VMware backup MS SQL and MS Exchange log truncation

If your VMware machine has MS SQL or MS Exchange installed, you can enable automatic log truncation for these applications. The operation involves unneeded logs only and is performed strictly after successfully completed backup sessions.

Log truncation works on the US English versions of MS Windows Server. See the table below for other software compatibility details.

Guest systems VMware versions MS Exchange versions MS SQL versions
Windows Server 2012 and greater (US English versions)
  • 6.0
  • 6.5
  • 7.0
  • 8.0

Exchange Server:

  • 2010
  • 2013
  • 2016

SQL Server:

  • 2012
  • 2014
  • 2016

When a version of a third-party product reaches End of Life, we will endeavor to provide best effort support. However, if versions which are no longer supported by their company begin to fail, the assistance our Support Teams can provide is limited.

Prerequisites

To enable log truncation, make sure the following conditions are met:

  • The target virtual machine has VMware tools installed and are running
  • PowerShell is installed on the guest OS
  • The target virtual machine is started

Enable Log Truncation

To enable the Log Truncation feature from the Backup Manager client:

  1. Launch the Backup Manager for the device
  2. Navigate to the Backup tab
  3. Scroll to the VMware data source
  4. Click Edit to update the backup selection
  5. Select Manage logs > Enable log truncation
  6. Enter your access credentials (an administrator account is required)
  7. Save and close

For restore purposes, you must ensure the version of VMWare ESXi on the restore device is the same or higher as is on the backup device.

Recovery

Instructions on restoring data from this data source can be found on Recovering data in Backup Manager.