Backing up SQL Databases with the VDP Advanced SQL Agent

In this article I'm going to show you how to backup SQL databases using the VMware Data Protection Advanced SQL agent.  The first thing you need to do is download and install the SQL agent on your SQL server (If using SQL 2012 then please refer to this blog article).  The SQL agent can be downloaded from the Configuration tab within the VDP plugin and you have the choice of either the 32 or 64bit version:

Once downloaded simply copy it the SQL server and install as per any other application.  I'm not going to go through this process as we've all done time many times before.  Once installed you should see the Backup Agent service:

Now go back to the VDP plugin within the web client, select Backup and then create a new backup job:

Select Applications and click Next:

Select the option for Selected databases to perform database backups rather than a full server backup and click Next:

Drill down and select the database(s) that you require or select the server to backup all databases on the server and click Next.  If your using SQL 2012 you may need to grant the local System account permission.  You can find out how to do this here:

Select any additional backup options and click Next.  For this example I'm just going to leave all the defaults but the VDP 5.5.5 admin guide explains them in more detail:

Configure the required schedule and click Next:

Select the required retention policy and click Next:

Give the backup job a suitable name and then click Next:

 Verify that all the information is correct and click Finish to create the job:

Once the backup job has been created it should appear in the list of jobs:

Now you can either leave the job to run at it's next scheduled time or manually run the job by selecting the job and then Backup Now -> Backup All Sources:

Leave the job to run for a few minutes and then refresh the screen and hopefully it should have completed successfully.  You can also monitor the job via the log file within the configuration tab or via the web client tasks pane.  Once the job has completed successfully verify that the backups are actually there by clicking on the Restore tab and navigating to the server and databases: