VMware Backup Plan in Backup Agent (New Backup Format)

Backup Agent virtual edition supports vSphere ESXi virtual machine backup and restore.

The following requirements apply to vSphere ESXi:

This chapter cover the following topics:

• Create Backup Plan
• Edit Backup Plan
• Delete Backup Plan.

VMware Backup Plan in Backup Agent (New Backup Format)

Backup Agent virtual edition supports vSphere ESXi virtual machine backup and restore.

The following requirements apply to vSphere ESXi:

Step 1

To create a new VMware backup plan , click the VMware icon in the horizontal menu bar. To create a plan in the new backup format, select VMware Backup. To continue using the current backup format, select VMware Backup (Legacy).

The Backup Wizard starts.

Step 2.

You will then be prompted with a list of available backup types.

Step 3

The next step will prompt you to select the destination for the backup.

If the desired destination is not in the list, you can click “Add new Storage Account” to add it.

Step 4

Next, you will be prompted to name the plan.

Step 5

The next step will give you a list of available Advanced Options. It is recommended to leave these in their default configuration.

The following options are available:

• Use synthetic full backup. Select this option for cloud storages to enable the synthetic full backup usage for the backup plan. If a long-term storage class is selected as the bsckup destination, this will result in high storage costs.

Additional Advanced Options for Amazon S3

1. If your backup storage destination is Amazon S3, select the S3 storage class for the backup plan:

• Standard
• Intelligent-Tiering
• Standard-IA
• One Zone-IA
• Glacier Instant Retrieval
• Glacier Flexible Retrieval (formerly S3 Glacier)
• Glacier Deep Archive

Usage of different storage classes for different backups is the subject of optimizing your storage costs.

2. Select Use S3 Transfer Acceleration to accelerate file transfer for an extra fee. The target bucket must have this feature enabled. Select this checkbox if you want to use the data transfer acceleration service provided by Amazon. To learn more, refer to the Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration.

Additional Advanced Options 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.

Step 6

Connect to the vCenter or ESXi by using the FQDN or IP address.

Step 7

Next, select the Virtual Machines you wish to back up.

• Back up all Virtual Machines: will backup all VMs regardless of current state. This is recommended only for small environments.
• Back up only running Virtual Machines: Only backs up VMs currently in “Running” status and is recommended for clustered environments where backup servers planned for failover procedures are not required to be selected.
• Backup up selected Virtual Machines: Allows you to backup a group of VMs by selecting them from the list below. This allows for greater control of mixed status VMs and for larger environments where it is beneficial to split the backup into multiple plans.

Step 8

Select the application processing mode. You can configure the Application processing options after the Select Virtual Machines step of the VMware 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.

• Try application processing. Backup will perform whether or not the application-concistent process fails. If the processing fails, the backup will be done “as is”, but data consistency is not guaranteed.
• Require successful application processing. Skip virtual the machine if processing fails. If processing is successful, it ensures that applications running in the VM, such as databases, are taken into consideration and the backup will ensure data consistency is maintained.
• Disable application processing. Backup virtual machine “as is” and does not perform any application processing. The VM is backed up in its current state, which may cause data inconsistencies.

Step 9

Once you have selected which VMs to backup, the application allows you to then choose whether to backup all virtual disks on the selected VMs or to only backup selected virtual disks.

Step 10

After you have selected which VMs and disks to backup, the next step is to set the compression or 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.

If you choose to save your backup plan configuration to the destination storage, be aware that the encryption password is not stored in the configuration file for security reasons. Ensure that you save this password securely, as it will be required to restore the backup's contents.

Step 11

Next you are able to choose whether or not to enable the Full Consistency Check.

Step 12

Specify the backup plan schedule settings.

The following options are available:

• Select the No schedule option to run the backup plan manually.
• Select the Simple (Forever Forward) option to apply the Forever Forward Incremental (FFI) schedule.
• Select the **Advanced (GFS, Object Lock) option to apply the recurring schedule and, if necessary, use Grandfather-Father-Son and Object Lock (Immutability).
• To set the time limit for plan execution, select the Stop the plan if it runs for checkbox, then specify the backup plan duration limit.
• To run the backup plan after the computer is on in case the backup plan run has been missed, select the Run missed scheduled backup immediately when computer starts up checkbox.

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

This schedule is unavailable if the selected storage account does not support synthetic full backups.

Advanced Schedule

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

The advanced schedule allows configuring a flexible schedule according to your requirements. To use this schedule you should add schedules for full and incremental backup runs:

• To create incremental backups by schedule, select the Recurring (Incremental) checkbox, then configure the schedule for incremental backups on a daily or monthly basis.
• To create full backups by schedule, select the Execute full backup (Synthetic full if possible) checkbox, then configure the schedule for full backups on a daily or monthly basis.

