Overview
This article provides instructions on how to safely delete a VMware backup policy from the Druva Phoenix console. Backup policies define the schedule and retention for your virtual machine snapshots. Administrators may need to delete these policies during environment cleanup, after migrating VMs to new schedules, or when consolidating backup strategies.
Target Audience: Cloud Administrators and Organization Administrators.
User Scenarios
Decommissioning old backup schedules that are no longer required.
Removing redundant policies after re-organizing VM backup groups.
Cleaning up "Test" or "Trial" policies.
Potential Errors
Error: "Policy cannot be deleted as it is associated with one or more Virtual Machines."
Cause: Druva prevents the deletion of any policy that is currently "in use" to ensure that active workloads do not lose their backup protection or retention settings unexpectedly.
Procedure: Removing a VMware Backup Policy
Prerequisites
Administrative Rights: You must have Cloud Admin or Organization Admin privileges.
Active Policy Check: Ensure that no Virtual Machines are currently assigned to the policy you intend to delete.
Precautions
Irreversibility: Once a policy is deleted, its specific configuration (schedules, retention rules, and bandwidth throttling) cannot be recovered.
Data Retention Note: Deleting a policy does not delete existing snapshots in the cloud. Those snapshots will continue to be retained based on the settings that were in effect when the snapshot was originally taken.
Step 1: Unassign the Policy from Virtual Machines
A policy cannot be deleted while it is associated with a VM. You must first reassign or unconfigure those VMs.
Log in to the Druva Cloud Platform Console.
Navigate to Phoenix > VMware.
Select the appropriate Organization from the top-right menu.
Click on the Backup Policies tab.
Locate the Associated VMs column. If the count is greater than zero:
Click the Policy Name.
Navigate to the Configured VMs tab.
Select the VMs and click Manage > Change Policy to move them to a different policy, or Unconfigure if backups are no longer needed for those specific machines.
Step 2: Delete the Backup Policy
From the VMware sidebar menu, ensure you are on the Backup Policies page.
Locate the policy you wish to remove and click the checkbox next to its name.
Click the Delete button located at the top of the policy list.
In the confirmation pop-up, follow the prompts (usually involves typing DELETE in capital letters) to confirm the action.
Click Delete.