NetApp Backup and Recovery requirements

06/08/2026 Contributors

Before you begin using NetApp Backup and Recovery, ensure your NetApp Console and operational environment meet the following requirements.

Prepare NetApp Console

You access NetApp Backup and Recovery through NetApp Console. To prepare the Console for Backup and Recovery, you must:

Add a Console agent
Add at least one storage system
Configure a Console organization and user roles

You need the Organization admin or Super admin role in NetApp Console to complete this preparation.

To learn more about NetApp Console, refer to NetApp Console for unified storage management.

Complete initial NetApp Console setup

Complete the initial setup for NetApp Console if you haven't already.

Getting started workflow for NetApp Console (SaaS application)

Deploy a Console agent

A Console agent is a lightweight software component that you install in your network to connect your storage infrastructure to NetApp Console. It enables advanced storage orchestration, data services, and secure cloud integration.

Learn about Console agents
Deploy a Console agent

Add a storage system

Before you can protect workloads in Backup and Recovery, you need to add an ONTAP storage system to the Console.

Discover on-premises ONTAP clusters in NetApp Console

Configure an organization and user roles

Learn about organizations, projects, and user roles, then configure users with the appropriate permissions needed to perform their tasks.

Refer to Add users to a NetApp Console organization for information about using an organization and projects for controlling resource access.

Refer to NetApp Backup and Recovery roles in NetApp Console for details about the roles and permissions needed to perform operations in NetApp Backup and Recovery.

Requirements for backups to object storage

To use object storage as backup targets, you need an account with AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, Microsoft Azure Blob, StorageGRID, or ONTAP and the appropriate access permissions configured.

Requirements for protecting ONTAP volume workloads

To use NetApp Backup and Recovery for ONTAP volume workloads, you need the following host system, space, and sizing prerequisites.

ONTAP 9.8 or later is required.
An ONTAP One License must be enabled on the on-premises ONTAP instance.
Backing up or restoring to S3-compatible object storage requires ONTAP 9.17.1 or later.

For information about supported features, volume types, backup and restore destinations, and more, refer to Protect your ONTAP volume data.

Requirements for protecting Microsoft SQL Server workloads

To use NetApp Backup and Recovery for Microsoft SQL Server workloads, you need the following host system, space, and sizing prerequisites.

Software and hardware requirements

Item

Requirements

Operating systems

Microsoft Windows
For the latest information about supported versions, see the NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool.

Microsoft SQL Server versions

Version 2012 and later are supported for VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) and VMware Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) NFS.

SnapCenter Server version

SnapCenter Server version 5.0 or greater is required if you are going to import your existing data from SnapCenter into NetApp Backup and Recovery.

If you already have SnapCenter, first check to be sure you've met the prerequisites before importing from SnapCenter. See Prerequisites for importing resources from SnapCenter.

Minimum RAM for the plug-in on the SQL Server host

1 GB

Minimum install and log space for the plug-in on the SQL Server host

5 GB

Allocate sufficient disk space and monitor the storage consumption by the logs folder. The log space required varies depending on the number of backups performed and the frequency of data protection operations. If there is not sufficient space, the logs will not be created for the operations.

Required software packages

ASP.NET Core Runtime 8.0.24 Hosting Bundle (and all subsequent 8.0.x patches)
PowerShell 7.4.13

For the latest information about supported versions, see the NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool.

Supported storage types

Database host

Supported storage

Physical server

LUNs presented over Fibre Channel
LUNs presented over iSCSI

VMware VM

iSCSI LUNs connected directly to the guest system by the iSCSI initiator
Virtual Machine File Systems (VMFS)
NFS datastores

Hyper-V VM

iSCSI LUNs connected directly to the guest system by the iSCSI initiator

Protecting databases stored in pass-through disks or VHD/VHDX files that are provisioned on NetApp storage is not supported.

Requirements for protecting VMware workloads

You need specific requirements to discover and protect your VMware workloads.

Software support
Requirement	Supported
Datastore types	NFSv3, NFSv4.1, and VMFS
VMware ESXi Server versions	7.0U1 and above
VMware vCenter vSphere versions	7.0U1 and above
VMware Tools	VMWare Tools is required when using the file and folder restore feature and VM-consistent backups. To make sure the VMware Tools version matches your version of ESXi Server, refer to the VMware version mapping information.
IP address types	IPv4, IPv6
VMware TLS versions	1.2, 1.3
Connected storage	ONTAP 9.13.1 or later Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP storage systems running version 9.13.1 or later ASA r2 SAN-only systems (ONTAP 9.17.1 or later required)

Connection and port requirements for protecting VMware workloads
Type of port	Pre-configured port
VMware ESXi Server port	443 (HTTPS), bidirectional. The file and folder restore feature uses this port.
Storage cluster or storage VM port	443 (HTTPS), bidirectional. 80 (HTTP), bidirectional. This port is used for communication between the virtual appliance and the storage VM or the cluster containing the storage VM.

