What I've done on our Always On Availability groups is to modify our 'standard' Backup stored procedure to determine if the database is a member of the Availability group and if it is on the replica do a COPY Only Backup. (We don't back up on the 'live' replica . . . one benefit of the Always On Feature is to be able to take backups from one of the replicas). Our databases are of a reasonable size (~150GB) and backup times are very reasonable.
Of course actually creating the replica in the first place takes a bit of time.
What's good for us is that we have 3 SQL servers with several availability groups, and independent Databases, and this approach ensures that all the databases are backed up. The only issue is collecting together all the Full DIff and TLOG backups in the backup chain if you have to do a restore . . . Hence a COPY_TO to a common network location.
Writing your own Backup Stored procedure gives you a lot more flexibility to use SQL Backup as a tool to ensure your data is protected, rather than relying on the required functionality being added into the GUI
Of course actually creating the replica in the first place takes a bit of time.
What's good for us is that we have 3 SQL servers with several availability groups, and independent Databases, and this approach ensures that all the databases are backed up. The only issue is collecting together all the Full DIff and TLOG backups in the backup chain if you have to do a restore . . . Hence a COPY_TO to a common network location.
Writing your own Backup Stored procedure gives you a lot more flexibility to use SQL Backup as a tool to ensure your data is protected, rather than relying on the required functionality being added into the GUI