Carbonite Server Backup
Agent for Hyper-V
Version 8.60.8791
Release Notes, December 6, 2017
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Contents
1	Overview
1.1	Compatibility
1.2	Release History
1.3	Supported Platforms
1.4	Supported Guest Operating Systems
1.5	Supported Storage and Disk Formats
2	NEW FEATURES
3	INSTALLATION NOTES
3.1	Installation Best Practices
3.2	Installation Requirements
3.3	Licensing Requirements
3.4	Install/Upgrade
4	LIMITATIONS, FIXES, and KNOWN ISSUES
4.1	Limitations
4.2	Best Practices
4.3	Fixes
4.4	Known Issues
5	PRODUCT SUPPORT
5.1	Technical Support
5.2	Product Updates
5.3	Documentation
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1	Overview
This document contains release notes for Hyper-V Agent 8.60.
The Hyper-V Agent backs up and restores virtual machines (VMs) in Microsoft Hyper-V clusters and standalone hosts, with support for application-consistent backups. The Agent includes two components: 
·	Management service, which processes backup and restore requests from Carbonite Server Backup Portal, and distributes the work to Hyper-V Agent Host services.
·	Host service, which backs up VMs to a vault and restores VMs to a Hyper-V host.
1.1	Compatibility
Hyper-V Agent services	All Hyper-V Agent services in an environment must be the same version. Hyper-V Agent 8.60 services are not compatible with Hyper-V Agent 7.4x or 7.30 services.	
Portal	Hyper-V Agent 8.60 is supported with Portal version 8.40 or later.
Note: You cannot register Hyper-V Agent 8.60 to a Portal version earlier than 8.30. However, if a Hyper-V Agent is already registered to a previous Portal version, you can upgrade the Agent to version 8.60 and it remains registered to the previous Portal version. To determine your Portal version, sign in to Portal and go to Need Help > About. 
Note: You cannot manage the Hyper-V Agent with the legacy Windows CentralControl interface.	
Director	Hyper-V Agent 8.60 is supported with Director 8.x vaults. 	
Restores from previous Agent versions	Hyper-V Agent 8.60 can restore VMs from backups created using Hyper-V Agent 7.4x or 7.30. 	
VM configuration versions and generations	You can only restore a VM to a Hyper-V host that supports the VM’s configuration version. For example, if you back up a VM with configuration version 8.0, 7.1, 7.0 or 6.2 in a Windows 2016 environment, you cannot restore the VM to a Windows Server 2012 R2 host. For supported VM configuration versions, see documentation from Microsoft.
You cannot restore VMs that were backed up in Windows 2016 or 2012 R2 to a Windows 2012 host.
If you back up VMs in a Windows 2012 environment and restore the VMs to a Windows 2012 R2 environment, the VMs are restored as Generation 1 VMs. 	

1.2	Release History
Version 8.60.8791, December 6, 2017
1.3	Supported Platforms
The Hyper-V Agent Management service is supported on the following platforms:
·	Windows Server 2016
·	Windows Server 2012 R2
·	Windows Server 2012
The Hyper-V Agent Host service is supported on the following platforms:
·	Windows Server 2016
·	Windows Server 2016 Core
·	Windows Server 2012 R2
Note: In addition to automatically-installed updates, Microsoft update 2966407 must be installed on the Windows Server 2012 R2 machine.
·	Windows Server 2012 R2 Core
·	Windows Server 2012
1.4	Supported Guest Operating Systems
Hyper-V Agent 8.60 backs up and restores VMs with operating systems that are supported by the Microsoft Hyper-V Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) writer.
Hyper-V Integration Services must be running within the guest operating system.
1.5	Supported Storage and Disk Formats
·	Shared Storage (Cluster Shared Volume)
·	Local Storage
·	VHDX and VHD files 
·	Fixed and dynamically-expanding disks
Note: Incremental backups are sometimes inefficient for dynamically-expanding disks. Fixed disks are recommended.
Note: Disks stored on SMB3 shares, pass-through disks, and shared virtual disks are not supported.
