Hyper-V Backup Plan

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Create Hyper-V Backup Plan
  • Welcome
  • Where to Back Up
  • What to Back Up
  • Application Processing Options
  • Advanced Settings
  • Select Virtual Disks
  • Compression and Encryption Options
  • Full Consistency Check
  • Schedule Options
  • Retention Policy
  • Pre/Post Actions
  • Notifications
• Run Backup Plan
• Force Full Backup
• Edit Backup Plan
• Clone Backup Plan
• Delete Backup Plan

Create Hyper-V Backup Plan

Backup plans can be created from scratch or using a backup template.

Create a Backup Plan from Scratch

This feature requires the VM Server license.

1. Open the Management Console.
2. Open Backup > Computers.
3. Find the required computer, then click the Configure icon in the Backup Plan Status column.
4. On the side panel, click + or +Add New Plan, then select the Hyper-V Backup Plan item.

Welcome

Name the backup plan.

Click Next.

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Where to Back Up

Select the target backup storage for the backup plan. If no storage accounts are available, create a new one. Refer to Add New Storage Account to learn how to do it.

Click Next.

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What to Back Up

Configure the backup dataset for the plan and select the virtual machines to back up.

The following options are available:

• Back up all virtual machines. Select this option to include all virtual machines of the Hyper-V server in the backup plan
• Back up only running virtual machines. Select this option to include running virtual machines of the Hyper-V server to the backup plan
• Back up selected virtual machines. Select virtual machines to include in the backup plan manually

Click Next.

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Configure Application-Consistent Backups (BETA)

You can configure the Application processing options after the Select Virtual Machines step of the Hyper-V backup wizard. These options can be configured separately for each virtual machine.

By default, the Try application processing setting is set. you can change it, if necessary.

The following options are available:

• Try application processing. Back up virtual machines 'as is' if failed. Once this option is selected, virtual machines are backed up one by one. The state of applications running on virtual machines is checked, then a recovery consistent checkpoint is made and an application-consistent backup is performed. In case an recovery consistent checkpoint cannot be not made for some reason, this virtual machine will be backed up 'as is'.
• Require successful application processing. Skip virtual machines if failed. Once this option is selected, virtual machines with applications that did not flush pending I/O operations from memory to disks, are skipped and an appropriate warning is displayed for a user.
• Disable application processing. Back up virtual machines 'as is'. Once this option is selected, regular VM snapshots are done without quiescing.

Click Next.

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Advanced Settings

By default advanced settings are skipped for the backup plan. You should enable them, if necessary (not recommended).

Enable the Changed Block Tracking for Hyper-V backup. To do this, select the Use Changed Block Tracking checkbox.

Additional Advanced Settings for Amazon S3

If your backup destination is Amazon S3, the following custom options are available in this step.

• Use S3 Transfer Acceleration. Use this option to accelerate file transfer for an extra fee. The target bucket must have this feature enabled
• Select the S3 storage class for the backup plan:
  • Standard
  • Intelligent-Tiering
  • Standard-IA
  • One Zone-IA
  • Glacier Instant Retrieval
  • Glacier Flexible Retrieval
  • Glacier Deep Archive

Using different storage classes for different backup purposes helps you to optimize the storage costs.

Additional Advanced Settings for Microsoft Azure

If your backup storage destination is Microsoft Azure, and you have the General Purpose v2 Azure account, select the required storage class (access tier).

The following options are available:

• Hot tier. An online tier optimized for storing data that is accessed or modified frequently. The hot tier has the highest storage costs, but the lowest access costs.
• Cool tier. An online tier optimized for storing data that is infrequently accessed or modified. Data in the cool tier should be stored for a minimum of 30 days. The cool tier has lower storage costs and higher access costs compared to the hot tier.
• Cold tier.An online tier optimized for storing data that is rarely accessed or modified, but still requires fast retrieval. Data in the cold tier should be stored for a minimum of 90 days. The cold tier has lower storage costs and higher access costs compared to the cool tier.
• Archive tier. An offline tier optimized for storing data that is rarely accessed, and that has flexible latency requirements, on the order of hours. Data in the archive tier should be stored for a minimum of 180 days.

To learn more about the difference between Azure storage tiers, refer to the Azure Blob Storage - Hot, cool,cold, and archive storage tiers article at docs.microsoft.com.

Click Next.

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Select Virtual Disks

Select virtual disks to include in the backup plan. You can include all VM disks into the backup plan or select specific ones.

Selected NTFS disks can be expanded to exclude some files or folders from backup. In case the disk cannot be listed, the content cannot be viewed and such disk can be excluded from backup as a whole.

Click Next.

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Compression and Encryption Options

Compression

Managed Backup offers compression to reduce the storage space required for your backup and to speed up the upload process to the target storage.

