Acronis® Backup & Recovery ™ 10 Advanced Server SBS Edition Update 3 User's Guide
Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010. All rights reserved. “Acronis” and “Acronis Secure Zone” are registered trademarks of Acronis, Inc. "Acronis Compute with Confidence", “Acronis Startup Recovery Manager”, “Acronis Active Restore” and the Acronis logo are trademarks of Acronis, Inc. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. VMware and VMware Ready are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions.
Table of contents 1 Introducing Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10 ........................................................................8 1.1 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 overview ..................................................................................8 1.2 Getting started...........................................................................................................................9 1.2.1 1.3 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components ................................................
3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3 3.1.4 3.1.5 3.2 Management server options ...................................................................................................81 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.2.4 3.2.5 3.2.6 3.2.7 3.3 Default backup options ................................................................................................................................. 89 Default recovery options ......................................................................................................................
6 Direct management ........................................................................................................... 173 6.1 Administering a managed machine .......................................................................................173 6.1.1 6.1.2 6.1.3 6.2 Creating a backup plan ..........................................................................................................188 6.2.1 6.2.2 6.2.3 6.2.4 6.2.5 6.2.6 6.2.7 6.2.8 6.2.9 6.2.10 6.2.11 6.2.12 6.
.8.1 6.8.2 6.9 Creating Acronis Secure Zone .................................................................................................................... 247 Managing Acronis Secure Zone .................................................................................................................. 249 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager .......................................................................................250 6.10 Bootable media...................................................
8.1.9 Where do I start? ...................................................................................................................381 8.3 Choosing a subscription .........................................................................................................381 8.4 Activating online backup subscriptions .................................................................................382 8.4.1 8.4.2 9 Subscription lifecycle FAQ .......................................................
1 Introducing Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10 1.1 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 overview Based on Acronis’ patented disk imaging and bare metal restore technologies, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 succeeds Acronis True Image Echo as the next generation disaster recovery solution.
Running services with minimal user rights Restricted remote access to a backup agent Secure communication between the product components Using third-party certificates for authentication of the components Data encryption options for both data transmission and storage Backup of remote machines to a centralized storage node behind firewalls. 1.2 Getting started Direct management 1. Install Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console and Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent. 2. Start the console.
To recover the entire machine or the operating system that fails to start, use the bootable media (p. 391). You cannot control operations under bootable media using the management server, but you can disconnect the console from the server and connect it to the machine booted from the media. Managing plans and tasks To manage the plans and tasks existing on the registered machines, select Machines > All machines in the Navigation tree and then select each machine in turn.
1.2.1 Using the management console As soon as the console connects to a managed machine (p. 397) or to a management server (p. 398), the respective items appear across the console's workspace (in the menu, in the main area with the Welcome screen, the Navigation pane, the Actions and tools pane) enabling you to perform agentspecific or server-specific operations.
1.2.1.1 "Navigation" pane The navigation pane includes the Navigation tree and the Shortcuts bar. Navigation tree The Navigation tree enables you to navigate across the program views. Views depend on whether the console is connected to a managed machine or to the management server. Views for a managed machine When the console is connected to a managed machine, the following views are available in the navigation tree. [Machine name]. Root of the tree also called a Welcome view.
Log. Use this view to examine the history of centralized management operations, such as creating a managed entities group, applying a policy, managing a centralized vault; as well as the history of operations logged in the local logs of the registered machines and the storage nodes. Shortcuts bar The Shortcuts bar appears under the navigation tree. It offers you an easy and convenient way of connection to the machines in demand by adding them as shortcuts. To add a shortcut to a machine 1.
Actions Contains a list of common operations that can be performed on a managed machine or on a management server. Always the same for all views. Clicking the operation opens the respective action page (see the Action pages (p. 16) section.) All the actions can also be accessed in the Actions menu. "Actions" bar on a managed machine and on a management server Tools Contains a list of the Acronis tools. Always the same across all the program views. All the tools can also be accessed in the Tools menu.
