The most appropriate solution is to create a single VMware backup job in Veeam Backup & Replication that includes all three cluster nodes. This single job can satisfy both RPO requirements. The image-level backup of the VMs fulfills the 1-day RPO for the nodes. By enabling Application-Aware Processing (AAP), Veeam will correctly identify the SQL Always On Availability Group, ensuring transactional consistency. Within the AAP settings, the transaction log backup can be configured to run every 15 minutes, meeting the more stringent RPO for the database logs. This provides a unified, agentless, and fully application-consistent backup strategy managed from a central console.

B. This option fails to meet the 15-minute RPO for transaction logs, as it only specifies a daily database backup.

C. This option incorrectly suggests using a native SQL log shipping server instead of the integrated Veeam functionality for transaction log backups.

D. The Veeam Enterprise Plug-in protects only the SQL databases, not the entire virtual machine, thus failing to meet the 1-day RPO for the cluster nodes.

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1. Veeam Backup & Replication V12 User Guide for VMware vSphere

Section: "Backup of Microsoft SQL Server Always On Availability Groups". This section details how Veeam processes AAGs within an image-level backup job

stating: "Veeam Backup & Replication detects the AAG configuration and correctly processes it." It also describes how log backups are handled for AAGs.

2. Veeam Backup & Replication V12 User Guide for VMware vSphere

Section: "Microsoft SQL Server Transaction Log Backup". This guide explains: "To back up transaction logs

you must configure the appropriate settings in the application-aware processing options of the backup job." It further details scheduling options

including periodic backups "every N minutes

" which directly supports the 15-minute RPO requirement.

3. Veeam Backup & Replication V12 User Guide for VMware vSphere

Section: "Veeam Plug-in for Microsoft SQL Server". This document clarifies the plug-in's purpose is for database backups managed by DBAs

stating it "does not create an image-level backup of the whole machine." This confirms why option D is incomplete for the stated requirements.