communication between veeam-bck-server, vc-server and vm

[fgw]

currently setting up my backup environment. to make things complicated the veeam backup server, virtual center server and the target vm's which are to be backed up are all in different networks.

the situation is as follows:

the virtual center server is located within network 1
the server hosting vcb and veeam backup software is located in network 2
the vm are located in various different networks, lets use network 3 as an example.

also, when using veeam vss i assumed vmare tools is not involved in the process so i did not care if vmware tools on the vm is up to date or not. in fact vmware tools on the vm i want to backup is out of date right now ...

so the question is: in order to be able to use veeam vss integration, what ports need to be open between the three different networks:

right now i have set up the following between network 2 and network 3:

• SSH (TCP port 22)
  HTTPS (TCP port 443)
  NetBIOS (TCP port 139, UDP ports 137, 138)
  SMB (TCP port 445)
  RPC (TCP port 135)

as i'm using san backups i have not enabled data transmission ports. will i need this for restore operations later?

• DATA Transmission (ports from 2500 to 2520)

is there also any communication going on between the backup server and the virtual center server (between network 1 and network 2)?

as said before, i assumed vmware tools are not used at all when using veeam vss integration. thus i did not care if vmware tools are up to date. the error message i get in veeam backup is as follows:
Failed to perform Veeam VSS freeze: VMware tools status is "toolsOld"

is vmware tools status checked when the job gets started even vmware tools are not used? what did i miss here?

[Gostev]

Yes, you will need data transmission ports for full VM restores later. You need one port for each restore job, so if you do not plan to do multiple restores in parallel, you only need to open one port, 2500. If you want to run up to 3 parallel restores, you need 2500, 2501 and 2502 open. And so on.

Yes, there is communication between backup server and the virtual center server (SSL, 443 port by default - unless you changed the default port settings in vCenter Server).

Yes, as per product's systems requirement, VMware Tools is a required component. They are used to query different information about guest which is critical for performing Veeam VSS freeze. Outdated VMware Tools may not have some required API calls implemented, which is why freeze fails out if this check is unsuccessful.