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

Clicking on Edit Schedule next to Incremental and Full backups allow you to configure the frequency they will be created. If both a Full and Incremental are scheduled for the same day, the application will perform the Full only.

Step 13

Specify the retention policy settings for the backup plan. The retention policy depends on the schedule selected on the previous step.

Retention Policy with Simple Schedule

If you selected the Simple (Forever Forward Incremental) schedule, the Retention Policy step offers the following settings:

• Keep backup for. Select this option to limit the number of restore points. 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 the backup storage).

• Intelligent Retention: Each time the backup plan is executed, the backup storage parameters are analyzed automatically, setting the retention period based on storage provider data deletion conditions. This feature is enabled by default.

Retention Policy with Advanced Schedule

If you selected the Advanced (GFS, Object Lock) schedule or to run backup manually without the schedule, the Retention Policy step offers the following settings:

• Do not purge (Keep backup forever). Select this option to keep all your backup runs.
• Keep backup for. Select this option to limit the period while backup contents are kept in the backup storage, then specify the period.

To apply the GFS retention policy for the backup plan, select the Enable GFS checkbox, then customize the GFS retention policy by enabling the required keeping periods (weekly, monthly and yearly purge delays).

If backup data is required to be locked, enable the Object Lock (Immutability) checkbox. Before enabling Object Lock, you need to allow this feature for the backup destination.

Step 14

Customize actions before and/or after the backup plan run.

Custom Scripts

You can execute custom scripts before or after running the backup plan.

• To specify the script execution before the backup plan starts, select the Pre-backup action check box, then specify the path to the script in the field below. To open a standard Windows dialog box, click the ... button
• Select the pre-backup script execution options:
  • Exit backup plan if pre-backup action failed. Select this option to cancel the backup plan in case the specified script fails
  • Continue backup plan if pre-backup action failed. Select this option to run the backup plan regardless of the specified script execution results
• To specify the script execution after the backup plan terminates, select the Post-backup action check box, then specify the path to the script in the field below. To open a standard Windows dialog box, click the ... button
• Select the post-backup script execution options:
  • Execute post-backup action only if backup plan has been successfully completed. Select this option to execute the post-backup script only in case of a backup plan success
  • Execute post-backup action regardless of the backup result. Select this option to execute the post-backup script in any case

c:\scripts\prebackup-script.bat

cmd.exe /F:ON

cmd.exe /F:ON /C

PowerShell.exe Start-Process cmd.exe exit

Backup Plan Chains

In case you need to run another backup or restore plan once the backup plan is finished, use the Backup Chain feature. To create a backup chain, select the Backup chain check box, then select a backup or restore plan to be chained.

• Execute the specified backup plan only if backup plan has been successfully completed. Select this option to execute the chained backup plan only in case of a backup plan success
• Execute the specified backup plan regardless of the backup result. Select this option to execute the chained backup plan in any case
• In case you chained a backup plan, you can enable the full backup for it regardless of the contents in the backup storage. To do this, select the Force full backup for the chained plan.

Step 15

Specify notification settings.

• To receive the notification after the backup plan completion, select the I want to receive notification email when backup completes check box.
  • Select When backup fails option if you want to receive the notification message only in case of the backup plan failure
  • Select In all cases option if you want to receive the notification message in any case.
• In the fields Username, Email, Email subject specify the notification email details. You can specify one or more email recipients. Separate them by semicolon or comma, the recipient name (one for all of them). The email subject can also contain any of the following variables:
• %COMPUTER_NAME% Indicates the name of a computer on which the routine was running
• %RESULT% Indicates whether the routine was finished successfully or failed

• %PLAN_NAME% Indicates the backup plan's name.
• If you want to use own SMTP server for notification emails, select the I want to use my SMTP server for email notifications check box, then specify the settings for the SMTP server
• If you want the backup plan record to be added to Windows Event Log, select on Add entry to Windows Event Log when backup completes check box
  • Select When backup fails option if you want to receive the notification message only 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.

Step 16

Check a summary of the selected options.

Step 17

The final step of the wizard will confirm that the Backup Plan was successfully created. If you select the “Run backup now” box, the application will initiate it immediately upon exiting the wizard, otherwise it will run at the next scheduled time.

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Edit a Backup Plan

To edit the backup plan, proceed as follows:

1. Switch to the Backup Plans tab.
2. Open the backup plan you want to edit by expanding it, then click Edit.
3. Proceed through the Backup Wizard steps to adjust settings as needed.
4. If the plan is currently running, you'll need to select one of the following options:
   • Apply changes after the backup plan completes
   • Stop the plan and apply changes.
5. After choosing the desired option for the running backup plan, click Apply.
6. Save the edited plan configuration.

Delete a Backup Plan

To delete the backup plan, proceed as follows:

1. Switch to the Backup Plans tab.
2. Open the plan to delete, expand it, then click Delete.
3. Confirm the backup plan deletion.

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