15 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2012
When you run your Acronis vmProtect 7 installation package, the installation menu appears. Acronis
vmProtect 7 has three main installation options:
Install Acronis vmProtect 7 as Virtual Appliance on an ESX(i) host.
Install Acronis vmProtect 7 as Windows Agent.
Extract installation files.
The first option allows you to install the software on a remote ESX(i) host (see Installing Acronis
vmProtect 7 as Virtual Appliance on an ESX(i) Host (p. 15)).
The second option allows you to install Acronis vmProtect 7 software on your local PC (see Installing
Acronis vmProtect 7 as Windows Agent (p. 17)).
The third option allows you to extract the installation files (see Extracting installation files (p. 18))
and perform either Acronis vmProtect 7 remote deployment or local installation manually with the
help of standard installation tools. You can always choose this option, if you would need to manage
or troubleshoot your Virtual Appliance / Windows Agent installation without the default installer, or
if you would need to install only a certain component without carrying out the full installation
procedure.
There are several reasons why Acronis vmProtect 7 Virtual Appliance deployment to an ESX(i) host is
preferable over Acronis vmProtect 7 Windows Agent installation. These reasons are:
1. Your backups will be LAN-free without additional setup effort (you don’t have to connect the
FC/iSCSI storage to the Windows machine where you run the Agent).
2. The hotadd method used by Virtual Appliance (attaching virtual drives to Virtual Appliance during
backup) is usually fastest possible to get access to the VM data for reading.
3. Virtual Appliance is free from possible software compatibility issues (such as 3rd party NFS
servers or other services which may block the ports).
4. It is easier to maintain Virtual Appliance and you don’t have to have a dedicated Windows
machine for it. Surely it is a better choice if your infrastructure is fully virtualized.
5. Virtual Appliance is easier and faster to install.
The disadvantage of Virtual Appliance is that the backup will consume CPU and memory resources
from the ESX(i) host, which may be a problem for highly loaded environments. In this case, if you
have a physical computer available to be used as a console for managing all vmProtect 7
functionality, you can choose to install the vmProtect 7 Windows Agent locally.
4.2.1 Installing Acronis vmProtect 7 as Virtual Appliance on an
ESX(i) host
Acronis vmProtect 7 software could be installed directly on an ESX(i) host. The process of remote
installation of Acronis vmProtect 7 Virtual Appliance to an ESX(i) host is called deployment. The
software for running all necessary Acronis services will be installed on a separate small virtual
machine under a specially customized OS (small Linux distribution).
1. First, read the Acronis vmProtect 7 license agreement, select the acceptance check box and then
click Next.
2. Specify the desired ESX(i) server or vCenter access credentials: IP address or hostname, your user
name and access password. When you click Next, the installer will automatically check the
connection and go through the authorization procedure.
