Virtual machines

You can centrally manage virtual machines using either of the following methods or both:

Install Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux on the virtual machine and register it on the management server. The machine will be treated as a physical one. It will appear under Machines with agents in the All machines with agents group.

This approach comes in handy when:

The machine is not hosted on a virtualization server.
You do not have a license for Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Virtual Edition.
The Virtual Edition does not support backup at a hypervisor level for this specific virtualization product.
You need to overcome limitations of the backup at a hypervisor level.

On Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Management Server, a machine is considered virtual if it can be backed up from the virtualization host without installing an agent on the machine. This is possible when using the Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Advanced Server Virtual edition.

There are several ways to add a virtual machine to the management server:

Enable integration of the management server with vCenter Server.
Result. The virtual machines managed by the vCenter Server appear under Virtual machines in the All virtual machines group. The machines look as unmanageable (grayed out) but can be backed up if automatic agent deployment was enabled during the integration.
Install and configure Agent for ESX(i) VMware vSphere (Virtual Appliance) or Agent for ESX(i) VMware vSphere (Windows). Register the agent on the management server.
Result. The machine with the agent (the virtual appliance or the Windows host) appears under Machines with agents in the All machines with agents group. The virtual machines managed by the agent appear under Virtual machines in the All virtual machines group.
Install Agent for Hyper-V on a Hyper-V host or on all nodes of a Hyper-V cluster. Register the agent(s) on the management server.
Result. The Hyper-V host (nodes) appears under Machines with agents in the All machines with agents group. The virtual machines managed by the agent(s) appear under Virtual machines in the All virtual machines group.

Virtual machines added to the management server as virtual machines are present under the Virtual machines in the Navigation tree. For more information about available operations with these machines see the "Backing up virtual machines" section.