Backup Policies and Jobs

To back up data of the protected Mac computer, you must configure a Veeam Agent backup job. The Veeam Agent backup job defines what data to back up, how, where and when to back up data. In case of Veeam Agent for Mac, you can create Veeam Agent backup jobs on Mac computers using backup policies.

Backup policy

The backup policy describes configuration of individual Veeam Agent backup jobs that run on protected computers. Backup policy is configured in Veeam Backup & Replication. Veeam Backup & Replication uses the backup policy as a saved template and applies settings from the backup policy to Veeam Agents that run on computers specified in the backup policy.Veeam Agents use these settings from the backup policy to configure the backup jobs on Veeam Agent computers.

To learn how backup policy works in detail, see the Backup Policy section in the Veeam Agent Management Guide.

In Veeam Backup & Replication, you can configure several file-level backup policies with different settings. For example, you can configure one backup policy to back up the entire Users folder and another backup policy to back up specific files. You can configure backup policies targeted at different backup locations to keep several copies of your backed-up data. You can also configure several backup policies with individual schedule to fine-tune automatic backup creation process.

To learn more, see the Creating Agent Backup Policy for Mac Computers section in the Veeam Agent Management Guide.

Veeam Agent for Mac launches the backup policy according to the schedule you define. You can schedule the policy to start at specific time daily or on specific week days. You can also start a backup policy manually to perform backup on demand when needed.

Backup job

The backup job runs on the Veeam Agent computer. Veeam Agent uses settings from the backup policy configured in Veeam Backup & Replication to configure Veeam Agent backup job. You can use the backup job to create Veeam Agent backups in a target backup repository.

To learn how backup job works in detail, see How Backup Works.

In Veeam Agent for Mac, you can work with backup job in the following operation modes:

• Managed mode

Veeam Agent for Mac can automatically create backup jobs based on backup policy settings configured using Veeam Backup & Replication. To learn more, see the Backup Policy section in the Veeam Agent Management Guide. If Veeam Agent creates a backup job using settings from the backup policy, Veeam Agent functions in the managed mode.

• Standalone Mode

You can configure a backup job from scratch with the command line interface. In this case, Veeam Agent functions in the standalone mode and does not require a connection to Veeam Backup & Replication. You can also configure several file-level standalone backup jobs with different settings. For example, you can configure backup jobs targeted at different backup locations to keep several copies of your backed-up data. You can also configure several backup policies with individual jobs to fine-tune automatic backup creation process.

To learn more, see Creating Standalone Backup Job.

To learn more about operation modes, see Standalone and Managed Operation Modes.