Role-based access control (RBAC) requirements for protecting VMware workloads

Your Console user account needs to have the Backup and Recovery super admin role to work with VMware workloads.

For more information about Backup and Recovery roles, refer to Backup and Recovery roles in NetApp Console.

Requirements for protecting KVM workloads

You need specific requirements to discover and protect KVM virtual machines.

A modern Linux distribution running kernel version 5.14.0-503.22.1.el9_5.x86_64 (longterm) or later
Your KVM hosts and VMs must be managed by a management platform. NetApp Backup and Recovery supports the following management platforms:
- Apache CloudStack 4.22.0.0
Ensure that inbound network traffic to port 22 is allowed from the Console agent to the KVM host
QEMU Guest Agent version 9.0.0 or later
libvirt version 10.5.0 or later

To ensure that KVM workload restores complete successfully, make sure that the Enable VM-consistent snapshot setting is active in the protection policy you use for KVM backups.

To enable protection of KVM VMs administered by non-root users, use the following steps:

Mount the volume as type NFS3 to avoid the use of the nobody user and group.
Use the following command to add a non-root user to the qemu group wile preserving their existing groups:
```
usermod -aG qemu <non-root-user>
```
Use the following command to grant ownership of the mount path to the qemu user and group and change permissions for the mount path:
```
chown -R qemu:qemu <kvm_vm_mount_path> & chmod 771 <kvm_vm_mount_path>
```
Delete the existing NetApp_SnapCenter_Backups directory if present.

Requirements for protecting Oracle Database workloads

Ensure your environment meets specific requirements to discover and protect Oracle Database resources.

Requirement	Supported
Deployment topology	Standalone (NFS, SAN, ASM SAN) RAC over ASM (VMDK on VMFS)
Oracle Database versions	Oracle Database 19c Oracle Database 21c Oracle AI Database 26ai
Database storage	Must be deployed on NetApp ONTAP (primary or secondary)
Host OS	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Object storage (backup targets)	Azure Object Storage Amazon AWS NetApp StorageGRID ONTAP S3

Requirement

Supported

Deployment topology

Standalone (NFS, SAN, ASM SAN)
RAC over ASM (VMDK on VMFS)

Oracle Database versions

Oracle Database 19c
Oracle Database 21c
Oracle AI Database 26ai

Database storage

Must be deployed on NetApp ONTAP (primary or secondary)

Host OS

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

Object storage (backup targets)

Azure Object Storage
Amazon AWS
NetApp StorageGRID
ONTAP S3

Requirements for protecting Kubernetes applications

You need specific requirements to discover Kubernetes resources and protect your Kubernetes applications.

For NetApp Console requirements, refer to [In NetApp Console].

NetApp strongly recommends assigning a static IP address to the Console agent you use for Kubernetes workloads to avoid issues if the agent IP address changes.

A primary ONTAP system (ASA r2 systems are not supported)
NetApp Trident 25.02 or later
NetApp Trident Protect 26.05 or later (installed on the Kubernetes cluster during discovery)
A Kubernetes cluster - Supported Kubernetes distributions and versions include those supported by Trident Protect.
- Make sure that TCP port 443 is unfiltered in the outbound direction between the Kubernetes cluster, the Trident Protect Connector, and the Trident Protect proxy.

Requirements for protecting Hyper-V workloads

Ensure your Hyper-V instance meets specific requirements to discover and protect virtual machines.

Software requirements for the Hyper-V Windows Server host
Requirement	Supported
Microsoft Hyper-V	2019, 2022 & 2025 editions
ASP.NET Core Runtime	8.0.24 Hosting Bundle (and all subsequent 8.0.x patches)
PowerShell	7.4.13 or later
If non-administrator users will be protecting Hyper-V VMs, ensure the users have the following permissions	Member of the local administrators group Part of the "Log on as service" local security policy
Ensure that two-way HTTPS traffic is allowed for the following ports in the Windows Firewall settings	TCP 8144 (NetApp Plugin for Hyper-V) TCP 8145 (NetApp Plugin for Windows)
Connected storage	ONTAP 9.13.1 or later Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP storage systems running version 9.13.1 or later SAN storage (supported for backups and for restoring to the original location from either primary or secondary storage)

Hardware requirements for the Hyper-V host

Standalone and FCI-clustered hosts are supported
1GB RAM minimum for the NetApp Hyper-V plug-in on the Hyper-V host

5GB minimum installation and log space for the plug-in on the Hyper-V Host

Ensure that you allocate enough disk space on the Hyper-V host for the logs folder and regularly monitor its usage. The required space depends on how often backups and data protection operations occur. If there isn't enough space, logs will not be generated.

NetApp ONTAP configuration requirements

A primary ONTAP system (ONTAP 9.14.1 or later)
For Hyper-V deployments using CIFS shares to store virtual machine data, ensure that the continuous availability share property is enabled on the ONTAP system. Refer to the ONTAP documentation for instructions.