Categories: XenServer, Hyper-V, Physical Systems, Alike v3, Alike v4

Introduction

This article discusses Alike’s support for protecting Windows virtual and physical machines.

*Please Note: Installing and running the Alike software on any version of Windows starting with 2003 is fully supported.

Enhanced and Q-Hybrid

Alike fully supports the protection of all Microsoft server operating systems starting with 2003, with the following options:

Enhanced (agentless) Backup/Replication (Xen & Hyper-v only):

• Any guest VM OS is supported

Q-Hybrid (agent-based) Backup/Replication (Xen, Hyper-V and Physical)

• Windows Server 2003 through 2012 R2 (32/64 bits)
• Windows XP SP2 through Windows 10 (32/64 bits)

Learn more about the differences between Enhanced and Q-Hybrid jobs in Alike.

Notes for XenServer Customers

For “quiesced” protection of any Microsoft operating system in XenServer, Q-Hybrid backups/replication is strongly encouraged.

Due to issues in Citrix XenServer’s “quiesced” snapshots, Citrix does not recommend that you use quiesced snapshots with Windows Server 2008 R2 or above. Citrix has had issues with this feature beginning in XenServer 5.6, and their support for it has varied by XenServer release.

Additional information on the original issue can be found in the Citrix XenServer 5.6 release notes.

Final Notes

Two Citrix caveats in particular should be noted for Alike users (from XenServer 5.6 release notes):

• Snapshot with quiesce is not supported on a Windows VM that is hosting one or more dynamic disks. [CA-22601]
• Snapshot with quiesce cannot be used to take a snapshot of a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM. [CA-32734 ]