Hyper-V 2012 with CommVault v11 and Intellisnap

Hello @commvault ,
1. The use of ODX is up to you. Enabled or not, this should not affect the backup process. If you find you have a problem with the backups when this is enabled, and not when it is off - please open a support ticket so we can review the logs and try to trace why the failure is occurring.

2. It is recommended to make sure you apply any available hotfixes to your clients when possible for your level of Service Pack/Feature Release. 
Please reference the following site: https://documentation.commvault.com/11.23/expert/136434_list_of_maintenance_releases_for_feature_release_1123.html 
where we publish hotfixes with associated features of CV that had bugs addressed. If for example you are on a lower FR level, you can select the correct version on the left navigation pane. Then you can search specifically for "Hyper-V" related issues that may have been patched.

3. Following this documentation: https://documentation.commvault.com/11.23/expert/34220_configuration_for_microsoft_hyper_v_intellisnap.html#configuring-backups-using-hardware-vss-provider-from-storage-vendor 
This says, "You can perform backups using the hardware VSS Provider offered by the storage vendor. Using a hardware VSS Provider can improve the performance of backup operations; for Hyper-V clusters, it reduces the amount of time that cluster shared volumes are caught in redirected-access mode."
And gives instructions how to change vss providers from the default Hyper-V VSS if you wish.

4. CV by design should automatically clean up the avhdx files after a VM backup, and if something were to go wrong, it should look for any cv generated snaps before the next backup runs. If this is something you are seeing a buildup of, especially when they are generated around your backup window, please open a support ticket so we can investigate.

5. This depends entirely on your environment and scenario. But the default options should suffice, and typically any additional setting that would be needed will be the result of what happens after you attempt your first backup. Again, if something were to go wrong, please let us know so we can assist.

6. No, the Integration Tools are not required if you are just doing Crash Consistent backups.

7. There is one that's very important, and an issue we run into a lot. If you are going to configure backup copies in a 2016+ host/cluster, please make sure: "Proxy host designated for the backup copy operations cannot be a member of the cluster nodes where the source VM resides." 
https://documentation.commvault.com/11.23/expert/34347_backup_copy_operations_for_microsoft_hyper_v.html 
Otherwise the snap image will not be able to mount correctly, and your backup copies will fail.

Regards,
Ben C