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PowerProtect Data Manager 19.16 Virtual Machine User Guide

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Protection policy best practices

Before you create a protection policy, note the following best practices:

  • In the Protection Policies window, you can export protection policy data by using the Export All functionality.

Data movers

For virtual machine protection policies, data is moved using one of two types of protection mechanisms:

  • Transparent Snapshots Data Mover—Transparent Snapshots Data Mover (TSDM) can be used for crash-consistent virtual machine policies and SQL application-aware policies, and is the default protection mechanism that is used for crash-consistent policies when the following requirements are met:
    • vCenter and ESXi version 7.0 U3c or later is deployed in the environment.
    • The Exclude swap files from backup and Enable guest file system quiescing checkboxes are cleared when adding or editing the protection policy.
  • VADP—VMware vSphere Storage APIs – Data Protection (VADP) is the default protection mechanism that is used for application-aware virtual machine policies, and is used for crash-consistent policies that do not meet the TSDM requirements.

Understanding backup terminology and managing backup frequency

When scheduling backups in a protection policy, be aware of the following:

  • Different protection-policy types can use different terminology to describe available backup levels. This terminology can differ not only between protection-policy types, but also from traditional terminology.
  • To avoid high CPU usage that can lead to failure issues, do not schedule backups more often than recommended.

To understand the different backup levels to manage backup frequencies, see the following table.

Table 1. Backup terminology and frequencyVirtual machine backup terminology and frequency
Protection-policy types Available backup levels Description Equivalent traditional terminology Recommended minimum backup interval
VMware application-aware Full Backs up all the blocks. Full Monthly
Synthetic Full Backs up only the blocks that have changed since the last synthetic-full or full backup, and then performs an operation to merge those changes with the last synthetic-full or full backup in order to produce a full backup in storage. Only the changed blocks are actually copied over the network, but the result is still a full backup in storage. A differential backup is performed, followed by a merge operation that produces a full backup in storage. 12 hours
Log Backs up the transaction logs.   30 minutes
VMware crash-consistent Full Backs up all the blocks. Full Monthly
Synthetic Full Backs up only the blocks that have changed since the last synthetic-full or full backup, and then performs an operation to merge those changes with the last synthetic-full or full backup in order to produce a full backup in storage. Only the changed blocks are actually copied over the network, but the result is still a full backup in storage. A differential backup is performed, followed by a merge operation that produces a full backup in storage. 12 hours
NOTE:In some situations, a full backup might be performed even though a synthetic-full backup was scheduled. Possible reasons for a full backup include the following:
  • There is no existing full backup.
  • The size of a volume has changed.
  • There has been a file path change.
  • The asset host has been rebooted.

The backup frequency of log, differential, incremental-cumulative, incremental-differential, and incremental backups cannot be greater than the backup frequency of either full or synthetic-full backups. If you attempt to add or edit a protection policy that uses an invalid backup frequency, PowerProtect Data Manager prevents you from saving the protection policy. You can increase the backup frequency of a protection policy by scheduling more full or synthetic-full backups with different retention times to meet your requirements.

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