Encryption

You can protect your backup by encrypting its contents. Managed Backup supports AES encryption with key sizes of 128, 192, and 256 bits. A larger key size provides stronger encryption but may increase the time required for processing your backup. For more details on AES encryption, refer to the Advanced Encryption Standard.

To protect your backup contents with encryption, select the Enable encryption checkbox. Application supports AES encryption of 128, 192 and 256 bit key length. Select the appropriate key length in the Algorithm drop-down menu

• Specify the encryption password in the Password field, then confirm the password in the Confirm field. Mind to keep the encryption password in a safe place. Pay attention, if Password Recovery Service is not enabled in the Management Console, then if the encryption password is lost or forgotten, the encrypted backup cannot be restored. Password recovery Service requires the Two-factor Authentication (2FA) enabled.
• In the Hint field, specify some information that could help to recall the password in case you forget it.

Click Next.

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Backup Consistency Check

Enable or skip the full consistency check. A mandatory consistency check will be completed with every backup plan run regardless of this setting.

Click Next.

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Schedule Options

Specify the backup plan schedule settings.

Schedule Options: Backup Agent v 8.0 and higher for Windows

The following options are available:

• Select the Simple option to apply the Forever Forward Incremental (FFI) schedule.
• Select the Advanced option to apply the recurring schedule and, if necessary, use Grandfather-Father-Son and Object Lock (Immutability).
• Select the No schedule, run manually option to run the backup plan manually. Retention policy will not work for this option.

Simple Schedule

Select the Simple (Forever Forward) option to use the Forever Forward Incremental (FFI). This schedule offers one full backup followed by a limited number of incrementals. Once the limit is exceeded, a new full backup is created using in-cloud copying (synthetic full backup.

Once you select this option, the predefined schedule will appear. You can edit this schedule, if necessary. You can select the Daily or Monthly schedule type, depending on how often the incremental backups will be performed.

Use the Additional Settings to configure the following:

• First backup start date
• Stop condition for the long backup
• Overdue alert condition
• Missed backup handling

Advanced Schedule

Select the Advanced option to set up a flexible, recurring schedule with generations. Every generation contains one full backup followed by incrementals.

Once you select this option, the predefined schedule for full and incremental backup will appear. You can edit this schedule, if necessary.

The advanced schedule allows you to configure a flexible backup plan according to your requirements. To modify the schedule, use the edit icon next to the selected schedule. If needed, you can disable the incremental backup schedule to run only full backups.

You can select the Daily or Monthly schedule type, depending on how often the incremental backups will be performed.

Use the Additional Settings to configure the following:

• First backup start date
• Stop condition for the long backup
• Overdue alert condition
• Missed backup handling

Click Next.

Schedule Options: Backup Agent v 7.9.7.0 and lower for Windows

The following schedule options are available:

• Select the No schedule option to run the backup plan manually
• Select the Forever Forward Incremental option to apply the Forever Forward Incremental (FFI) schedule, then specify the schedule parameters
• If you want the backup plan to run incremental backups on a constant periodic basis, select the Recurring (incremental) option, click Edit, then specify the settings for incremental backup plan runs
• If you want the backup plan to run full backups on a constant periodic basis, select the Execute full backup (synthetic full if possible) option, click Edit, then specify the settings for full backup plan runs
• To stop the backup plan in case if it continues suspiciously long, select the Stop the plan if it runs for... option, then specify the backup plan's maximum duration
• Select the Run Missed Scheduled Plan Immediately When Computer Starts Up option to run the plan that was not executed while the computer was down.

Recurring Schedule for Incremental Backups

You can set the periodic run intervals for incremental backups. Specify if the incremental backup plan runs on a daily or monthly basis, then specify the recurrence parameters and start time. Click Save. It is recommended to set the periodic run intervals for full backups as described below, it is not recommended to use incrementals only. You can check your settings at the bottom of the step page.

Recurring Schedule for Full Backups

You can set the periodic run intervals for full backups. Specify if the full backup plan runs on a daily or monthly basis, then specify the recurrence parameters and start time. Click Save. You can check your settings at the bottom of the step page. In case you want to enable GFS on the next step, you should configure a full backup runs accordingly.

Schedule for Forever Forward Incremental Backup

Refer to Forever Forward Incremental chapter for details.

Click Next.

Retention Policy, Intelligent Retention, GFS, and Object Lock (Immutability)

Specify the retention settings for the backup plan.

The following options are available:

• Use default options specified for the whole product. Select this option to apply the default retention policy settings. You can see them below, but cannot edit if this option is selected
• Specify custom retention policy for backup plan. Select this option if you want to customize the retention policy settings for this backup plan
• Do Not Purge.
• Keep. Select this check box if you want to keep the last file version in backup storage regardless if it is deleted in a backup source

GFS Settings

To apply the GFS retention policy, select the Enable GFS check box, then specify the GFS retention settings.

