Managing Backups Based on Snapshot Retention

Applies to: Virtual Server Agent with Microsoft Azure, VMware, and NAS subclients

Manage your snapshots and backups, each with its schedule and retention rule. The application creates and retains snapshots based on retention rules specified for the snapshot copy (snap primary copy). Backups are performed and retained based on retention rules specified for the backup copy.

When a snapshot does not back up due to storage media or network failure, the snapshot may not get pruned and could result in a backlog of later snapshots. This could use more space on your storage array. To overcome the snapshot fallen behind scenarios and efficiently manage backups, Commvault recommends that you backup only latest snapshot job.

Running Backup Only for Latest Snapshot Job

This method runs a backup operation on the recent full and only the most recent incremental snapshot job of the subclient. If you have retention set for primary snapshot copies, then the application retains a specified number of snapshots and backs up only the recent snapshot job. The application does not consider remaining snapshot jobs for the backup and will prune them based on retention criteria. You cannot re-pick these jobs for backup.

To use this capability, do the following:

• Configure the backupCopyOnlyLatestSnapJob additional setting at the CommCell level and set the value to TRUE. For information on how to configure an additional setting, see Adding an Additional Setting from the CommCell Console.

• Configure the backupCopyOnlyLatestSnapJob additional setting at the client or client group level in your CommCell environment. For information on how to configure an additional setting, see Adding an Additional Setting from the CommCell Console.