2	NEW FEATURES
·	The Hyper-V Agent can now back up and restore VMs in Hyper-V environments running on Windows Server 2016. Hyper-V Agent 8.60 supports the following new features in Hyper-V 2016:
o	Hardware configuration 8.0. The Hyper-V Agent can back up and restore VMs with hardware configuration 8.0.
o	Hot Add Virtual NICs. In Hyper-V 2016, users can modify virtual NICs while a generation 2 VM is powered on. The Hyper-V Agent can back up and restore the modified NICs.  
o	Hot Add Memory. In Hyper-V 2016, users can modify the RAM on a guest operating system (Windows Server 2016 or Windows 10) while the VM is powered on. The Hyper-V Agent can back up and restore the modified memory values.
o	Linux Secure Boot. Newer Generation 2 Linux VMs that use Microsoft Certificate Authority can use a Linux Secure boot option. The Hyper-V Agent preserves these VM settings, allowing the VMs to boot after a restore. 
o	Production Checkpoints. By default, new VMs created in Hyper-V 2016 use production snapshots which provide application-aware backups. The Hyper-V Agent can back up VMs with both standard and production checkpoints.
o	Automatic integration services. Microsoft has incorporated integration service updates into the Windows Update process. The Hyper-V Agent can back up these changes.
o	New Hyper-V switch. The Hyper-V Agent can back up and restore the new Hyper-V virtual switch.
·	Hyper-V Agent 8.60 can back up and restore VMs during a cluster rolling upgrade to Windows Server 2016. Backups continue when a cluster has both Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2016 nodes during a rolling upgrade. For more information, see Section 3.4.2 of these release notes.
·	This is the first Carbonite Server Backup release of the Hyper-V Agent. “Carbonite Server Backup” now appears in the default installation path, and in the Management service and Host service names. 
Note: If a customer upgrades from a previous Hyper-V Agent version, the Management and Host service installation folder names remain the same, but the previous service names are replaced by Carbonite service names.
3	INSTALLATION NOTES
3.1	Installation Best Practices
For complete best practice information, see the Hyper-V Agent User Guide. 
For a Hyper-V cluster, we recommend installing the Management service on a VM in the cluster and configuring the VM for high availability, and installing the Host service on each host in the cluster. The VM where the Management service is installed must have DNS resolution for the Hyper-V cluster.
For a standalone Hyper-V server, we recommend installing both the Management service and the Host service on the Hyper-V server.
3.2	Installation Requirements
3.2.1	Hardware
Install Hyper-V Agent components on systems that meet Microsoft recommendations for Hyper-V.
The Management service needs to connect to each node in the Hyper-V environment on a LAN, not a WAN.
3.2.2	Software
The Host service cannot be installed on a host where the Carbonite Server Backup Agent for Microsoft Windows is installed.
3.3	Licensing Requirements
The Hyper-V Agent is only licensed on a vault capacity basis. Agent-based software licensing is not available for the Hyper-V Agent.
3.4	Install/Upgrade
3.4.1	Install
The Management service installation kit name is: Hyper-V Agent Management-8-60-8791.exe
The Host service installation kit name is: Hyper-V Agent Host-8-60-8791.exe
For detailed installation information, see the Hyper-V Agent User Guide.
Note: Only English is supported with Hyper-V Agent version 8.60. However, this Agent version can be installed on a non-English operating system.
3.4.2	Upgrade
You can upgrade the Hyper-V Agent to version 8.60 from version 7.4x or 7.30. You must upgrade the Management service first and then upgrade all Host services in a Hyper-V environment. 
Hyper-V Agent 8.60 can back up and restore VMs during a cluster rolling upgrade from Windows Server 2012 R2 to Windows Server 2016. To ensure that backups continue during a cluster operating system rolling upgrade, do the following:
1.	Upgrade the Hyper-V Agent Management service to version 8.60.
2.	Upgrade the Hyper-V Agent Host service on each cluster node to version 8.60.
3.	Follow instructions from Microsoft to upgrade the cluster to Windows Server 2016.
For detailed upgrade information, see the Hyper-V Agent User Guide.
4	LIMITATIONS, FIXES, and KNOWN ISSUES
4.1	Limitations
This version of the Hyper-V Agent does not back up VMs that have:
·	Virtual disks on both local and CSV storage
·	Pass-through disks
·	Virtual disks on SMB3 storage
·	Shared VHDXs
This version of the Hyper-V Agent has limited support for VMs that contain:
·	Virtual disks which are configured as dynamic disks by Windows Disk Management (within a VM)
·	FAT or FAT32 volumes
·	No Hyper-V Integration Services running
·	Linux guest OS
This version of the Hyper-V Agent does not support the following:
·	Deferring in scheduled jobs. Deferring is only available for running jobs manually (ad hoc).
