About protecting an application database with VMware backups
With a VMware backup policy and the Veritas VSS provider, NetBackup can create consistent, full backups of an application database that resides on a virtual machine.
VMware application backups let you:
Choose whether or not to truncate logs.
Use the existing database restore process to restore and recover data from VMware backups.
From one VMware backup, choose from these restore options: Volume-level restore, file-level recovery, or database restore.
Restore and recover databases from VMware backups to alternate clients. The target destination client can be a physical computer or a virtual machine.
See the following information on virtual systems compatibility:
https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/doc/NB_70_80_VE
Veritas recommends the Veritas VSS provider. VMware Tools calls the provider to quiesce the VSS writers for a file-level consistent backup. Without this VSS provider (or the VMware VSS Provider), database recovery may require manual steps and granular recovery is not supported.
See Installing the Veritas VSS provider for vSphere.
The Veritas VSS provider allows VMware backups that truncate the logs on SQL Server virtual machines. The Veritas VSS provider truncates the logs by means of full VSS backups. Note that the VMware VSS provider creates copy-only backups, which cannot be used as a basis to truncate logs.
Select the option to use NetBackup Accelerator to potentially increase the speed of full VMware backups. By reducing the backup time, it is easier to perform the VMware backup within the backup window. To use this feature, you must first perform an initial backup with Use Accelerator enabled. Subsequent backup times can then be significantly reduced. Accelerator support for database agents currently restricts backups to the full schedule type.
To periodically establish a new baseline of change detection on the client, create a separate policy schedule with the option enabled.
For more details on Accelerator with VMware backups, see the NetBackup for VMware Administrator's Guide.