Deciding which backup method to use

Many backup techniques are available in the backup-archive client. Begin with progressive incremental backups and move to other types of incremental backups or image backups if necessary.

Procedure

Use the following table to determine the backup method that you want to use. The table contains common backup scenarios that you might encounter and the suggested backup methods to use.

Scenario	Use this backup method
I want to run the most comprehensive type of file backup on my client system.	Progressive incremental backup Incremental-by-date backup
I want to take advantage of the benefits of progressive incremental backups, but I am running into memory issues.	Memory-efficient backup Memory-efficient backup with disk caching
I have many small files in my file system with a few changes, but incremental backup processing does not complete within the allotted time.	Journal-based backup Journal-based backup
On operating systems such as AIX® or Linux®, I have large file systems that can be divided into logical partitions. I want to be able to provide a direct path to the files that I want to back up.
Scheduled backups do not complete within the allotted time. I have an application that can provide a list of files that changed since the previous backup. I want to improve the speed of the backup process by backing up just this list of changed files.	File list backup
I want to increase the throughput of incremental backup operations and restore operations.	Multiple session backup
I tried to use several types of incremental backups but scheduled backup processing does not complete within the allotted time.	Image backup Image plus incremental-by-date image backup
I want to streamline the backups of the volumes on my NetApp vFiler.	Snapshot differential backup
I want to back up my VMware virtual machines with my IBM Spectrum® Protect for Virtual Environments software.	Virtual machine incremental-forever-full backup Virtual machine incremental-forever-incremental backup
I want to back up my Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machine with IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments software.	For more information, see Back up virtual machines on a Hyper-V system.
I want to improve the speed of my VMware virtual machine backups by backing up several virtual machines at the same time.	For more information, see Parallel back ups of virtual machines.