The management console "remembers" the way the panes' borders are set. When you run the management console next time, all the panes' borders will have the same position that was set previously. 1.2.1.4 Main area, views and action pages The main area is a basic place where you work with the console. Here you create, edit and manage backup plans, policies, tasks and perform other operations.
By clicking in the items in the [Item's name] Actions bar (on the Actions and Tools pane); By selecting the items in the Actions menu; By right-clicking the item and selecting the operation in the context menu. Action pages An action page appears in the main area when clicking any action item in the Actions menu, or in the Actions bar on the Actions and tools pane. It contains steps you need to perform in order to create and launch any task, or a backup plan, or backup policy.
Action page - Controls Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 remembers the changes you made on the action pages. For example, if you started to create a backup plan, and then for any reason switched to another view without accomplishing the plan creation, you can click the Back navigation button on the menu. Or, if you have passed several steps forward, click the Down arrow and select the page where you started the plan creation from the list.
Bootable media builder With bootable media builder, you can create bootable media in order to use the agents and other rescue utilities in a rescue environment. Availability of the agent add-ons in a rescue environment depends on whether an add-on is installed on the machine where the media builder is working. 1.3.1 Agent for Windows This agent enables disk-level and file-level data protection under Windows.
1.3.2 Components for centralized management This section lists the components included in the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 editions that provide the centralized management capability. Besides these components, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agents have to be installed on all machines that need data protection. 1.3.2.1 Management Server Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server is the central server that drives data protection within the enterprise network.
This feature also enables automatic deployment and configuration of Agent for ESX/ESXi to any ESX/ESXi server, that is not necessarily managed by the vCenter. 1.3.2.2 Storage Node Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node is a server aimed to optimize usage of various resources (such as the corporate storage capacity, the network bandwidth, or the managed machines' CPU load) required for the enterprise data protection.
Encryption A managed vault can be configured so that anything written to it is encrypted and anything read from it is decrypted transparently by the storage node, using a vault-specific encryption key stored on the node server. In case the storage medium is stolen or accessed by an unauthorized person, the malefactor will not be able to decrypt the vault contents without access to this specific storage node.
The Deduplication (p. 18) add-on enables you to create bootable media with the back up to a deduplicating vault functionality. 1.3.5 Acronis Wake-On-LAN Proxy Acronis Wake-On-LAN Proxy enables Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server to wake up for backup machines located in another subnet. Acronis Wake-On-LAN Proxy installs on any server in the subnet where the machines to be backed up are located. 1.
Windows 2000 – all editions except for the Datacenter edition Windows Vista - all editions (x86, x64) Windows Server 2008 R2 - the Standard, Enterprise, Small Business Server, Datacenter, Foundation editions Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 Windows Server 2003/2003 R2 - the Standard, Enterprise, Small Business Server editions (x86, x64) Windows 7 - all editions (x86, x64) Windows Server 2008 - the Standard, Enterprise, Small Business Server, Foundation editions (x86, x64) Acronis Backup
Bootable Media Builder 80 MB 700 MB 300 MB CD-RW or DVDRW drive Management Console 30 MB 950 MB 450 MB Screen resolution 1024*768 pixels or higher Management Server 40 MB 250 MB 250 MB 400 MB for SQL Express Server 400 MB for SQL Express Server Wake-on-LAN Proxy Negligible 30 MB 5 MB Storage Node 100 MB 150 MB 150 MB When using a tape library, space required for tapes database: approx.
2 Understanding Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 This section attempts to give its readers a clear understanding of the product so that they can use the product in various circumstances without step-by-step instructions. 2.1 Basic concepts Please familiarize yourself with the basic notions used in the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 graphical user interface and documentation. Advanced users are welcome to use this section as a step-by-step quick start guide. The details can be found in the context help.
