware Backup Proxy on Linux

In addition to the general requirements and limitations, the following ones apply to Linux backup proxies:

• Linux backup proxies require SSH connection.

Therefore, you cannot assign the role of a VMware backup proxy to a Linux server added with single-use credentials. For more information, see Requirements and Limitations for Veeam Data Movers and Specify Credentials and SSH Settings step of the Adding Linux Servers wizard.

• The disk.EnableUUID parameter of the Linux server must be set to the TRUE value in the VMware vSphere client.
• Linux backup proxies cannot be used with VMware Cloud on AWS. This is because VDDK settings required by VMware cannot be enabled on Linux backup proxies.
• Linux backup proxies that use virtual appliance (Hot-Add) transport mode do not support the VM copy scenario.
• For integration with storage systems: Linux backup proxies do not support the NFS protocol.
• Linux backup proxies cannot be used for guest interaction.
• For Direct SAN access, note that Linux backup proxies must have the Open-iSCSI initiator enabled.
• For Direct NFS access, mind the following:

• Linux backup proxies must have NFS client package installed.
• Debian-based backup proxies must have the nfs-common package installed.
• RHEL-based backup proxies must have the nfs-utils package installed.

• See recommendations for VMware backup proxy parameters in the Veeam Backup & Replication Best Practice Guide.