Acronis Backup & Recovery

Updating ESX/ESXi Virtual Appliance

  Update from the management server  

This update method applies only to those virtual appliances that are registered on the management server. This method is preferable to the manual procedure described later in this section, because all configuration settings (backup plans, applied policies and group membership) related to the virtual machines managed by the agent, will be preserved in this case.

To update the virtual appliances from the management server:

1. Update the management console and the management server.
2. Connect the console to the management server.
3. In the Navigation tree, right click the group that has the same name as the vCenter Server. If VMware vCenter integration is not enabled, right click Virtual machines.
4. Click Deploy ESX agents.
5. Select the vCenter’s hosts and clusters where to update Agent for ESX/ESXi. If VMware vCenter integration is not enabled, add hosts by specifying their IP addresses or names. For every host or cluster where the agent is already installed, the right panel of the ESX Agent Deployment window displays: Update ESX agent on this host.
6. Click Deploy ESX Agents.

The virtual appliances will be updated; the agents’ configuration settings will be preserved.

  Manual update  

Manual update of the virtual appliance involves deleting the old appliance and installing a new one.

After manually updating the virtual appliance, you will have to recreate local backup plans that existed on the appliance and re-apply the backup policies that were applied to virtual machines managed by the appliance (that is, the machines hosted on the ESX/ESXi server the VA is managing).

To update the virtual appliance (VA) manually

1. Remove the VA from Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server. Skip this step if the appliance is not registered on the management server.

   To remove the VA, connect to the management server, right-click the VA in the All physical machines list, and then click Delete machine from AMS. The policies applied to the virtual machines the appliance was managing are revoked.

2. Revoke the license used by the VA, as described in “Using Acronis License Server“, under “Revoking licenses”.
3. Delete the virtual appliance from the ESX/ESXi server.
4. Install and configure the new VA, as described in “Installing ESX/ESXi Virtual Appliance“.
5. [Optional] Re-create local backup plans that previously existed on the VA if you want to continue using them.
6. [Optional] Re-apply backup policies that were previously applied directly to the virtual machines managed by the virtual appliance. You also have to re-apply policies to the dynamic group of these machines (the group that has the same name as the VA registration address), because this group is automatically deleted and recreated during the VA update.

   Policies applied to the All virtual machines group will be re-deployed to the virtual machines automatically.

7. [Optional] Re-add the machines managed by the VA to the custom static groups.

   The machines’ membership in static groups is lost because the machines are removed from the management server and then added again during the VA update.

8. [Optional] Check if membership of the machines managed by the VA in custom dynamic groups is re-established.

   The machines’ membership in the dynamic groups that use the Host/VA criterion will be lost because the VA is removed from the management server during update. To re-establish the machines’ membership in such group, specify the updated VA as a criterion for the group.

You do not need to re-apply policies to either static or dynamic custom groups. As soon as the machines’ membership in the groups is re-established, the appropriate policies will be re-deployed to the virtual machines automatically.