PowerProtect Data Manager 19.12 Microsoft SQL Server User Guide

Add a protection policy for Microsoft SQL Server database protection

Use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to add a protection policy group for the purposes of Microsoft SQL Server database protection.

1. From the left navigation pane, select Protection > Protection Policies.
   The Protection Policies window appears.
2. In the Protection Policies window, click Add.
   The Add Policy wizard appears.
3. On the Type page, specify the following fields, and then click Next:
   • Name—Type a descriptive name for the protection policy.
   • Description—Type a description for the policy.
   • Type—Select Microsoft SQL.
4. On the Purpose page, select from the following options to indicate the purpose of the new protection policy group, and then click Next:

   • Centralized Protection—Select this option to use PowerProtect Data Manager to centrally manage all objectives of the protection policy. This option also enables the self-service operations.

     Centralized protection means that PowerProtect Data Manager schedules the backups and manages the life cycle of the copies. DBAs can also schedule the self-service backups when required.

     Click Set Credentials to specify new credentials or select existing credentials from the list.

     NOTE

     The supported syntax for credentials is <user>@<host> or <user>@<domain>. The syntax <host>\<user> or <domain>\<user> is not supported.

     The host-level credentials take precedence over protection policy-level credentials.

   • Self-Service Protection—Select this option to use Microsoft SQL Server to create local backup protection. PowerProtect Data Manager creates a protection policy and manages extra objectives.

     Self-service protection means that DBAs schedule the backups but PowerProtect Data Manager discovers and manages the life cycle of the copies.

   • Exclusion—Select this type if there are assets within the protection policy that you plan to exclude from data protection operations.
5. On the Assets page, select the assets for inclusion in this policy by using either the Microsoft SQL Server hierarchical view or the list view. To select the preferred view, click one of the two icons on the top right of the page. You can switch between the views by clicking the icons:
   NOTE A Microsoft SQL Server database asset can be protected by only one protection policy at a time.

   • Hierarchical view—This view uses a tree view that shows the hierarchical relationships of the Microsoft SQL Server hosts, their application servers or instances (including Failover Cluster Instances (FCIs)), stand-alone database assets, and any Always On availability groups (AAGs) with their database assets. When you expand the hierarchical or tree view, you can see all the assets and AAGs within a host and instance. When you select a host or instance container, all the contained assets and objects are also selected. You can also select individual assets or a group of assets within the host or instance container to include in the protection policy.

     NOTE

     For FCIs and AAGs, when you select the node of one host, the same selection automatically applies to the other hosts in the cluster.

     The hierarchical view is supported only for an Application Direct protection policy, not an application-aware protection policy.

     The hierarchical view is also available on the following pages in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI:

     • Protection > Protection Policies > Protect Now
     • Protection > Protection Policies > Edit Policy > Assets
     • Infrastructure > Assets
     • Restore > Assets

     When you select a host or instance within the hierarchical view, the Dynamic Protection and AAG Selection icons appear on the container line:

     NOTE If a selected instance is the only instance on a host, the icons appear on the host line above the instance, not on the instance line.

     • Dynamic Protection—When this icon is enabled (by default), a dynamic protection rule is automatically created to ensure that all the selected assets within the selected host or instance container are dynamically protected by the protection policy. PowerProtect Data Manager manages the protection rule. The rule is updated automatically when you edit the policy and make changes to the container selections, or when assets are moved into or out of a selected container.

       With dynamic protection, any new databases or assets that you add to the instance or AAG or container after the policy is created or edited will be automatically added to the protection policy. Any databases or assets that you remove from the instance or AAG or container are also removed from the policy. When any selection overlap occurs between different policies, the UI displays the overlaps and helps you to resolve the asset assignment conflicts by adjusting the protection rules' priority.

       To disable the dynamic protection for a container, click the Dynamic Protection icon and then click Disable in the displayed text box. When the dynamic protection is disabled, the protection policy does not dynamically protect the selected container and its objects. As a result, all the selected objects within the container become static selections that are not automatically protected by the policy.

       After you create or edit a protection policy that has dynamic protection, you can select Protection > Protection Rules to see the protection rule details for the protection policy, including the priority of the protection rule. Dynamic protection rules apply only at the container level.

     • AAG Selection—This icon appears when the selected host or instance includes one or more AAGs. By default, the icon is enabled and all the AAGs within the host or instance are selected. When you want to exclude all the contained AAGs from the protection policy, click the AAG Selection icon and then click Exclude in the displayed text box.

