With centralized backups, the agent service coordinates the centralized backups as requested by the Data Manager. The backup is triggered according to the schedule, and Data Manager manages the complete protection life cycle. 

The data protection attributes are specified when you create the centralized protection policy. These attributes include Type, Purpose, Assets, Schedule, Retention, and SLA. After you create the protection policy, the lockbox is automatically created, and the configuration information is saved in SQLite database called configinfo.db.

The following steps and Figure 3 describe the centralized backup workflow:

1. The backup schedule starts, and the ADM service triggers the protection policy which sends a REST API request to PowerProtect Data Manager agent service.
2. The PowerProtect Data Manager Agent service receives the requests and sends the backup request to the Microsoft application agent. 
3. The Microsoft application agent requests Exchange VSS to generate snapshots for each database.
4. MsAgentsv.exe transfers the Exchange backup data blocks in VHDX format.
5. The data blocks are transferred from the snapshot to the PowerProtect DD series appliances. The first backup with the centralized policy is always full, and all incremental backups are virtual synthetic full.
6. Once the backup is completed, backup metadata information is stored in SQLite database.
7. The PowerProtect Agent service sends the backup-complete information to the ADM service, and the Data Manager UI reflects the backup completion status.

During the next discovery process, the stored metadata is sent to the ADM service, and the same metadata is updated in Data Manager UI as copies.

Figure 3.   Centralized backup workflow