Installing Agent on Windows Hyper-V Server 2016?

[Hanoixan]

(Veeam Support - Case # 03729750)

I've tried to install the Veeam Agent on a Hyper-V server, and it won't install because it says it's unsupported.

EndPointSetup.log:
Product: Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows -- Host does not meet system requirements: operating system is not supported.

I want to confirm that this is the case, with no workarounds. Microsoft Hyper-V Server is a pretty common deployment OS for VMs, and it would seem an interesting decision for Veeam to not support it.

[wishr]

Hi Sean,

Any chance it's a Windows Server 2016 Core?

Windows Server 2016 is supported with no restrictions.

Thanks

[Gostev]

I want to confirm that this is the case, with no workarounds. Microsoft Hyper-V Server is a pretty common deployment OS for VMs, and it would seem an interesting decision for Veeam to not support it.

You're simply using the wrong product.

It makes no sense to install Veeam Agent for Windows on Microsoft Hyper-V Server (not to mention, it is against Microsoft EULA to install and run software in its parent partition, as this effectively provides a no-cost Windows Server Core for everyone to use). Veeam Agent for Windows is for backing up physical servers and desktops - and not hypervisor hosts.

The correct product for backing up Microsoft Hyper-V Server is our VM backup product, which is Veeam Backup & Replication.

[Hanoixan]

Hi Gostev,

Thanks for replying. You recommend installing Veeam B&R directly on the Hyper-V server host. This Veeam documentation clearly states that it is not recommended: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... l?ver=95u4

Stepping back, let me describe my use case and root issues. I'd appreciate if you could tell me THE best practice for this:

Use case:
* I have Hyper-V server 2016 as my VM host
* I have installed Veeam B&R Community Edition on a Windows 2016 Server VM (as recommended in the above documentation)
* I can add VMs on the Hyper-V host to B&R, and they will go through the backup process

Here are the issues:
* When I attempt to add the Hyper-V host server itself to the list of machines that gets backed up (Create Backup Job, Server, Managed by backup server, Backing up to NAS), and then run the backup, it has a warning of "Nothing to Process".
* If I force a rescan of the Manually Added servers, my server shows up, it scans it, and has a warning:

9/9/2019 8:43:58 AM :: Skipping MYSERVER Details: Failed to acquire agent managed by MYSERVER VBR server.

* Digging through forums I found a post (which I cannot find at the moment) that suggests that you can't backup your Hyper-V Host directly from B&R running on one of its guest VMs, and that you need to install an agent on it, as a layer of indirection. But you've said this is not the proper way.
* You suggest that I can't install arbitrary software on the Hyper-V server parent partition. Can you clarify that? After all, it looks like Veeam installed software on the host OS to backup the VMs (e.g., there was a Veeam Transport installation). Also, I think there's a distinction between the parent partition (that which wraps the VMs) and the Host OS (Hyper-V Server), but I may be incorrect.

So I'm looking for some solid direction. By all other accounts, Veeam appears to be a fantastic product, and I assume I'm misunderstanding something important.

[Gostev]

Actually, I never recommended that you install Veeam B&R directly on the Hyper-V server host... not sure where are you reading this.

From your description, it sounds like you're possibly using an incorrect job type to protect your Hyper-V virtual machines. Make sure you're using the correct job type.

In case you're trying to backup the Hyper-V host itself: you don't need to do this, as the hypervisor hosts are disposable (if you lose the host, you just reinstall it).

Re: installing 3rd party software on Microsoft Hyper-V Server host partition, this is what I remember from reading Microsoft licensing policy about this free product. However, it will not be appropriate for me to make recommendation on 3rd party software licensing, so I recommend you reach out to your Microsoft sales rep for clarifications.

[Hanoixan]

Well, I implied that from your last line: "The correct product for backing up Microsoft Hyper-V Server is our VM backup product, which is Veeam Backup & Replication." But you were only talking about the guest VMs, so I apologize for reading into it so deeply.

So Veeam does not have any solution for backing up the Hyper-V Server host itself, which is disappointing, but understandable.

You as a company don't want to touch what is apparently a very broad area of the EULA (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/UseTerm ... 2x1r1b6p00). Microsoft dictates you can only use Hyper-V Server to "provide hardware virtualization services, and/or to run software to manage and service operating system environments on the licensed server". I guess a lay person would consider backups to be part of OS management, but I'm not a lawyer, just someone trying to keep our IT infrastructure afloat.

While Hyper-V installations may be disposable, creating a new installation is not completely painless, and I can at least rely on Windows Server Backup in a pinch.

Thanks for your time!