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Hi, 

We are doing streaming VSA App Aware SQL backups in VMware. 

In the Storage Policy - Snap Copy we can see the snap-jobs and they seems to contain VSS snapshots.

After the Backup Copy the VSA and SQL jobs are listed in the Storage Policy - Primary Copy. 

I have set the Snap Copy with no retention (Spool) and the Backup Copy is retained for 30 Days 

 

The question is if the Snap Copy job is required or used for restores? Is there a recommendation for the Snap Copy retention when doing streaming App Aware jobs? 

 

Regards,

Patrik

Good morning.  Yes the snap copy is needed as a VSS snapshot is taken of the metadata needed for future restores.  The database is actually protected by the VSA backup.  We do not have a recommendation for retention of the snap copy. 

@Patrick  Both jobs are required for restores with the SQL agent. Note that along with these appaware will also schedule streaming transaction log backups as well. Keep in mind that those can only be restored if the residing full is present.

Thanks guys, @Orazan , @Scott Reynolds 

Just let me clarify. This is not Intellisnap, so the SnapCopy job is not pointing to a HW snapshot.

Once the backup Copy is done, and the VSA and SQL jobs are copied to the Primary Copy…. Am I still dependant on the job in the Snap Copy? (i.e If the Snap Copy has short retention the Backup Copy with longer retention is broken/obsolete?)

/Patrik

 

 

@Patrik 

No you are not. As long as the VSA job is still available somewhere that was ran when the same SQL job then there are no issues. If you look at the SQL job it will say VSA parent JOBID as long as the corresponding VSA job is still available then the SQL job can be restored.

Its normal to have short snap copy retention and longer backup copy retention there are no issues with that config. 

 

Thanks for confirming :-) 

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