Preparation

Step 1

Choose an agent, depending on what you are going to back up. The following table summarizes the information, to help you decide.

Note that in Windows, Agent for Windows is installed along with Agent for Exchange, Agent for SQL, Agent for Active Directory, and Agent for Oracle. If you install, for example, Agent for SQL, you also will be able to back up the entire machine where the agent is installed.

In Linux, Agent for Oracle and Agent for Virtuozzo require that Agent for Linux (64-bit) is also installed. These three agents share one installer.

Also note that CentOS Stream 9 is currently not supported. However, developers are actively working on adding support for it in the near future.

*During the installation, Agent for Exchange checks for enough free space on the machine where it will run. Free space equal to 15 percent of the biggest Exchange database is temporarily needed during a granular recovery.

**If your ESXi uses a SAN attached storage, install the agent on a machine connected to the same SAN. The agent will back up the virtual machines directly from the storage rather than via the ESXi host and LAN.

***For Virtuozzo 7, only ploop containers are supported. Virtual machines are not supported.

****A virtual machine is considered virtual if it is backed up by an external agent. If an agent is installed in the guest system, the backup and recovery operations are the same as with a physical machine. Nevertheless, the machine is counted as virtual when you set quotas for the number of machines.

Step 2

Review the system requirements for the agents.

The typical memory consumption is 300 MB above the operating system and running applications. The peak consumption may reach 2 GB, depending on the amount and type of data being processed by the agents.

Bootable media or a disk recovery with a reboot requires at least 1 GB of memory.

Step 3

Download the setup program. To find the download links, click All devices > Add.

The Add devices page provides web installers for each agent that is installed in Windows. A web installer is a small executable file that downloads the main setup program from the Internet and saves it as a temporary file. This file is deleted immediately after the installation.

If you want to store the setup programs locally, download a package containing all agents for installation in Windows by using the link at the bottom of the Add devices page. Both 32-bit and 64-bit packages are available. These packages enable you to customize the list of components to install. These packages also enable unattended installation, for example, via Group Policy. This advanced scenario is described in Deploying agents through Group Policy.

To download Agent for Office 365 setup program, click the account icon in the top-right corner, and then click Downloads > Agent for Office 365.

Installation in Linux and macOS is performed from ordinary setup programs.

All setup programs require an Internet connection to register the machine in the Cloud Backup service. If there is no Internet connection, the installation will fail.

Step 4

Cloud Protect features require Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable. Please ensure that it is already installed on your machine or install it before installing the agent. After the installation of Microsoft Visual C++, a restart may be required. You can find the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package here https://support.microsoft.com/help/2999226/update-for-universal-c-runtime-in-windows.

Step 5

Verify that your firewalls and other components of your network security system (such as a proxy sever) allow both inbound and outbound connections through the following TCP ports.

• 443 and 8443 These ports are used for accessing the service console, registering the agents, downloading the certificates, user authorization, and downloading files from the cloud storage.
• 7770...7800 The agents use these ports to communicate with the backup management server.
• 44445 and 55556 The agents use these ports for data transfer during backup and recovery.

The minimum Internet connection speed required for managing an agent from the cloud is 1 Mbit/s (not to be confused with the data transfer rate acceptable for backing up to the cloud). Consider this if you use a low-bandwidth connection technology such as ADSL.

TCP ports required for backup and replication of VMware virtual machines

• TCP 443 Agent for VMware (both Windows and Virtual Appliance) connects to this port on the ESXi host/vCenter server to perform VM management operations, such as create, update, and delete VMs on vSphere during backup, recovery, and VM replication operations.
• TCP 902 Agent for VMware (both Windows and Virtual Appliance) connects to this port on the ESXi host to establish NFC connections to read/write data on VM disks during backup, recovery, and VM replication operations.
• TCP 3333 If the Agent for VMware (Virtual Appliance) is running on the ESXi host/cluster that is the target for VM replication, VM replication traffic does not go directly to the ESXi host on port 902. Instead, the traffic goes from the source Agent for VMware to TCP port 3333 on the Agent for VMware (Virtual Appliance) located on the target ESXi host/cluster.

  The source Agent for VMware that reads data from the original VM disks can be anywhere else and can be of any type: Virtual Appliance or Windows.

  The service that is responsible for accepting VM replication data on the target Agent for VMware (Virtual Appliance) is called “Replica disk server.” This service is responsible for the WAN optimization techniques, such as traffic compression and deduplication during VM replication, including replica seeding. When no Agent for VMware (Virtual Appliance) is running on the target ESXi host, this service is not available, and therefore the replica seeding scenario is not supported.

Step 6

On the machine where you plan to install the ALTERNcloud Backup agent, verify that the following local ports are not in use by other processes.

• 127.0.0.1:9999
• 127.0.0.1:43234
• 127.0.0.1:9850

Note:  You do not have to open them in the Firewall.