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Backing up Hyper-V vm - am I backing it up twice, kind of agent to use on the vm?

Susan235680
Level 4

When I backup the host, I have backup exec backing up the virtual machine related files of the virtual machine.

I'm also apparently suppoesed to run backup exec on the virtual machine itself?

My question is: Am I backing up the virtual machine twice then?

I only have so much storage space and backups take a long time to run. I want a good backup but want to avoid backing up the same thing twice.

I have a SharePoint 2013 vm, will have a domain controller vm, and possibly an Exchange 2016 vm. What would be the best practice to back those up? Would I use the Virtual based backup or agent based backup?

5 REPLIES 5

Gurvinder
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified
If you got application which is limited to one server i.e. virtual machine then just install the remote agent on these VMs and back them up as a VMs ( install agent in hyper v servers also). Make sure to turn on application level GRT from Job settings. BE supports single pass backup got SQL, exchange, SPS, AD. If the application on the VM is distributed i.e. like in case of SPS if database, applications or web server is installed on different VMs then a single pass backup isnt supported for such configuration.

Thanks for the reply.

So backup the host with the vm and then only backup the application on the vm itself?

If I make exchange a vm, the database will be over 200gb by itself. Would that database be backed up twice in this situation (use 400gb on my backup)?

Gurvinder
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified
Yes, backup at host level. Backup will take 200 GB and not 400 GB

Just to clarify, if I have my exchange db on a 2nd parition on the virtual hdd, that db won't be backed up when the vm is backed up from the host?

How do i know where the host vm backup ends and where do i begin on the backup on the vm itself?

Gurvinder
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified