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SQL Application-Aware Backup Questions

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In Acronis Backup for VMware, do the application-aware SQL backups behave like 'Single-pass backup' in the documentation for Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5?
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ABR11.5/index.html#2…

The documentation for the SQL backup in Acronis Backup for VMware is a little sparse:
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/AVMP9/index.html#189…

How do the settings of the SQL database affect the backup and recovery by Acronis Backup for VMware? (specifically,what affect results from the recovery mode and the option to have SQL Server Backup used to backup log files?)

Is there a best practice for backing up SQL databases on a VM with Acronis Backup for VMware?

Is there a way to recover SQL to any point in time with Acronis Backup for VMware?

Thanks.

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Posts: 22
Comments: 3800

Hi Mike,

The application-aware backup performed by Acronis Backup for VMware consists of the following stages:

1) The VMware Tools inside the backed up VM are contacted and several executable files are uploaded to %temp% folder (using standard VMware Tools API)
2) There is a GuestAgent.vbs script executed (through cscript) which performs the environment checks
3) There is an exchange_backup_agent.exe (the same .exe is used for all applications - not only Exchange) executed which performs the applications metadata collection - these files are stored in the same %temp% folder
4) The quiesced snapshot of the VM is initiated (through VMware) and quiescing is performed by VMware Snapshot Provider through Microsoft VSS
5) The data is read from the virtual disks
6) The SQL/Exchange transaction logs are truncated in case corresponding option was checked in the backup wizard
7) The snapshot is removed and the data from %temp% folder is cleaned up

The metadata includes the information about location of the SQL/Exchange databases, list of mailboxes (in case of Exchange), list of databases and their location inside the image. You can later on recover entire SQL databases with all linked logs - they are extracted from the backup by using the information from the metadata files.

Therefore the SQL database recovery model settings do not matter in the above-described scheme.

The single-pass backup from Acronis Backup 11.5 differs from the above described algorithm - the special Agent for SQL is required here and this agent provides more functionality (ability to back up transaction logs or separate databases for example + recover DBs to their original location) than Acronis Backup for VMware which can only perform SQL DBs extraction (but not recovery to existing SQL server).

Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis Virtualization Program Manager