The following diagram illustrates the notions discussed above. For more definitions please refer to the Glossary. 26 Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
Backup using bootable media You can boot the machine using the bootable media, configure the backup operation in the same way as a simple backup plan and execute the operation. This will help you extract files and logical volumes from a system that failed to boot, take an image of the offline system or back up sector-bysector an unsupported file system. Recovery under operating system When it comes to data recovery, you create a recovery task on the managed machine.
The following diagram illustrates data recovery under the operating system (online). No backup can proceed on the machine while the recovery operation is taking place. If required, you can connect the console to another machine and configure a recovery operation on that machine. This ability (remote parallel recovery) first appeared in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10; the previous Acronis products do not provide it.
If the machine fails to boot or you need to recover data to bare metal, you boot the machine using the bootable media and configure the recovery operation in the same way as the recovery task. The following diagram illustrates the recovery using the bootable media. 2.2 Full, incremental and differential backups Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provides the capability to use popular backup schemes, such as Grandfather-Father-Son and Tower of Hanoi, as well as to create custom backup schemes.
It is widely accepted that a full backup is the slowest to do but the fastest to restore. With Acronis technologies, recovery from an incremental backup may be not slower than recovery from a full one. A full backup is most useful when: you need to roll back the system to its initial state this initial state does not change often, so there is no need for regular backup.
Parameter Full backup Differential backup Incremental backup Storage space Maximal Medium Minimal Creation time Maximal Medium Minimal Recovery time Minimal Medium Maximal 2.3 User privileges on a managed machine When managing a machine running Windows, the scope of a user's management rights depends on the user's privileges on the machine.
When a user opens a plan or task for editing, which is owned by another user, all passwords set in the task are cleared. This prevents the "modify settings, leave passwords" trick. The program displays a warning each time you are trying to edit a plan (task) last modified by another user. On seeing the warning, you have two options: Click Cancel and create your own plan or task. The original task will remain intact. Continue editing.
“sons”; weekly backups are referred to as “fathers”; the longest lived monthly backups are called “grandfathers”. GFS as a tape rotation scheme GFS was initially created and is often referred to as a tape rotation scheme. Tape rotation schemes, as such, do not provide automation. They just determine: how many tapes you need to enable recovery with the desired resolution (time interval between recovery points) and roll-back period which tapes you should overwrite with the forthcoming backup.
The schedule marked out according to the GFS scheme. Schedule: Workdays at 8:00 PM Weekly/Monthly: Friday Acronis uses incremental and differential backups that help save storage space and optimize the cleanup so that consolidation is not needed. In terms of backup methods, weekly backup is differential (Dif), monthly backup is full (F) and daily backup is incremental (I). The first backup is always full. The Weekly/Monthly parameter splits the total schedule into daily, weekly and monthly schedules.
“D” stands for the backup that is considered Daily. “W” stands for the backup that is considered Weekly. “M” stands for the backup that is considered Monthly. An ideal archive created according to the GFS scheme. Schedule: Workdays at 8:00 PM Weekly/Monthly: Friday Keep daily backups: 7 days Keep weekly backups: 2 weeks Keep monthly backups: 6 months Starting from the third week, weekly backups will be regularly deleted. After 6 months, monthly backups will start to be deleted.
The backups that outlive their nominal lifetime because of dependencies are marked pink. The initial full backup will be deleted as soon as all differential and incremental backups based on this backup are deleted. An archive created according to the GFS scheme by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. Schedule: Workdays at 8:00 PM Weekly/Monthly: Friday Keep daily backups: 7 days Keep weekly backups: 2 weeks Keep monthly backups: 6 months 2.
For example, if there are five rings labeled A, B, C, D, and E in the puzzle, the solution gives the following order of moves: The Tower of Hanoi backup scheme is based on the same patterns. It operates with Sessions instead of Moves and with Backup levels instead of Rings. Commonly an N-level scheme pattern contains (Nth power of two) sessions. So, the five-level Tower of Hanoi backup scheme cycles the pattern that consists of 16 sessions (moves from 1 to 16 in the above figure).
the pattern starts with a full backup since the very first backup cannot be incremental an old backup on a level is kept until a new backup has been successfully created on the level. the scheme forces every backup level to keep only the most recent backup, other backups from the level have to be deleted; however backup deletion is postponed in cases where the backup is a base for another incremental or differential one The table shows the pattern for the five-level backup scheme.
