Types of data protected

Unitrends protects over 100 versions of servers, storage, operating systems, hypervisors, and applications. To protect such a wide variety of assets, the appliance supports several backup methods.

The appliance runs backups based on the backup jobs or SLA policies that you create. The first step in creating a backup job is selecting the type of backup you want to run (for example, File Level or Hyper-V). The first step in creating an SLA policy is selecting the type of asset you want to protect (for example, agent-based assets or VMware assets). In both cases, the type you select determines which backup method the appliance uses and the type of backup that is created. For more on backup jobs and SLA policies, see Preparing for backups and About creating backup and backup copy jobs.

Following is a description of each Unitrends backup type.

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File-level backups protect an asset's file system and operating system. You must install a Unitrends agent on the asset to run file-level backups.

Note: For Windows, you can also run bare metal backups by using the Windows bare metal agent. A bare metal backup is used for disaster recovery only. In most cases, a bare metal backup is not needed because file-level backups can be used to recover the machine (this is the recommended approach). But in some cases a bare metal backup must be used instead. To determine whether bare metal backups are needed for your asset, see Windows Bare Metal Protection and Recovery.

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Image-level backups protect a Windows asset at the disk and volume level. You must install the Unitrends Windows agent on the asset to run an image-level backup.

Note: You can opt to protect a Windows asset with file-level backups, image-level backups, or both backup types. The Windows agent supports both backup methods.

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Host-level backups protect VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, and XenServer virtual machines by leveraging hypervisor snapshots. You do not need to install a Unitrends agent on hosted VMs.

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Application backups capture an application’s structure and data to ensure database consistency. You must install a Unitrends agent on the host asset to run application backups.

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NAS backups protect data stored on a NAS device. You do not install an agent on the NAS asset.

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iSeries backups protect an asset's file system by leveraging native iSeries backup operations. You do not install an agent on the iSeries asset.

Backing up virtual assets

For virtual assets, you can choose host-level or file-level protection. Host-level backups capture files, application data, and virtual hardware. With file-level protection, the appliance treats your VM as a physical asset to run file-level and application backups.

The table below compares the backup options for virtual assets. Host-level backups are recommended in most cases, but there are VMs for which you will want or need to use file-level protection. For considerations specific to your environment, see Protecting VMware virtual machines with file-level backups, Protecting Hyper-V virtual machines with file-level backups , Protecting AHV virtual machines with file-level backups and Citrix XenServer virtual machines to determine which approach to take.

Host-level protection	File-level protection
Add the virtual host to your appliance and it detects all the VMs on the host. It is not necessary to install agents on VMs or add VMs to the appliance individually. This greatly simplifies protecting large virtual environments.	You must install agents on the VMs and add each one to the appliance individually.
Backups capture all data on the VMs. You can exclude entire disks (VMware, AHV, and XenServer only), but you cannot exclude files, directories, or volumes.	You can choose to protect all of the asset’s data or select only particular files, directories, or volumes.
You can recover virtual machines in minutes using the VM instant recovery feature (VMware and Hyper-V only).	You can recover Windows machines in minutes using the Windows replica feature.
You can recover individual files from backups for VMs running Windows or Linux.	You can recover individual files from backups for any supported operating system. You can recover individual items from application databases.