Commvault Simpana 10 supports VMware vSphere 5.5 – Updated

Update January 3rd 2014:

• Commvault 10 SP5 is required when using VMware vSphere 5.5!
• VDDK 5.5 is required for vSphere 5.5 support. VDDK 5.5 is installed automatically with SP5 or higher. Customers can also update the VDDK to Version 5.5 manually. This is a supported process for V10 only. Do not place the VDDK files in the VDDK installation in the CommVault base directory.
• Full information on vSphere 5.5 support is available here.

Original article:

I’ve just received an update from my colleague Martijn Moret of www.dataprotection.nu about Commvault support for VMware vSphere 5.5. According to Commvault Books Online, Simpana 10 supports vSphere 5.x inluding 5.5 after manually updating the VDDK (Virtual Disk Development Kit) to version 5.5:

The following requirements are for the Virtual Server iDataAgent:

VMware ESX Server

VMware ESX / ESXi 4.x, 5.x

Before configuring backup of any ESXi servers, ensure that the VADP is not available in the free version of ESXi. It requires the Essentials licensing level or higher.

VMware vSphere 5.5 will be supported when Version 5.5 of the VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK) is provided as an update with the Virtual Server iDataAgent. Customers upgrading to vSphere 5.5 prior to this can update the VDDK to Version 5.5 manually. This is a supported process for V10 only. Do not place the VDDK files in the VDDK installation in the CommVault base directory. For VDDK 5.5, 32-bit libraries and binaries are no longer supported.

The procedure to manually update the VDDK to 5.5 is available on this page. More information on the VDDK 5.5 is available on this page, the VDDK itself is available as a download through my.vmware.com.

At this point I think Commvault is to first to support vSphere 5.5 for vSphere integrated backups. Note that this announcements only counts for version 10 of Simpana.

Kudos to Martijn for spotting this news!

Also read: Upgrading to VMware vSphere 5.5? Always check interoperability!