BackupExec 2010 + Hyper-V agent

[mcuric]

I have client that has Hyper-V cluster environment. They needed backup solution so we recommend BackupExec. I have talked with our reseller and they gave us information what hyper-v licence contains. We got licences, installed backup exec on seperate server with tape library, installed agents on  Hyper-V hosts.
 

So basicly now i have 2 problems:

1. When i browse virtual servers, i can only select to backup whole VHD ? The time i was talking with our reseller they asured us that we can get backup to folder (same as windows agent is installed). So my question is: Can i get, with hyper-v agent installed on host server, get  directory/file based backup or not? If it is just for backuping live VHD then it is not what we needed and then our reseller told and sold us something that we did not need.

Here is screenshot of it:




You see here on picture Hyper-V hosts and last one is cluster, and agent has detected that there are HA machines. But as i said before, if i drill down, wanting to get to file system, i will maximum come to VHD. Is this by design or i'm missing some peaces? I know workaround is to install windows agent to each machine, but i tought just with Hyper-V agent we can come to file system level.
 

2. Second problem is again with reseller comunication. On one of the machines we are running Exchange 2007 server. Again resseler told us that with this agent it is covered, and he even quoted us this:

Features
 

• Complete Windows data protection for new Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V systems as well as Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V to protect virtual machines running on Hyper-V while they are running.
• Supports the new Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) of Hyper-V R2 and the LiveMigration feature
• First-to-market granular recovery for Exchange, SQL and Active Directory virtual applications from a single pass image-level backup.


But now when we try to make selection, in GRT part of config it says:





So expecialy that part: "To use GRT to restore individual application items from a virtual machine, the virtual machine must have the Backup Exec agent for that application." is that mean that with Hyper-V agent, we have to have also exchange agent??? If that is the case that is again some missleading info from our reseller.

I'm hoping that i missing some steps here and that i dont have to communicate to client that because of resseler's wrong information he bought totaly unnececerly and realy realy expencive agent, and still dont have proper backup strategy.

Thx for any answers!
 

[sksujeet]

1> This is by design, while dong the backup it does the backup of complete VHD but while restoring you can drill down to individual items if you have the GRT inabled while doing the backup. So you can restor the individual items while restore but can' t see the individual files while backing it up.


2> If you are trying to restore the individual mails and want to backup the exchange as phsyical machine then you should have exchange agent installed on the BE server and raws installed on the VM.

If you don't purchase the exchange agent then you can backup the complete machine and can restore the complete machine but the GRT of individual mailbox and purging of logs is not possible unless you purchase the exchange agent and install a raws on the VM.

[teiva-boy]

In a nutshell, you need the agent installed in most all cases.  It's part of the virtual agent.  Your backup if so configured will still backup the VHD, or you can optionally use the RAWS itself for specific backup duties. 

The agent is installed for GRT functionality and VSS functions.  It does NOT do the actual backup of the data, only snap and catalog metadata.