Selecting an agent depends on what you are going to back up. The table below summarizes the information, to help you decide.
In Windows, Agent for Exchange, Agent for SQL, Agent for Active Directory, and Agent for Oracle require that Agent for Windows is also installed. Thus, if you install, for example, Agent for SQL, you also will be able to back up the entire machine where the agent is installed.
It is recommended to install Agent for Windows when you install also Agent for VMware (Windows) and Agent for Hyper-V.
In Linux, Agent for Oracle and Agent for Virtuozzo require that Agent for Linux (64-bit) is also installed. These three agents share one installer.
| What are you going to back up? | Which agent to install? | Where to install it? |
|---|---|---|
|
Physical machines |
||
| Physical machines running Windows | Agent for Windows | On the machine that will be backed up. |
| Physical machines running Linux | Agent for Linux | On the machine that will be backed up. |
| Physical machines running macOS | Agent for Mac | On the machine that will be backed up. |
|
Applications |
||
| SQL databases | Agent for SQL | On the machine running Microsoft SQL Server. |
| Exchange databases | Agent for Exchange | On the machine running the Mailbox role of Microsoft Exchange Server.* |
| Microsoft Office 365 mailboxes | Agent for Office 365 |
On a Windows machine that is connected to the Internet. Depending on the desired functionality, you may or may not need to install Agent for Office 365. For more information, refer to "Protecting Office 365 data". |
| Microsoft Office 365 OneDrive files and SharePoint Online sites |
— |
This data can be backed up only by an agent that is installed in the cloud. For more information, refer to "Protecting Office 365 data". |
| G Suite Gmail mailboxes, Google Drive files, and Shared drive files |
— |
This data can be backed up only by an agent that is installed in the cloud. For more information, refer to "Protecting G Suite". |
| Machines running Active Directory Domain Services | Agent for Active Directory | On the domain controller. |
| Machines running Oracle Database | Agent for Oracle | On the machine running Oracle Database. |
|
Virtual machines |
||
| VMware ESXi virtual machines | Agent for VMware (Windows) | On a Windows machine that has network access to vCenter Server and to the virtual machine storage.** |
| Agent for VMware (Virtual Appliance) | On the ESXi host. | |
| Hyper-V virtual machines | Agent for Hyper-V | On the Hyper-V host. |
| Virtuozzo virtual machines and containers*** | Agent for Virtuozzo | On the Virtuozzo host. |
| Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure virtual machines | Agent for Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure | On the Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure host. |
| Virtual machines hosted on Amazon EC2 | The same as for physical machines**** | On the machine that will be backed up. |
| Virtual machines hosted on Windows Azure | ||
| Citrix XenServer virtual machines | ||
| Red Hat Virtualization (RHV/RHEV) | ||
| Kernel-based Virtual Machines (KVM) | ||
| Oracle virtual machines | ||
| Nutanix AHV virtual machines | ||
|
Mobile devices |
||
| Mobile devices running Android | Mobile app for Android | On the mobile device that will be backed up. |
| Mobile devices running iOS | Mobile app for iOS |
*During the installation, Agent for Exchange checks for enough free space on the machine where it will run. Free space equal to 15 percent of the biggest Exchange database is temporarily needed during a granular recovery.
**If your ESXi uses a SAN attached storage, install the agent on a machine connected to the same SAN. The agent will back up the virtual machines directly from the storage rather than via the ESXi host and LAN. For detailed instructions, refer to "Agent for VMware - LAN-free backup".
***For Virtuozzo 7, only ploop containers are supported. Virtual machines are not supported.
****A virtual machine is considered virtual if it is backed up by an external agent. If an agent is installed in the guest system, the backup and recovery operations are the same as with a physical machine. Nevertheless, the machine is counted as virtual when you set quotas for the number of machines.
Disk space requirements for agents
| Agent | Disk space required for installation |
|---|---|
|
Agent for Windows |
1.2 GB |
|
Agent for Linux |
2 GB |
|
Agent for Mac |
900 MB |
|
Agent for SQL and Agent for Windows |
1.2 GB |
|
Agent for Exchange and Agent for Windows |
1.3 GB |
| Agent for Data Loss Prevention | 500 MB |
|
Agent for Office 365 |
500 MB |
|
Agent for Active Directory and Agent for Windows |
2 GB |
|
Agent for VMware and Agent for Windows |
1.5 GB |
|
Agent for Hyper-V and Agent for Windows |
1.5 GB |
|
Agent for Virtuozzo and Agent for Linux |
1 GB |
| Agent for Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure | 700 MB |
| Agent for Oracle and Agent for Windows | 2.2 GB |
|
Agent for Oracle and Agent for Linux |
2 GB |
Backup operations require about 1 GB of RAM per 1 TB of archive size. The memory consumption may vary, depending on the amount and type of data being processed by the agents.
Bootable media or a disk recovery with a reboot requires at least 1 GB of memory.