About protecting SQL Server availability groups
NetBackup for SQL Server supports backups and restores of SQL Server Always On and read-scale availability groups. For information on supported versions and environments, see the Application/Database Agent Compatibility List.
You can protect an availability group environment in the following ways:
With a policy that protects the preferred or the primary replica.
If an availability group crosses multiple NetBackup domains, you can use Auto Image Replication (A.I.R.) to replicate the backup to the other NetBackup domains.
See Protect a SQL Server availability group that crosses domains.
Note the following before you configure the policy:
NetBackup can only fully protect the availability group environment if each replica on which backups occur is registered with credentials.
NetBackup runs a backup job on each replica in the availability group. On the replicas which are not the backup source, the job skips the backup.
Note the following limitations for backups of availability groups:
NetBackup does not support the following types of backups for availability databases:
Snapshot backups of filegroups or files
Instant Recovery backups
VMware backups
(Legacy policies) A grouped snapshot backup that includes databases in more than one availability group or in both availability databases and standard databases
(Intelligent Policies) A grouped snapshot backup
Backups of non-readable secondary replicas
NetBackup can only back up databases in a replica when you allow user connections for the replica.
If a secondary replica is the preferred replica and it is non-readable, the backup fails. If a secondary replica is not the preferred replica, NetBackup skips the backup of that replica.
SQL Server does not support the following types of backups on a secondary replica:
Full backups
If a full backup takes place on a secondary replica, NetBackup converts the full backup to a copy-only backup.
Differential backups
Backups of this type result in a failed backup.
Copy-only transaction log backups
Backups of this type result in a failed backup.