     In the hierarchical view, you might see a yellow warning icon in the Protection Policy column, next to a selected host, instance, database, or AAG. The warning icon indicates that one of the following issues exists. Hover over the warning icon to see the issue description:

     • When the Microsoft application agent version is earlier than 19.9, an AAG folder might display an incomplete hierarchical view of the data. To obtain a complete view of the data, update the Microsoft application agent.
     • An asset assignment conflict exists because the host, instance, or contained object is already protected by another protection policy. After you click Next on the Assets page and click OK on a notification page, the Check conflicts due to rule priority page appears, where you can adjust the protection rule priorities and resolve the conflicts.
   • List view—This view uses a table display that enables you to see all unprotected assets within a table, and then select individual unprotected assets that you want to include in the protection policy.
6. Click Next.

   If the Assets page included any asset assignment conflicts with other protection policies, a notification page appears that describes the assets that are already assigned to other protection policies. Click OK to continue or Cancel to return to the Assets page.

   When you click OK, the Check conflicts due to rule priority page appears, displaying the assets with conflicting assignments and their protection policies and rules. In the Protection Rules pane, you can click the up and down arrows to change the protection rule priority of any policy. When you raise the rule priority for a policy, the assets with conflicts in a lower-priority policy are moved to the policy with the higher protection rule priority.

7. Click Next.

   If you selected Exclusion on the Purpose page, the Summary page appears. Proceed to the final two steps.

   If you selected Centralized Protection or Self-Service Protection on the Purpose page, the Objectives page appears for creating the protection policy backup configuration.

8. 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 Policy Service Level Agreement wizard and create a new policy-level SLA.
   Add a service-level agreement provides instructions.
9. Complete the steps for the specified type of protection policy group:

   • For Centralized Protection:

     1. Click Add under Primary Backup.

        The Add Primary Backup dialog appears.

     2. On the Target pane of the Add Primary Backup dialog, specify the following fields:

        • Storage Name—Select a backup destination from the list of existing DD systems, or select Add to add a system and complete the details in the Storage Target dialog.

        • Storage Unit—Select whether this protection policy should use a New storage unit on the selected DD 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 name hostname unique identifier is created in the storage system upon policy completion, for example, testvmpolicy-ppdm-daily-123cd.

          NOTE The Space field indicates the total amount of space, and the percentage of available space, on the storage system.
        • 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—Select an existing service level agreement that you want to apply to this schedule from the list, or select Add to create an SLA within the Add Backup Service Level Agreement wizard.

          Add a service-level agreement provides instructions.

     3. On the Schedules pane of the Add Primary Backup dialog:

        1. Specify the following fields to schedule the full backup of this protection policy:

           • Create a Full backup every—Specify how often to create a full backup.

           • Retain for—Specify the retention period for the backup.

             NOTE For database backups, PowerProtect Data Manager chains the dependent backups together. For example, the incremental or transaction log backups are chained to their base full backup. The backups do not expire until the last backup in the chain expires. This ensures that all incremental and transaction log backups are recoverable until they have all expired.

           • Start and End—The activity window. Specify a time of day to start the full backup, and a time of day after which backups cannot be started.

             NOTE Any backups started before the End time occurs continue until completion.

        2. Click Add backup if you want to add a differential or log backup, and then specify the following fields to schedule the backup of this protection policy:

           NOTE When you select this option, the backup chain is reset.

           • Create a <backup_type> backup every—For <backup_type>, select Differential or Log from the drop-down list, and then specify the interval at which the backup job runs within the window that you specify. The backup interval depends on the backup interval of the full backup schedule:

             • If the full backup schedule is hourly or daily, the backup interval of subsequent backup levels can be between 1 and 12 hours or between 1 and 60 minutes.
             • If the full backup schedule is weekly or monthly, the backup interval of subsequent backup levels can be daily, between 1 and 12 hours, or between 1 and 60 minutes.

           • Retain for—Specify the retention period for the backup.

             CAUTION If you set a shorter retention period for a differential or log backup than for the corresponding full backup, then data loss might occur and you might be unable to recover the point-in-time copies.

           • Start and End—The activity window. Specify a time of day to start the backup, and a time of day after which backups cannot be started.

             NOTE Any backups started before the End Time occurs continue until completion.

        3. Click Add Backup and repeat the procedure for creating full backups if you want to create additional backup copies at different intervals with different retention periods.

