To specify how you want to back up your data, create a backup plan.

Prerequisites

Configure storage.

Start the Create Backup Plan Wizard

1. From the Command Center navigation pane, go to Manage > Plans.

   The Plans page appears.

2. Click Create plan, and then select Backup.

   The Create backup plan page appears.

General

1. Choose whether to create a new backup plan or to use an existing base plan.

2. If you selected Create a new plan, in Plan name, enter a name for the backup plan.

3. If you selected Use existing base plan, enter a name for the backup plan and select a base plan.

Backup Destinations

1. Click Add copy.

   The Add copy dialog box appears.

2. In Name, enter a name for the backup destination.

3. From the Storage list, select the storage to use for the backups.

   You can use the Air Gap Protect cool storage class for creating secondary copies, but not for creating primary copies.

4. To specify the start time for backups on a specific date and later, move the Backups On and After toggle key to the right.

5. For Retention rules, enter the amount of time to retain the backups.

6. To specify additional backups, such as weekly full backups, move the Extended retention rules toggle key to the right, and then add rules.

7. Click Save.

   Once you have added a storage copy, you can also add a snapshot copy.

8. To add a snapshot copy, do the following:

   1. Click Add Snap copy.

      The Add snapshot copy dialog box appears.

   2. In Name, enter a name for the backup destination.

   3. From the Storage list, select the storage to use for the snapshot backups.

   4. For Retention rules, choose one of the following methods of retention of snapshots.

      • Retention period: This is the default method of retention. Use this method if you want to specify retention based on a time period.

        Note

        To set the snapshot copy as a spool copy, set the Retention period to 0 days.

      • Number of snap recovery points: Use this method to set base retention on a number of snapshot recovery points.

   5. To specify additional backups, such as weekly full backups, move the Extended retention rules toggle key to the right, and then add rules.

   6. Click Save.

9. To add additional regions to the backup destination, move the Multi-region toggle key to the right, and then select the regions.

   You can also add more regions and associate the storage copy to the region.

Recovery Point Objective

Backup schedule dates and times that you select in this section are applied to the time zones of the servers that are associated with the backup plan. In other words, backup jobs for different servers located in different time zones run at the same time but according to different time zones. However, you can change the time zone to suit your requirements. For example, you can change the time zone to match the CommServe time zone so that all associated servers (even in different time zones) are backed up at the same time according to the CommServe time zone.

A default incremental backup is scheduled everyday at 9 PM for all agents. You can add additional backup schedules. For example, you can an additional backup schedule only for databases.

Or, you can choose to delete the default incremental backup schedule. Backup plans that have associated backup schedules can be used for on-demand backups.

1. For Backup frequency, click Add.

   The Add backup frequency dialog box appears.

   1. From the Backup type list, select the backup type, and from the for list, select All agents or Databases.

   2. Specify the frequency of the backup.

   3. To specify the client time zone, full backup database frequency, or to add exceptions, move the Advanced toggle key to the right, and do the following:

      • From the time zone list, select the time zone according to which the backups must run.

      • If you select incremental or differential backup type for all agents or databases, to modify the full backup frequency of the database, specify a value for Run full backup on databases every option.

      • To add exceptions when the backups must not run, click Exceptions, and then add exceptions for any day of a month or week or schedule an exception for any week of the month.

        Exceptions repeat every week or month according to the selected exception.

      Note

      To repeat the backup job for daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly backup frequency, move the Repeat Every toggle key to the right and modify the time frequency.

2. To modify the transaction log frequency, or enable disk cache for log backups, in the Run transaction log for databases field, click Edit .

   • For Transaction log, specify how often to run log backups.

   • To automatically back up the database logs to the MediaAgent cache, move the Advance toggle key to the right and do the following:

     1. Move the Use disk cache for log backups toggle key to the right.

     2. For Commit every, enter how often to commit the logs to the CommServe computer.

     Disk caching of database logs applies to the following databases: Informix, Microsoft SQL Server on Windows, Oracle, Oracle RAC, PostgreSQL and SAP HANA

     Note

     • The database schedules are available only if the backup plan is applicable to database solution and only one transaction log schedule can be added to that specific backup plan.

     • Full schedules apply to database backups. For other agents, each backup job will back up only the new and modified items and create a full recovery image. Therefore, running repeated full backup is not required.

3. For Backup window (if incremental and differential backups are supported for the workload), specify when you want incremental and differential backups to run.

4. For Full backup window, specify when you want full backups to run.

Snapshot Options

1. Under Snapshot Options, do the following:

   If you don't want to create backup copies, move the Enable backup copy toggle key to the left to turn it off.

   1. In the Backup copy RPO, specify how often to run the backup copy jobs.

   2. In the Perform this action when the backup copy falls behind, select any of the following options to perform on the snapshot jobs when your backup falls behind:

      • Backup copy all snapshots that meet the retention criteria of the snap copy: If you select this option, snapshot jobs that meet the retention criteria set on the respective snapshot copy will only be picked for the backup copy job. Rest of the jobs will be marked as Unpicked.

      • Backup copy all snapshots on snap copy: If you select this option, all snapshot jobs will be backup copied irrespective of their age. You can manually unpick the snapshots that are not needed for backup copy.

      Note

      The fallen behind options apply only to NAS file servers.

   3. By default, the Backup copy fallen behind alert is enabled and set to 48 hours. If you don't want to get the alert, you can choose to disable it. You can also update the number of hours.

Results

When you configure secondary storage, the Commvault software automatically runs an auxiliary copy job every 30 minutes.

What to Do Next

You can assign the backup plan to CommCell entities such as apps, databases, and VM groups.

Video: Create a Backup Plan

To view instructions for creating a backup plan, see the following video.