To configure a VMware policy to back up SQL Server using Replication Director to manage snapshot replication

1. Open the NetBackup web UI.
2. On the left, click Protection > Policies.
3. Create a policy or open the policy you want to configure.
4. Click the Attributes tab.

   • From the Policy type list, select VMware.

   • In the Policy storage list select the storage lifecycle policy (SLP) that you want to use. This SLP must be configured for snapshot replication.

   • In the Snapshot Client and Replication Director group, click Use Replication Director.

5. On the Schedules tab, create a schedule for full backups.
6. On the Clients tab, do the following:

   • Click Select automatically through query.

   • Use the Query Builder to create the rules that select the virtual machines you want to back up.

   • Select NetBackup host to perform automatic virtual machine selection and the host you want to use.

7. On the VMware tab, enable the following options:

   • Primary VM identifier to use to catalog the backups.

   • Enable file recovery from VM backup.

     This option allows for application protection of SQL Server.

   • Locate Application protectionand click Microsoft SQL Server.

     This option allows recovery of the SQL databases from the virtual machine backups. If this option is disabled, you can recover the entire virtual machine from the backup, but you cannot recover the databases individually.

   • Do not enable Truncate logs at this time. You must first perform a full backup without log truncation, described later in this procedure.

   • (Conditional) Select Enable T-SQL snapshots.

     This snapshot type creates a full SQL Server backup (not copy-only) that can be used as a basis for SQL Server incremental and transaction log backups. For this snapshot type, the only valid option for snapshot handling is Stop the backup if any snapshots exist, which is automatically selected.

     Note: T-SQL snapshots were added with SQL Server 2022 and are strongly recommended for systems with SQL Server 2022 or later. This type of snapshot is not supported with SQL Server 2019 and earlier.

8. Click Save to save the policy.

   If you do not want to truncate transaction logs, no further action is necessary.

   If you want to truncate transaction logs, continue with step 9.

9. Perform a full backup without log truncation.

   When the backup completes, open the policy that you created in step 3.

10. Click the VMware tab and under Microsoft SQL Server, select Truncate logs.
11. Click Save to save the policy.
12. Perform a full VMware backup.