           Within this protection policy, when a full schedule conflicts with another full backup schedule, a message appears, indicating that there is a conflict. Schedule occurrences can conflict with each other when the activity windows are identical or occur entirely within the same time range. To avoid full schedule conflicts in a policy, edit the activity windows. If you proceed with conflicting schedules, the backup of the lower priority schedule will be skipped. Schedule priority is ranked according to the following criteria:

           • Full schedules have a higher priority than Synthetic Full schedules.
           • For schedules of the same backup type, the schedules that run less frequently have a higher priority than schedules that run more frequently.
           • For schedules with the same backup type and frequency, the schedule with the longest activity window has the higher priority. If the activity windows are also identical, only one of these schedules will run.
           NOTE When a schedule conflict between full backups occurs, PowerProtect Data Manager retains the full backup with the longest retention period.

     4. Click Save to save the changes and return to the Objectives page.

        The Objectives page updates to display the name and location of the target storage system under Primary Backup.

        After completing the objective, you can change any details by clicking Edit next to the objective.

        NOTE When a new asset is added to a protection policy, the asset is not protected until the next full backup runs, whether or not the asset is added within the backup schedule window. To immediately start protecting the asset, run a manual full backup of the entire policy from the policy page or the newly added asset from the assets page.

   • For Self-Service Protection:

     1. Click Add under Primary Retention.

        The Add Primary Retention dialog appears.

     2. 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 DD systems, or select Add to add a system and complete the details in the Storage Target dialog.

        • Storage Unit—Select whether this protection policy should use a New storage unit on the selected DD 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 name hostname unique identifier is created in the storage system upon policy completion, for example, testvmpolicy-ppdm-daily-123cd.

          NOTE The Space field indicates the total amount of space, and the percentage of available space, on the storage system.
        • 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—Select an existing service level agreement that you want to apply to this schedule from the list, or select Add to create an SLA within the Add Backup Service Level Agreement wizard.

          Add a service-level agreement provides instructions.

     3. On the Retention (Self Service) pane of the Add Primary Retention dialog, change any required retention times.

        By default, all backup types have the same retention time. To change the retention times 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.

        CAUTION If you set a shorter retention period for a differential or log backup than for the corresponding full backup, then data loss might occur and you might be unable to recover the point-in-time copies.

     4. Click Save to save the changes and return to the Objectives page.

        The Objectives page updates to display the name and location of the target storage system under Primary Retention.

        After completing the objective, you can change any details by clicking Edit next to the objective.

   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.

10. 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, PowerProtect Data Manager 19.12 or later and application agents 19.10 or later are required. It is recommended that you update the application agents to the latest version.

    For replicas of centralized backups, when you set retention periods for different backup types, any undefined types use the full backup retention period. For example, if you do not define a log backup in the primary objective, the log backup for the replication objective is also undefined. After you run a manual log backup, replicas of that log backup use the same retention period as the full backup.

    1. Click Replicate next to Primary Backup or Primary Retention. An entry for Replicate is created to the right of the primary backup objective.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.

    4. Select when to replicate the backups:

       Replication triggers provides more information.

       • 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.

    5. 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.
    6. Click Save to save your changes and return to the Objectives page.
11. 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.
    1. Click Cloud Tier next to Primary Backup or 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.
    2. 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 Tier objective for the primary objective or the replication objective.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
12. Click Next.
    The Options page appears.
13. On the Options page, select the additional options that are required for the policy:
    NOTE If the PowerProtect Data Manager version is 19.6 but the application agent version is earlier than 19.6, then the Backup Promotion and Exclude Simple Database options are not supported, although the options appear in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

    • Exclude Simple Database—Select this option to exclude the databases in simple recovery model from the transaction log backups.
    • Exclude System Databases—Select this option to exclude the Microsoft SQL Server system databases (including databases named master, model, and msdb) from the differential and transaction log backups.
    • Exclude Unprotectable Database—Select this option to exclude the databases in an unprotectable state from all backups.

    • Backup Promotion—Select one of the following backup promotion options to use for differential and transaction log backups:

      • ALL—Enables backup promotion. This setting is the default backup promotion setting.
      • NONE—Disables backup promotion, without displaying a warning during backups.
      • NONE_WITH_WARNINGS—Disables backup promotion, but displays a warning during a backup when a backup promotion would normally occur.
    • Troubleshooting—Select this option to enable the debug logs for troubleshooting purposes.
14. Click Next.
    The Summary page appears.
15. 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 a new protection policy is created, PowerProtect Data Manager performs the first full backup and subsequent backups according to the specified schedule.
16. 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 both centralized and 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.