You can configure a server plan to create auxiliary copies for application-aware backups. If the primary copy is not available during a restore operation, the application data can be recovered from an auxiliary copy. By using this feature, you can restore data that has been copied to long term disk storage media.
Without this feature, you must restore application data from the primary copy associated with the server plan.
Backup Copy Support
Backup copy operations for application-aware backups are supported for the following applications:
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Microsoft Exchange (for database restores only)
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Microsoft SQL Server
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Oracle database for Windows or Linux
Note
Granular recovery for Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint is not supported for auxiliary copies, and must be performed from the primary copy associated with the server plan.
How Job Data Is Managed for Application-Aware Backup Copies
An application-aware backup is actually two jobs:
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The first job is the backup job submitted for a VM group that was configured for application-aware backups. The VSA backup can be a streaming backup or an IntelliSnap backup.
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The second job is an IntelliSnap backup for the application data. This job is triggered automatically by the VSA backup.
Both the VSA job and the associated application job must be available when restoring data for an application. The point-in-time snapshot created by the application backup is part of the data that is stored for the VSA backup job.
When backup copy operations are configured for application-aware backups, the backup copy job automatically moves application jobs with the associated VSA jobs, so that all of the information needed to perform restores is available from the auxiliary copy.
If either the VSA job or the application job is picked to be included with a backup copy operation, the associated job will also be moved to the auxiliary copy media.
The backup copy operation first moves VSA job data. If the VSA backup copy completes successfully, the backup copy continues by moving application job data.
Backup Copy Process
The backup copy operation performs the following actions:
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Launches the VSAApplicationBackupCopy process on the MediaAgent associated with the server plan.
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The VSAApplicationBackupCopy process clones the snapshot entries and copies index entries for the application backup from the primary copy to the auxiliary copy.