Application Aware Processing Help - AD & SQL Server

[pltit]

Hello - I am wanting to add a Windows 2012R2 VM that acts as a domain controller and a Windows 2016 VM that has SQL Server 2014 installed to my existing backup job. I have read the help section on application aware processing, but I still have a few questions.

1)For the 2012R2 VM, should I have application aware processing enabled for it? I found a few posts online that lead me to believe I should due to the domain controller role. The 2012R2 VM is also running a Windows Internal Database to support WSUS.

2)For the VM running SQL Server, there are already jobs running within SQL server to handle full backups and transaction log backups. The full backups and t-log backups are stored on separate disks that are part of the VM. The Veeam backup is scheduled to run at 10:00PM. The t-log backup job runs every hour and any t-log backups older than 24hrs are deleted at 7:00pm each day. Will application aware processing interfere with the t-log and full backups that are already running?

[jmmarton]

1) I recommend enabling AAIP for any job containing Windows VMs. Even if it's not running we have specific integrations with (e.g. a domain controller or SQL server), just about any Windows VM will have one more VSS writers installed. Enabling AAIP calls VSS to quiesce all applications with VSS writers. But for something like a DC, it's even more important to take application-consistent backups so that you can restore individual objects such as users or GPOs.

2) Within the AAIP settings you can configure it to only copy transaction logs as part of the application-aware backup. If you enable this, you'll get a completely consistent backup, but it won't interfere with any sort of SQL maintenance plans you may already have in place.

Joe

[pltit]

Thank you. I will enable application aware processing.

For the SQL Server VM, when I am adding the VM to the backup job, should I select 'Perform copy only (lets another application use logs)' under the transaction logs settings?

[foggy]

Correct, this is the option Joe is talking about.

[pltit]

Thank you both, I appreciate your help.