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Virtual Server Agent (VSA) Backup Process

The VSA works by communicating with the hosting hypervisor to initiate software snapshots of virtual machines. Once the VMs are snapped, the VSA backs them up to protected storage.

The following steps illustrate the process of backing up VMware^® virtual machines:

1. Virtual Server Agent communicates with the hypervisor instance to locate virtual machines defined in the subclient that requires protection.
2. Once a virtual machine is located, the hypervisor prepares the virtual machine for the snapshot process.
3. The virtual machine is placed in a quiescent state. For Windows^® VMs, VSS is engaged to quiesce disks.
4. The hypervisor then conducts a software snapshot of the virtual machine.
5. The virtual machine metadata is extracted.
6. The backup process then backs up all virtual disk files and VM configuration files.
7. Once the disks are backed up, indexes can optionally be generated for granular recovery.
8. Finally, the hypervisor deletes the snapshots.

VSA detailed backup process