·	Restoring VMs that were backed up in a newer Hyper-V environment to an older Hyper-V environment (e.g., you cannot restore VMs that were backed up in a Windows Server 2012 R2 environment to a Windows Server 2012 environment)
·	Restoring individual disks from a protected VM 
·	Restoring individual files and folders from within a protected VM
·	Restoring VMs to system partitions
·	Safeset image (SSI) files
·	Secondary Restore Server
4.2	Best Practices
For best performance, Carbonite recommends the following:
·	In a failover cluster, enable the CSV cache.
·	Remove snapshots or checkpoints from VMs that will be backed up.
·	Use fixed-size VHDXs or VHDs rather than dynamically-expanding VHDXs or VHDs.
·	If multiple backup jobs use the same CSV or local volume, do not schedule the jobs to run at the same time.
Failure to follow these best practices could result in slower backups and restores. For more information, see the Hyper-V Agent User Guide.
4.3	Fixes
·	After a disaster recovery, if you run a backup job without entering an encryption password, Portal correctly reports that the job failed. (EV-15686)
·	Users can cancel backups and restores successfully. (EV-14211)
·	Support text can now contain international characters. (EV-8501)
·	Users can re-register a Hyper-V Agent and perform a disaster recovery. (EV-15601)
·	The Agent can now send email notifications using CRAM-MD5 authentication. (32811)
4.4	Known Issues
·	A Linux VM backup can fail with the following message: A VSS writer has rejected an event with error  0x800423f4. The writer experienced a non-transient error. If the backup process is retried,the error is likely to reoccur.
WORKAROUND: Install the hyperv-daemons package on the Linux VM, and try the backup again. (EV-6012)
·	If a hardware VSS provider is installed on a host, and you try to back up VMs on a CSV that is not supported by the hardware VSS provider, the backup fails. (28650)
·	On Windows Server 2012 R2 with Microsoft update 2919355 installed, backups of VMs on cluster shared volumes can fail with a “file is missing” message.
WORKAROUND: Install Microsoft update 2966407 on the server. See “Backing up virtual machines fails when using the CSV writer after installation of update 2919355 in Windows” (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2966407). (EV-8506/EV-6198/33395)
·	If you try to restore a VM with a network adapter and a snapshot to a host that does not have a network adapter with the same name, the restore fails.
WORKAROUND: Restore the VM without selecting the Enable network connectivity check box. Consistent with Microsoft best practices, we recommend not taking user-level snapshots of VMs that will be backed up in a production environment. (28320)
·	If you install the Management service to a directory that contains non-English characters, the Management service cannot start. (27409)
·	If you try to install the Host service to a directory that contains non-English characters, the installation fails. (27234)
·	After a power failure or disk error on the machine where the Management service is running, the Agent might not be able to back up or restore a VM. (27158)
·	If you remove an email address from the Notifications tab, the Agent continues to send emails to that email address for backups and restores.
WORKAROUND: Stop and restart the Management service when backups are not running. (27235)
·	The Address column on the Hosts tab does not display all IP addresses for a node. The IP address that appears might not be the IP address that you normally use to connect to the node. (27189)
·	When you rename a VM that is protected by a job, the Edit Job wizard retains the original name of the VM. 
WORKAROUND: Remove the VM from the job, and add it to the job again. This will not cause a reseed. (26214)
·	If you terminate a restore, and one or more VMs are not completely restored, partial VM files will remain on disk and must be cleaned up manually. (25962)
5	PRODUCT SUPPORT
5.1	Technical Support
Technical support is available from your provider. 
5.2	Product Updates
Product updates are available from your provider. 
5.3	Documentation
The following documentation is available for the Hyper-V Agent: 
·	Agent for Hyper-V User Guide
·	Hyper-V Agent information in Portal online help
To find Hyper-V Agent information, search for "Hyper-V" in the help.
·	Agent for Hyper-V release notes (this document)
Documentation is available from your provider.