PowerProtect Data Manager 19.16 Virtual Machine User Guide

Configure a primary backup objective

Primary backup objectives apply to all protection policy purposes except self-service and exclusion policies.

1. Click Add under Primary Backup.
   The Add Primary Backup dialog appears.
2. On the Target pane, specify the following fields:
   1. Storage Name—Select a backup destination from the list of protection storage, or select Add to add protection storage and complete the details in the Storage Target dialog.
   2. Storage Unit—Select whether this protection policy should use a New storage unit on the selected protection storage system, or select an existing storage unit from the list.

      Hover over a storage unit to view the full name and statistics for available capacity and total capacity, for example, testvmpolicy-daily-123ab (300 GB/1 TB).

      The Space field indicates the total amount of space, and the percentage of available space, on the protection storage system.

      When you select New, PowerProtect Data Manager creates a storage unit on the selected protection storage system upon policy completion. The storage unit name follows the format policy name-hostname-unique identifier.

      For example, testvmpolicy-daily-123cd.

   3. Network Interface—Select a network interface from the list, if applicable.
   4. Retention Lock—Move the Retention Lock slider to the right to activate retention locking for these backups.
      The retention lock mode setting comes from the configuration of the selected storage unit. When you activate retention locking, the Retention Lock Mode field displays the corresponding storage unit setting.

      Setting a retention lock applies to the current backup copy only, and does not impact the retention lock setting for existing backup copies.

   5. SLA—From the list, select an existing service level agreement that you want to apply to this objective, or select Add to create an SLA within the Add Backup Service Level Agreement wizard.
      The PowerProtect Data Manager Administrator Guide provides instructions.
3. On the Schedules pane, specify the following fields to schedule a synthetic full backup of this protection policy:
   1. Create a Synthetic Full backup every—Specify how often to create a synthetic full backup. A synthetic full backs up only the data that has changed since the last backup, to create a new, full backup.
   2. Retain for—Specify the retention period for the synthetic full backup.
      For database backups, PowerProtect Data Manager chains the dependent backups together. For example, the synthetic full backups are chained to their base full backup. The backups do not expire until the last backup in the chain expires. This ensures that all synthetic full backups are recoverable until they have all expired.
   3. Start and End—The activity window. Specify a time of day to start the synthetic full backup, and a time of day after which backups cannot be started.
   4. Click Save.
4. To periodically force a full (level 0) backup, click Add backup and then specify the following fields to schedule the full backup:
   NOTE:When you force a full backup, the backup chain resets.
   1. Create a Full backup every—Specify whether you want to create an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly full backup.
   2. Repeat on—Depending on the frequency of the full backup schedule, specify the hour of the day, day of the week, or the date of the month that the full backup will occur.
   3. Retain for—Specify the retention period for this full backup.
      This value can be the same value as the synthetic full backup schedule, or a different value.
   4. Start and End—The activity window. Specify a time of day to start the full backup, and a time of day after which backups cannot be started.
   5. Click Save.
5. Click Add Backup and repeat the procedure for creating full backups if you want to create additional backup copies at different intervals with different retention periods.
   Within this protection policy, when a full schedule conflicts with another full backup schedule, a message appears, indicating that there is a conflict. Schedule occurrences can conflict with each other when the activity windows are identical or occur entirely within the same time range. To avoid full schedule conflicts in a policy, edit the activity windows.

   If you proceed with conflicting schedules, the backup of the lower priority schedule will be skipped. Schedule priority is ranked according to the following criteria:

   • Full schedules have a higher priority than Synthetic Full schedules.
   • For schedules of the same backup type, the schedules that run less frequently have a higher priority than schedules that run more frequently.
   • For schedules with the same backup type and frequency, the schedule with the longest activity window has the higher priority. If the activity windows are also identical, only one of these schedules will run.

   When a schedule conflict between full backups occurs, PowerProtect Data Manager runs the full backup with the longest retention period.

6. To create a log backup for virtual machine application-aware protection policies, click Add Backup and then specify the following fields:
   1. Create a Log...—For application-aware protection policies, specify the interval in minutes for log generation.
      For SQL Server AAG configurations, the database administrator can specify the AAG backup preferences for a transaction log backup in the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.
   2. Retain For—Specify the retention period for the log backup. This value can be the same retention value that is specified for the synthetic full or full schedule, or a different value.
      CAUTION:If you set a shorter retention period for a log backup than for the corresponding full backup, data loss might occur and you might be unable to recover the point-in-time copies.
   3. Start and End—For the activity window, specify a time of day to start the log backup, and a time of day after which log backups cannot be started.
   4. Click Save.
7. Click Save to save the changes and return to the Objectives page.
   The Objectives page updates to display the name and location of the storage target under Primary Backup.