Starting an on-demand backup of a virtual machine

When you start an on-demand backup of a virtual machine (VM), the backup operation begins immediately without waiting for a schedule to run.

To start an on-demand backup of a VM, complete the following steps:

1. Select a VM in the vSphere Web Client object navigator and click Actions > IBM Storage Protect > Backup.

   You can also select an inventory object that contains the VM or VMs that you want to back up and click Monitor > IBM Storage Protect. Complete one of the following actions:

   • Right-click one or more VMs, and click Backup.
   • Select one or more VMs, and click the Backup icon.
   • Select one or more VMs, and click Backup in the Actions menu.
2. Complete the following fields in the Back Up Virtual Machine window:

   Option	Description
   Server backup type	Select the type of backup to run: Incremental Backs up the blocks that changed since the previous backup (full or incremental). The most recent incremental is appended to the previous backup. If a full backup does not exist for this VM, a full backup is automatically performed. As a result, you do not have to verify that a full backup exists. Full Creates an image of an entire VM. After the full backup is taken, there is no requirement to schedule additional full backups. When full is selected, VM templates that are unchanged since the last backup are also included.
   Data mover	Select the data mover that you want to use to move data to the backup location. Typically, you can accept the default data mover. However, to improve workload balancing in some situations, you might select a data mover that is not heavily used. If there is a data mover assigned to the VM, that data mover is the default. If a data mover is not assigned to the VM or the assigned data mover is no longer valid, the first data mover in the list of data movers that are available for the VM is the default. Available data movers are listed in alphabetical order. Do not select a data mover that is currently in use for a backup or restore operation
   Backup destination	Select the destination for the virtual machine backup. Depending on the location of the virtual machine, you can back up to the IBM Storage Protect server, to the local hardware storage, or to both locations.
   Disk protection	Select the virtual machine disks to include in backups. The disks are identified by the disk numbers. Custom disk selections are available if the Disk Backup List (IBM Storage Protect) category and tag values are set. See Supported data protection tags.
   Data consistency	Select the type of snapshot and retry attempts that are used for backup: Always application consistent Attempts two file system and Microsoft Windows VSS quiesced snapshots before failing the backup. Attempt application consistent Attempts two quiesced snapshots and, as a final attempt, a nonquiesced, crash-consistent snapshot. Machine consistent only Attempts only a nonquiesced snapshot for VMs that can never complete a quiesced snapshot.
   Application protection	If a single VM is selected, select Enabled to allow applications such as Microsoft SQL Server and Exchange Server to truncate logs and commit transactions before the backup operation begins. This enables the application to resume from a consistent state when the backup completes. Select Keep Microsoft SQL Server logs if applicable if you do not want the logs to be truncated. If a multiple VMs are selected, choose Current value to use the value that is currently set for each virtual machine or select Disabled to disable application protection for all selected virtual machines.

3. Click OK to begin the backup operation.
4. Click Tasks in the vSphere Web Client object navigator to view the progress of the backup operation.
   To see backup tasks, you might have to make sure that tasks for all users are shown. For more information about viewing tasks for all users, refer to the documentation for the version of VMware vSphere that you are using.