Subclients - SQL Server

Once installed, the agent is configured and is therefore able to manage the data or volumes on the client computer. However, you can change certain aspects of the subclient configuration to manage the data in the manner that best suits your needs.

You can view or change the subclient configuration from the Subclient Properties dialog box. The following information can be configured.

Activity Control

You can enable or disable all operations for this CommCell object and all objects below it. For more information, see Activity Control.

Backup Streams

You can set the number of backup streams. For more information, see Streams.

Content/Databases

You can define the content of the subclient. Most agents include a configure button that displays a dialog where you can add or modify the data included as subclient content. For step-by-step instructions, see Configure Subclient Content.

Data Transfer Options

Several configurable options to efficiently use available resources for transferring data secured by data protection operations are provided in the subclient. This includes the following:

Enable or disable Data Compression either on the client or the MediaAgent.
Configure the transfer of data in the network using the options for Network Bandwidth Throttling and Network Agents.

Data Encryption

You can enable or disable the encryption of data for transmission over unsecure networks and for storage on media. For more information, see Data Encryption.

Data Paths

You can view the data paths associated with the primary storage policy copy of the selected storage policy or incremental storage policy. You can also modify the data paths for the subclient including their priority. For additional information, see Configuring Alternate Data Paths for Subclients.

Pre/Post Processes

You can add, modify or view Pre/Post processes for the subclient. These are batch files or shell scripts that you can run before or after certain job phases. For more information, see Pre/Post Processes.

Storage Policies

You can associate the subclient to a storage policy. For more information, see Storage Policies.

Subclient Name

You can rename a subclient. For step-by-step instructions, see Rename a Subclient.

User Accounts

You can define an account with permissions to execute Pre/Post commands for the agent's archive, backup, or volume creation jobs.

See Microsoft SQL Server iDataAgent: Other User Accounts in User Accounts and Passwords for more information.

Backup Conversion Rules

You can prevent backup failure conditions if you enable conversion rules. See Default Subclient Backup Conversion Rules for more information.

When a full or differential backup is performed outside of the system, for example, from Enterprise Manager, the next log backups performed using SQL Server iDataAgent are not converted to a full backup. Therefore, it is recommended to run a full backup with the SQL Server iDataAgent.

Things to Consider when Creating and Configuring SQL Server Subclients

When creating and configuring subclients for SQL Server agents, keep in mind the following considerations:

All SQL Server iDataAgents

After installing the Microsoft SQL Server iDataAgent, you must use the system to add an instance to the SQL Server iDataAgent to run the first backup. (See Add a SQL Server Instance for step-by-step instructions). The system creates a default subclient for each instance you add named default which is designed to back up all the databases for the instance.

This default subclient is always of the "Database" type. However, you can create additional subclients (user-defined subclients) of both the "Database" and "File/FileGroup" type. Type "Database" user-defined subclients allow you to back up individual databases. Type "File/File Group" subclients allow you to back up data files and file groups. Whenever you assign data to these user-defined subclients, this data is removed from the content of the default subclient. For more information on default and user-defined subclients, see Subclient Backups.
If at some later time you decide to change the way a client computer is backed up, you can always change the configuration, in whole or in part. For example, you can change the associated storage policy for the subclient to back up a database to a different library (which is useful for making backups for offsite storage); or, you can change the number of backup streams.
You can also add new databases to be secured by the system, and remove databases currently secured. As a best practice, it is recommended that you add only a few small databases to each subclient and add larger databases into separate subclients. On a restart condition, the system will back up all databases in the subclient from the beginning. For this reason, you would not want a large database that has completed its backup successfully to be backed up again only because a smaller one has caused a restart to occur.
Caution Against Re-configuring Default Subclient Content
We recommend that you do not re-configure the content of a default subclient because this would disable its capability to serve as "catch-all" entity for client data. As a result, the likelihood that some data will not get backed up or scanned for archiving would increase.