About the types of Enterprise Vault backups

Table: Description of types of backups describes the type of backups available with the Enterprise Vault agent.

See About Enterprise Vault directives and what data they back up. for additional information on what types of data is backed up.

Table: Description of types of backups

Backup Type

Description

Full Backup

Select this back up type to back up any Enterprise Vault component. All Enterprise Vault directives support full backups.

User Backup

This type of backup is not supported for Enterprise Vault.

User Archive

This type of backup is not supported for Enterprise Vault.

Cumulative Incremental backup

This backup type backs up the files that are specified in the backup selections list that has changed since the last full backup. All files are backed up if no previous Full backup has been done. Cumulative incremental backups occur automatically according to schedule criteria. A complete restore requires the last full backup and the last, cumulative incremental backup.

Note the following about Cumulative Incremental backups:

  • For an SQL database, a cumulative backup is a database differential backup.

  • A cumulative incremental backup does not reset the archive bit of an object that is included for backup.

    See About the archive bit .

  • Do not combine incremental backups (differential and cumulative) within the same Enterprise Vault policy if the incremental backups are based on the archive bit.

Differential Incremental backup

Select this backup type to only back up the changes that are made to the data since the last full backup or previous incremental backup.

For an SQL database, a differential incremental backup backs up the transaction log which also truncates the logs. This schedule type is available for all Enterprise Vault components.

Note:

Enterprise Vault creates different SQL databases with the transaction log mode set as FULL. Symantec recommends that this mode remains set as FULL, otherwise the Enterprise Vault SQL differential backup cannot be used.

NetBackup enables you to backup files system files using the timestamp or the archive bit . See the "Client Settings (Windows) properties" topic in the NetBackup Administrator's Guide, Volume I for information on how to configure the Incremental backups to be based on the timestamp or the archive bit .

Differential Incremental backups based on the archive bit includes a file in a backup only if the archive bit of that file is set. A differential-incremental backup clears the archive bit if the files are successfully backed up.

Note:

Do not combine incremental backups (differential and cumulative) within the same Enterprise Vault policy if the incremental backups are based on the archive bit.