NetWorker backwards compatibility with the VMware Backup appliance

When you install or upgrade to NetWorker 9.1, EMC recommends migrating VMware Backup appliance policies and workflows to the vProxy appliance and using the vProxy appliance only.

You may, however, still require the VMware Backup appliance, for example, when you want to recover from VMware Backup appliance backups that have not expired.
If you plan to continue using the VMware Backup appliance, make note of the following:

• NetWorker 9.1 requires the same version of the VMware Backup appliance as NetWorker 9.0.1 after upgrading from earlier NetWorker releases, which is 1.5.1.7. If you are upgrading from NetWorker 9.0.1, you do not need to upgrade the VMware Backup appliance version. If you are upgrading from an earlier release, for example, from NetWorker 8.2.3 with version 1.1.3.7, you will need to upgrade to the VMware Backup appliance version 1.5.1.7 after upgrading the NetWorker server to 9.1.
• If performing a new installation of NetWorker 9.1, you can only deploy vProxy appliances and therefore do not need to deploy a VMware Backup appliance.
• You cannot recover to the vProxy appliance from a policy run with the VMware Backup appliance. These backups must be recovered with the VMware Backup appliance.
• You cannot create new policies with the VMware Backup appliance. You can only run or edit existing policies.
• You cannot run policies with VMware Backup appliance internal storage.

After migrating VMware Backup appliance policies to the vProxy appliance, you can no longer use the EMC Backup and Recovery plug-in in the vSphere Web Client for operations related to these policies, including monitoring and image-level recovery. After a policy has been migrated to the vProxy appliance it is no longer accessible from the VMware Backup Appliance, and you must manage the data as a native NetWorker vProxy policy from NMC. Additionally, for file-level recovery in the EMC Data Protection Restore Client, you must use vProxy appliance backups after migrating.