# Performing an Application-Aware Backup

Perform a backup from the VM group for the VM that hosts an application.

Note

Perform full or incremental backups for VM groups (subclients) that are configured for application-aware backups. Synthetic full backups are not supported. Scheduled synthetic full backups are converted automatically to full backups for VM groups and subclients that are configured for application-aware backups.

An application-aware backup includes two backup operations:

- The virtual machine is backed up.

- The VSA backup automatically triggers a backup of the application using IntelliSnap. The application backup is always a full backup, regardless of the backup type chosen for the VM.

## Before You Begin

- Review the requirements for application-aware backups.

- The VM group must be configured for application-aware backup, and must use a backup plan that creates one or more snap recovery points.

- In a firewalled environment with restricted network settings or where WMI ports are not open, see Remote Installation Requirements for Application-Aware Backups to enable remote installations during application-aware backups.

- To include virtual machines that were previously configured for application backup using an application agent such as the SQL Server agent, see Reconfiguration for VMs That Already Use Application Agents.

Important

Do not filter virtual machine disks. If a virtual machine disk is filtered, the VSA backup job completes with errors and the application backup job fails. You will not be able to restore application data.

Notes

- If remote installation fails for any virtual machines during the initial backup, the VSA backup job status shows as "Completed with errors." For any virtual machines that already had an application agent installed, application-aware backups and restores can still be performed.

- If the first application-aware backup installs a plug-in for Oracle for Windows, the backup fails. Restart Oracle services on the virtual machine where Oracle is running after the application-aware workflow completes, and then retry the backup.

- After a SharePoint plug-in is installed as part of an application-aware backup, set SharePoint Timer service account information in the SharePoint server properties.

## Performing the Backup

Perform the backup from the VM group that has been configured for application-aware backups using the standard backup procedure.

Backups use the default proxy for the hypervisor. Streaming backups can take advantage of multiple proxies for load balancing or failover. All proxies that are available for the operation must meet the requirements for application-aware backups.

During the backup, you can see the following jobs for the application-aware backup operations:

- A job for the Virtual Server backup.

- A job for VSAAppAwareBackupWorkflow.

- IntelliSnap backup jobs for each application.

To restore application databases, see Restore Operations from Application-Aware Backups.

## Result

- For a VM that runs an Active Directory domain controller, the application-aware backup creates a server entry with the same name as the VM under Manage > Infrastructure > Servers.

- For a VM that runs Microsoft Exchange, the application-aware backup creates an entry for the Exchange database under Protect > Kubernetes > Applications > Exchange.

- For a VM that runs SQL Server, the application-aware backup creates entries for the SQL Server instance and databases under Protect > Databases (from the View list, choose SQL Server).

- For a VM that runs Oracle, the application-aware backup creates entries for the Oracle instance and databases under Protect > Databases (from the View list, choose Oracle).

- For a VM that runs a SQL Server database that supports SharePoint, the application-aware backup creates entries for the SQL Server instance and databases under Protect > Kubernetes > Applications > SharePoint.

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