A remote agent for providing data protection services to virtual machines includes persistent storage for storing a backup data catalog and a backup manager. The backup manager instantiates a backup agent in a new virtual machine of the virtual machines; obtains a backup data package associated with the new virtual machine using the backup agent, the backup data package specifies assets of the new virtual machine; generates a backup data processing schema for the new virtual machine based on the backup data package; initiates a backup generation for the new virtual machine to store a backup for the new virtual machine in backup storage; processes, using the backup agent, metadata associated with the backup using backup data processing schema to obtain backup data processing schema compliant catalog data; and provides search services for the backup using the backup data processing schema compliant catalog data and the backup data catalog.