Add a protection policy for self-service
File System protection
With self-service protection, the agent or host controls the primary backup process and
PowerProtect Data Manager manages other aspects of the protection process. The process of adding a protection policy is similar for all policy types. However, these instructions contain only elements and options that appear when you select the self-service protection policy type.
In the
Type page, specify the new protection policies group fields. For example, if you are creating a protection policy for daily backups in the Windows server:
In the
Name field, specify the name of the protection policy. For example,
File System Prod.
In the
Description field, specify a short description of the protection policy. For example,
File System Prod Daily Backups
In the
Type field, select
File System.
Click
Next.
The
Purpose page appears.
To create local backup protection, click
Self-Service Protection.
Click
Next.
The
Assets page appears.
Select the unprotected assets that you want to add to the backup of this protection policy group. The window enables you to filter by asset name to locate the required assets.
You can use
to switch between a list view of all assets discovered by
PowerProtect Data Manager and a hierarchical view to display the assets in a tree structure underneath each host. A hierarchical view can be helpful if you have added multiple file systems and need to more easily identify which assets belong to which host.
On the
Objectives page, select a policy-level Service Level Agreement (SLA) from the
Set Policy Level SLA list, or select
Add to open the
Add Service Level Agreement wizard and create a policy-level SLA.
The
PowerProtect Data Manager Administration and User Guide provides instructions.
Click
Add under
Primary Retention.
The
Add Primary Retention dialog appears.
In the
Retentions (Self Service) pane, specify the retention period.
By default, all backup types have the same retention period. Changing the retention periods for specific backup types requires
File System agent 19.9 or later. To change the retention periods for specific backup types, clear
Set the same retention time for all backup types and change the
Retain
<backup_type> For field values as required.
When a different retention time for all backup types is set, you can create additional full backup patterns with different retention times. For example, you can add a full backup pattern
Retain full backups created every week on the Monday and Tuesday for 2 months.
Self-service retentions created with older versions of the
File System agent continue to use the same retention period for full and synthetic full backups.
On the
Target pane of the
Add Primary Retention dialog, specify the following fields:
Storage Name—Select a backup destination from the list of existing
protection storage systems, or select
Add to add
protection storage and complete the details in the
Storage Target window.
NOTE: The
Space field indicates the total amount of space, and the percentage of available space, on the
protection storage system.
Storage Unit—Select
New if this protection policy should use a new storage unit on the selected
protection storage system, or select an existing storage unit from the list. Hover over a storage unit to view the full name and statistics for available capacity and total capacity, for example,
testvmpolicy-ppdm-daily-123ab (300 GB/1 TB)
When you select
New, a new storage unit in the format
policy namehost nameunique identifier is created at policy completion. For example,
testvmpolicy-ppdm-daily-123cd.
Network Interface—Select a network interface from the list, if applicable.
Retention Lock—Move the
Retention Lock slider to the right to enable retention locking for these backups.
The retention lock mode setting comes from the configuration of the selected storage unit. When you enable retention locking, the
Retention Lock Mode field displays the corresponding storage unit setting.
Setting a retention lock applies to the current backup copy only, and does not impact the retention lock setting for existing backup copies.
NOTE: Primary backups are assigned a default retention lock period of 14 days. Replicated backups, however, are not assigned a default retention lock period. If you enable
Retention Lock for a replicated backup, ensure that you set the
Retain for field in the
Add Replication dialog to a minimum number of 14 days so that the replicated backup does not expire before the primary backup.
SLA—From the list, select an existing service level agreement that you want to apply to this
objective, or select
Add to create an SLA within the
Add Service Level Agreement wizard.
The
PowerProtect Data Manager Administration and User Guide provides instructions.
Click
Save to save your changes and return to the
Objectives page.
The
Objectives page updates to display the name and location of the target
protection storage system under
Primary Retention.
After completing the
objective, you can change any details by clicking
Edit next to the
objective.
Optionally, replicate the backups:
NOTE:
To enable replication, ensure that you add remote
protection storage as the replication location. The
PowerProtect Data Manager Administration and User Guide provides detailed instructions about adding remote
protection storage.
When creating multiple replicas for the same protection policy, it is recommended to select a different storage system for each copy. If you select a storage unit that is the target of another
objective for the same policy, the UI issues a warning. The
PowerProtect Data Manager Administration and User Guide provides information about replicating to shared
protection storage to support
PowerProtect Cyber Recovery. Verify the storage targets and the use case before you continue.
When you create a replication objective, you can specify either scheduled replication or replication after backup completion.
NOTE: For replication after backup completion, it is recommended that you update the application agents to the latest version. To ensure that replication occurs immediately after the self-service primary backups complete, update all application agents to
PowerProtect Data Manager version 19.12 or later. If you want to replicate only specific backups, perform a manual replication of these backups in advance.
Click
Replicate next to
Primary Retention. An entry for
Replicate is created to the right of the primary
objective.
Under
Replicate, click
Add.
The
Add Replication dialog appears, with information in the left pane for each schedule that has been added for the primary backup objective of this protection policy.
NOTE: Backups for all of the listed schedules will be replicated. You cannot select individual schedules for replication.
Select a storage target:
Storage Name—Select a destination from the list of
protection storage. Or, select
Add to add a
protection storage system and complete the details in the
Storage Target window.
Storage Unit—Select an existing storage unit on the
protection storage system. Or, select
New to automatically create a storage unit.
Network Interface—Select a network interface from the list, if applicable.
Retention Lock—Move the
Retention Lock slider to the right to enable retention locking for these replicas.
The retention lock mode setting comes from the configuration of the selected storage unit. When you enable retention locking, the
Retention Lock Mode field displays the corresponding storage unit setting.