Object Lock (Immutability)

Object Lock (Immutability) is linked to the GFS retention policy. If the Object Lock (Immutability) is applied along with GFS settings, full backups that are subject to the GFS retention policy become immutable for the GFS keeping period.

Select the Enable Immutabulity check box, then confirm the use of this feature.

Retention Policy with Forever Forward Incremental Schedule

If on the Schedule step you selected the Forever Forward Incremental schedule, the Retention Policy step has different settings.

The Keep backup for value defines the period Restore Points with the Forever Forward Incremental schedule are kept. If their retention period expires, these Restore Points are merged into a full backup (with Forever Forward Incremental only one full backup is kept on backup storage).

Enable the **Intelligent Retention option (highly recommended). Intelligent Retention is based on the following approach: each time the backup plan is executed, backup storage parameters are checked and the retention period for the full backup is set in such a way that it is kept on backup storage for the minimum period based on the storage provider data deletion conditions. Analysis of backup storage parameters is performed automatically, you do not need to do anything.

Click Next.

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Pre / Post Actions (optional)

Specify pre and post-actions for your backup plan. Usually, these are scripts that perform particular jobs before or after your data is backed up. The following settings are available:

• To specify the action that will be performed before the backup plan starts, select the Pre-backup action checkbox.
• Specify the path to the script to be run as a pre-backup action.
• Specify the conditions of pre-action run:
  • Select Do not run the backup plan if the pre-backup action fails option if you do not want the backup plan to be launched if the pre-backup action fails.
  • Select Run the backup plan if the pre-backup action fails option if you want the backup plan to launch regardless of the pre-backup action result.
• To specify the action that will be performed after the backup is completed, select the Post-backup action checkbox.
  • Select Execute the post-backup action only if the backup plan completes successfully option if you want to run it only if the backup was executed without any errors or warnings.
  • Select Execute the post-backup action regardless of the backup plan result option if you want the post-action to be launched regardless of the backup termination results.
• To chain the backup plan with another plan, select Backup chain checkbox, then select the backup or restore plan name in the drop-down menu.
  • Select Run the selected plan if this backup plan completes with success option if you want to run the specified plan only if the backup plan was executed without any errors or warnings.
  • Select Run the selected plan regardless of this backup plan completion result option if you want the chained backup plan to be launched regardless of the backup termination results. Select the mode for the current chained backup plan:
  • Force full backup. Full backup will be forced for the chained backup plan.
  • Use settings of the current backup plan. Chained backup plan will be run as full or incremental, according to this backup plan run.

Click Next.

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Notifications

Specify notification settings for backup plan results. You can use the company notification settings or customize them as needed. You can specify the required recipients and customize the notifications on different backup plan results:

• Success
• Warning
• Failed

You can configure a notification threshold for Managed Backup alerts, so that notifications are sent only after a specified number of consecutive plan failures

In case you select to customize notifications, select the recipients for different events.

• Select Send notifications to user account... if you want to notify the accosoated user about the backup process.
• Select If the backup plan fails or completes with warnings option if you want to receive the notification message in case of the backup plan failure
• Select In all cases option if you want the entry to be put in Windows Event Log in any case.

Click the Next, then click Save to finish the wizard.

Run Backup Plan

To Run the Existing Backup Plan:

1. Open Backup > Computers.
2. Find the required computer, then click the Configure icon in the Backup Plan Status column.
3. On the side panel, navigate to the Backup Plans (Beta) tab
4. Find the plan to run.
5. Click the Start button to run the backup plan. You can expand this control to use the following options:
   • Run Backup
   • Force Full Backup
   • Force Synthetic Full Backup

Force Full Backup

To Force Full Backup 1.1. Open Backup > Computers. 2. Find the required computer, then click the Configure icon in the Backup Plan Status column. 3. On the side panel, navigate to the Backup Plans (Beta) tab 4. Find the plan to force. 5. Expand the Start control and click Force Full Backup.

Edit Backup Plan

To Edit the Existing Backup Plan

1. Open Backup > Computers.
2. Find the required computer, then click the Configure icon in the Backup Plan Status column.
3. On the side panel, find the plan you want to edit, then click the edit icon.

5. Once you made the required changes, click Save.

Clone Backup Plan

To Clone the Existing Backup Plan

1. Open Backup > Computers.
2. Find the required computer, then click the Configure icon in the Backup Plan Status column.
3. On the side panel, find the plan you want to clone, then click the clone icon.

4. Specify the name of the plan clone.
5. Click Save.

Delete Backup Plan

To Delete the Existing Backup Plan

1. Open Backup > Computers.
2. Find the required computer, then click the Configure icon in the Backup Plan Status column.
3. On the side panel, find the plan you want to delete, then click the deletion icon.

4. In the dialog box, click OK to confirm the deletion.

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