Consolidated Backup Process

VCB Process

This is the process that VCB takes to backup a VM. Using your backup software create a backup job for the VM(s) you want to backup. The backup jobs purpose is to backup a location on the VCB server. You will know the location once you determine what type of VCB backup you are going to perform. See Image‐level virtual machine backups. See File‐level backups. When the backup job is launched, the following steps take place: Step 1 The backup software calls the pre‐backup script. The pre‐backup script does the following: 1. Runs a pre‐freeze script in the VM. The pre‐freeze script prepares the VM for backup. (this is optional) 2. Quiesces NTFS and FAT file systems inside the VM (only for VMs running 32‐bit versions of Windows XP, Windows 2000, or Windows 2003). This ensures that no file system writes are pending at the time the snapshot is taken, allowing the creation of file‐system consistent backups. 3. Puts the virtual machine into snapshot mode. 4. Unquiesces the NTFS and FAT file systems that were quiesced. 5. Runs a post‐thaw script in the VM. (this is optional) 6. Makes the VM snapshot available to the 3rd party backup software: See Image‐level VM backups. See File‐level VM backups. Step 2 The backup software performs a backup of the VM snapshot. Step 3 The backup software runs a post‐backup script, which does the following: 1. Unmounts the VM snapshot from the backup proxy. 2. Takes the VM out of snapshot mode. Commits changes made while the VM was in snapshot mode.