SLA—Select an existing replication service level agreement that you want to apply to this schedule from the list. Or, select
Add to create a replication SLA within the
Add Service Level Agreement wizard.
The
PowerProtect Data Manager Administration and User Guide provides more information about replication targets, such as SLAs.
To replicate after the backup finishes, move the
Replicate immediately upon backup completion slider to on.
For scheduled replication, move the
Replicate immediately upon backup completion slider to off, and then complete the schedule details in the
Add Replication dialog.
For replication of the primary backup, the schedule frequency can be every day, week, month, or
x hours.
For daily, weekly, and monthly schedules, the numeric value cannot be modified. For hourly, however, you can edit the numeric value. For example, if you set
Create a Full backup every 4 hours, you can set a value of anywhere from 1 to 12 hours.
By default, all replicas of the primary backup
objective inherit the retention period from the
Retain For value of the synthetic full and full backup schedules.
To specify a different retention period for individual synthetic full and full replicas, clear
Set the same retention time for all replicated copies, click
Edit in the row of each schedule that you want to change, update the value in the
Retain For field, and then click
Save.
CAUTION: Setting a retention period for the replicas of other backup types (such as log backups, incremental, and differential backups, where applicable) that is shorter than the retention period of the corresponding full backup may result in being unable to recover from those replicas.
Click
Save to save your changes and return to the
Objectives page.
Optionally, to move backups from
protection storage to
Cloud Tier, add a Cloud
objective for the primary or replication
objective:
NOTE: To move a backup or replica to
Cloud Tier,
objectives must have a retention time of 14 days or more.
PowerProtect Data Manager also requires the discovery of
protection storage with a configured Cloud unit.
Click
Cloud Tier next to
Primary Retention. Or, if adding a Cloud
objective for a replication
objective that you have added, click
Cloud Tier under
Replicate.
An entry for
Cloud Tier is created to the right of the primary
objective, or below the replication
objective.
Under the entry for
Cloud Tier, click
Add.
The
Add Cloud Tier Backup dialog appears, with summary information for the parent
objective to indicate whether you are adding this
Cloud Tierobjective for the primary
objective or the replication
objective.
Keep the
All applicable full backups slider to the right if you want to tier the backups from all of the full primary backup or replication schedules of this policy. Otherwise, move the slider to the left and select the full schedule(s) that you want to tier.
NOTE: If the retention period of a schedule is less than the minimum 14 days required before tiering occurs, or is less than the value in the
Tier After field, you can still select this schedule for tiering. However, if you do not edit the retention period of this schedule or its backup or replication copy to a value greater than the
Tier After field before the retention period of the copy expires, the backup or replication copy of this schedule will not be cloud tiered.
Complete the
objective details in the
Add Cloud Tier Backup dialog, and then click
Save to save your changes and return to the
Objectives page.
The
PowerProtect Data Manager Administration and User Guide provides detailed instructions for adding a Cloud
objective for a primary or replication
objective.
Click
Next.
The
Options page appears.
On the
Options page, select the additional option if required for the policy:
Enable indexing for file search and restore — Select this to perform search on the backups.
Troubleshooting — Select this option to enable the debug logs for troubleshooting at higher debug levels. To override the default debug level, add the statement
debugLevel=<N> to the
addOn.cfg configuration file, where
N is the desired debug level, in the range [4..9].
NOTE: Overriding the bug level in this manner may result in larger logs that may slow backup operations.
In Windows environments, the impacted logs include:
FSAgentInstallPath\logs\vsscr.log
FSAgentInstallPath\logs\nsriscsi.log
FSAgentInstallPath\logs\nsriscsi_***.log
FSAgentInstallPath\logs\nsrwriter.log
FSAgentInstallPath\logs\ddfscon.***.log
FSAgentInstallPath\logs\ddfscon_***.log
FSAgentInstallPath\logs\ddfssv.log
FSAgentInstallPath\logs\ddfssv_***.log
FSAgentInstallPath\logs\ddfsrc_***.log
In Linux environments, the impacted logs include:
/opt/dpsapps/fsagent/logs/nsriscsi.log
/opt/dpsapps/fsagent/logs/ddfscon.***.log
/opt/dpsapps/fsagent/logs/ddfssv.log
NOTE: If you have updated from an earlier
File System agent version, some log files may appear with both
.log and
.raw extensions. Use the
.log files.
Click
Next.
The
Summary page appears.
Review the protection policy group configuration details. You can click
Edit next to any completed window's details to change any information. When completed, click
Finish.
An informational message appears to confirm that
PowerProtect Data Manager has saved the protection policy.
When the new protection policy is created and assets are added to the protection policy,
PowerProtect Data Manager performs backups according to the backup schedule.
Click
OK to exit the window, or click
Go to Jobs to open the
Jobs window to monitor the backup of the new protection policy group.
You can monitor and view detailed information in the
Jobs window for self-service backups and restores of database application agents.
NOTE:
The
Cancel and
Retry options are not available for self-service jobs that are created by database application agents.
When a backup fails or a backup is skipped, the backup job steps appear as canceled for the particular database. The backup job steps are displayed on the
Step Log tab in the details section of the
Job ID Summary window.
Upon requesting a backup (file-based or block-based), the status of the protection policy becomes
Queued. This status switches to
Running only after the system begins writing the backup to PowerProtect DD.
Data is not available for the Topic
Please provide ratings (1-5 stars).
Please provide ratings (1-5 stars).
Please provide ratings (1-5 stars).
Please select whether the article was helpful or not.
Comments cannot contain these special characters: <>()\