Off-host data processing

Most actions that are a part of a protection plan, such as replication, validation, and applying retention rules, are performed by the agent that performs the backup. This puts additional workload on the machine where the agent is running, even after the backup process is complete.

Separating the antimalware scanning, replication, validation, cleanup, and conversion plans from protection plans gives you the flexibility:

• To choose another agent(s) for performing these operations
• To schedule these operations for off-peak hours to minimize network bandwidth consumption
• To shift these operations outside of business hours, if setting up a dedicated agent is not in your plans

If you are using a storage node, installing a dedicated agent on the same machine makes sense.

Unlike the backup and VM replication plans, which employ the time settings of machines running the agents, the off-host data processing plans run according to the time settings of the management server machine.