Please note this feature is only available for Unlimited Plus and Subscription users.

VM Backup offers users the ability to switch from scheduled daily backups to running continuous backups (onsite only).  The default maximum frequency is one backup every 15 minutes per VM, but this can be increased to one backup every 5 minutes. CDP is disabled by default and can be enabled by accessing CDP Settings from the menu.

For each Virtual Machine the next backup will start when the previous backup completes -- so you must take these things into consideration:

• Maximum frequency depends on whether the backup location and hosts can handle the throughput
  
  
• Large amounts of changes on a Virtual Machine could cause the CDP frequency to be reduced
  
  
• Only enable high-frequency CDP (15 minutes or less) on VMs that you really need to. This will ensure that the VMs you really need will be able to achieve the selected maximum frequency and in order not have an impact on your Hypervisor's performance
  
  
• Ensure that you have enough storage space on your backup location to handle the increased requirement from more frequent backups

What will my restore points look like with CDP enabled?

All CDP backups will be kept for the last 4 hours, after which VM Backup will keep one backup version every 4 hours for the duration of your configured retention policy.

If your CDP “Maximum Frequency” is set to anything above 4 hours, then all CDP backups will be kept for the duration of your configured retention policy.

Configuring CDP

Upon configuring CDP you'll need to choose 2 options, the "Maximum Frequency" and the frequency for "Application Consistent" backups.

Application Consistent backups are required when the Virtual Machine hosts certain databases such as SQL Server or Exchange and it is important that all database transactions are consistent at the time of the backup.

If high frequency CDP configuration (ex. 5 minutes) is enabled, most Backups will not be Application Consistent.   The default setting is that an Application Consistent backup will be taken once an hour only.  This reduces load on the hypervisor while at the same time giving users an Application Consistent Checkpoint regular intervals.

An Application Consistent backup needs to be taken every 4 hours as minimum however, so if your “Maximum Frequency” is configured to 4 hours or more, every backup you take will be an Application Consistent one.