Prerequisites for protecting VMware with DPM
Updated: November 30, 2016
Before you begin setting up DPM protection for VMware virtual machines, do the following:
Review the following release notes.
Verify the support for VMware and backup scenarios in the DPM protection support matrix.
Install DPM 2012 R2 and then upgrade to Update Release 11.
Release notes for protecting VMware with DPM
If you have been using DPM 2012 R2 to protect a VMware server as a Windows Server, you cannot use the same fully qualified domain name (FQDN) after upgrading to DPM 2012 R2 UR11. Once you upgrade DPM to UR11, if you used a FQDN to identify your VMware server before upgrading DPM to UR11, then use a static IP address to identify your VMware server. You cannot use a dynamic IP address. If you used a static IP address to identify your VMware server before upgrading DPM to UR11, then use a FQDN to identify your VMware server after upgrading to UR11.
If you use vCenter to manage ESXi servers in your environment, add vCenter (and not ESXi) to the DPM protection group.
DPM cannot protect VMware VMs to tape or a secondary DPM server.
You cannot back up user snapshots before the first DPM backup. Once DPM completes the first backup, you can back up user snapshots.
DPM cannot protect VMware VMs with pass-thru disks and physical raw device mappings (pRDM).
DPM cannot detect or protect VMware vApps.
DPM cannot protect VMware VMs with existing snapshots.
If you intend to use DPM to protect VMware VMs, DPM cannot run on Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1.
Supported versions of VMware
Once you have installed Update Release 11, DPM protects VMs running on the 5.5 and 6.0 versions of VMware vCenter and vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi). To ensure that DPM works correctly, it is strongly recommended that you install the latest update for your VMware servers.