Hyper-V
protection improvements
The following
information touches on the improvements to protecting VMs with DPM 2016.+
Resilient Change Tracking (RCT)
In Windows Server
2016, Hyper-V virtual hard disks have built-in change tracking. As a result, in
the case of a Host outage, or VM migration, change-tracking is automatically
preserved. With RCT, backups:+
·
are more
reliable: consistency checks
aren't required after VM migration,
·
are
scalable: more parallel
backups and less storage overhead,
·
have
improved performance: lower
impact on the production fabric and faster backup.
Enabling
RCT VM backup
Hyper-V VMs
deployed on Windows Server 2016 and protected using DPM 2016 have RCT by
default. VMs deployed on Windows Server 2012 R2 or earlier do not support RCT.
However, you can upgrade older VMs. To upgrade older VMs to enable RCT:+
1.
In Hyper-V Manager, shut
down the virtual machine.
2.
In Hyper-V Manager, select Action > Upgrade Configuration Version.
If this option isn't available for the virtual machine, then it's
already at the highest configuration version supported by the Hyper-V host. For
additional information about checking or upgrading the virtual machine
configuration version, see the article, upgrading
virtual machine version to Windows Server 2016.
If you want to use Windows PowerShell to upgrade the virtual
machine configuration, run the following command where vmname is the name of
the virtual machine.
Update-VMVersion <vmname>
3. On the
DPM 2016 server:
o Stop protection of the VM and select Retain Data.
o In the DPM 2016 Administrator Console, click Protection >
on the tool ribbon, click New
to start the Create Protection Wizard. Go through the wizard and select Refresh to
update the data sources.
o Select your VM and create a new protection group.
o Delete the old VM's retained data once the retention range has
expired.
Make the latest Hyper-V
features available on your virtual machines by upgrading the configuration
version. Don't do this until: +
·
You
upgrade your Hyper-V hosts to the latest version of Windows or Windows Server.
·
You
upgrade the cluster functional level.
·
You're
sure that you won't need to move the virtual machine back to a Hyper-V host
that runs a previous version of Windows or Windows Server.
Step 1:
Check the virtual machine configuration versions
1.
On the
Windows desktop, click the Start button and type any part of the name Windows PowerShell.
2.
Right-click
Windows PowerShell and select Run
as Administrator.
3.
Use the Get-VM cmdlet.
Run the following command to get the versions of your virtual machines.
Get-VM * | Format-Table Name, Version
You can also see the configuration version in Hyper-V Manager by selecting the
virtual machine and looking at the Summary
tab.
Step 2:
Upgrade the virtual machine configuration version
1.
Shut down
the virtual machine in Hyper-V Manager.
2.
Select
Action > Upgrade Configuration Version. If this option isn't available for
the virtual machine, then it's already at the highest configuration version
supported by the Hyper-V host.
To upgrade the
virtual machine configuration version by using Windows PowerShell, use the Update-VMVersion
cmdlet. Run the following command where vmname is the name of the virtual
machine. +
Update-VMVersion <vmname>
Supported virtual machine configuration versions
The following table
shows which virtual machine configuration versions are supported by Hyper-V
hosts that run on specific versions of Windows operating systems. +
|
Hyper-V host Windows version
|
Supported virtual machine configuration versions
|
|
Windows Server 2016
|
8.0, 7.1, 7.0, 6.2, 5.0
|
|
Windows 10 Anniversary Update
|
8.0, 7.1, 7.0, 6.2, 5.0
|
|
Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview
|
7.1, 7.0, 6.2, 5.0
|
|
Windows 10 build 10565 or later
|
7.0, 6.2, 5.0
|
|
Windows 10 builds earlier than 10565
|
6.2, 5.0
|
|
Windows Server 2012 R2
|
5.0
|
|
Windows 8.1
|
5.0
|
Run the PowerShell
cmdlet Get-VMHostSupportedVersion
to see what virtual machine configuration versions your Hyper-V Host supports.
When you create a virtual machine, it's created with the default configuration
version. To see what the default is, run the following command. +
Get-VMHostSupportedVersion -Default
If you need to
create a virtual machine that you can move to a Hyper-V Host that runs an older
version of Windows, use the New-VM cmdlet
with the -version parameter. For example, to create a virtual machine that you
can move to a Hyper-V host that runs Windows Server 2012 R2 , run the following
command. This command will create a virtual machine named
"WindowsCV5" with a configuration version 5.0. +
New-VM -Name "WindowsCV5" -Version 5.0
Why should I upgrade the virtual machine configuration version?
When you move or
import a virtual machine to a computer that runs Hyper-V on Windows Server 2016
or Windows 10, the virtual machine"s configuration isn't automatically
updated. This means that you can move the virtual machine back to a Hyper-V
host that runs a previous version of Windows or Windows Server. But, this also
means that you can't use some of the new virtual machine features until you
manually update the configuration version. You can't downgrade the virtual
machine configuration version after you've upgraded it. +
The virtual machine
configuration version represents the compatibility of the virtual machine's
configuration, saved state, and snapshot files with the version of Hyper-V.
When you update the configuration version, you change the file structure that
is used to store the virtual machines configuration and the checkpoint files.
You also update the configuration version to the latest version supported by
that Hyper-V host. Upgraded virtual machines use a new configuration file
format, which is designed to increase the efficiency of reading and writing
virtual machine configuration data. The upgrade also reduces the potential for
data corruption in the event of a storage failure.