1. Delete backups older than This is a time interval counted back from the moment when the retention rules are applied. Every time a retention rule is applied, the program calculates the date and time in the past corresponding to this interval and deletes all backups created before that moment. None of the backups created after this moment will be deleted. 2. Keep the archive size within This is the maximum size of the archive.
Combination of rules 1 and 2 You can limit both the backups’ lifetime and the archive size. The diagram below illustrates the resulting rule. Example Delete backups older than = 3 Months Keep the archive size within = 200GB Never delete backups younger than = 10 Days Every time the retention rules are applied, the program will delete all backups created more than 3 months (or more exactly, 90 days) ago.
What you need to know about consolidation Please be aware that consolidation is just a method of deletion but not an alternative to deletion. The resulting backup will not contain data that was present in the deleted backup and was absent from the retained incremental or differential backup. Backups resulting from consolidation always have maximum compression. This means that all backups in an archive may acquire the maximum compression as a result of repeated cleanup with consolidation.
Recovering dynamic volumes A dynamic volume can be recovered over any type of existing volume to unallocated space of a disk group to unallocated space of a basic disk. Recovery over an existing volume When a dynamic volume is recovered over an existing volume, either basic or dynamic, the target volume’s data is overwritten with the backup content. The type of target volume (basic, simple/spanned, striped, mirrored, RAID 0+1, RAID 5) will not change.
Unallocated space (basic GPT disk) Basic GPT volume Basic GPT volume Basic GPT volume Moving and resizing volumes during recovery You can resize the resulting basic volume, both MBR and GPT, during recovery, or change the volume's location on the disk. A resulting dynamic volume cannot be moved or resized. Preparing disk groups and volumes Before recovering dynamic volumes to bare metal you should create a disk group on the target hardware.
device (tape drive or tape library) by... Agent for Windows Agent for Linux Tape written on a tape device through... Backup Server Storage Node 2.9.2 ATIE 9.1 ATIE 9.5 ATIE 9.7 ABR10 ATIE 9.1 ATIE 9.5 ATIE 9.7 ABR10 ATIE 9.1 ATIE 9.5 ATIE 9.7 ABR10 + + + + + + + - + + + + + + + - + + + + + + + - + + + + + + + + + + + + Using a single tape drive A tape drive that is locally attached to a managed machine can be used by local backup plans as a storage device.
6. Acronis Active Restore (p. 388) is not available when recovering from a tape. Recovery from a locally attached tape device Before creating a recovery task, insert or mount the tape containing the backup you need to recover. When creating a recovery task, select the tape device from the list of available locations and then select the backup. After recovery is started, you will be prompted for other tapes if the tapes are needed for recovery. 2.
OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.1.0 Value: "Unknown" Text description of the event OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.0 Value: "?00000000" 2.11 Proprietary Acronis technologies This section describes the proprietary technologies inherited by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 from Acronis True Image Echo and Acronis True Image 9.1 product families. 2.11.
With the new Acronis Secure Zone behavior, you obtain the ability to: list archives located in the zone and backups contained in each archive examine a backup's content mount a disk backup to copy files from the backup to a physical disk safely delete archives and backups from the archives. For more information about operations available in Acronis Secure Zone, see the Personal vaults (p. 151) section.
2.11.3 Universal Restore (Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Universal Restore) Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Universal Restore is the Acronis proprietary technology that helps recover and boot up Windows on dissimilar hardware or a virtual machine. The Universal Restore handles differences in devices that are critical for the operating system start-up, such as storage controllers, motherboard or chipset.
Universal Restore and Microsoft Sysprep Universal Restore is not a system preparation tool. You can apply it to any Windows image created by Acronis products, including images of systems prepared with Microsoft System Preparation Tool (Sysprep). The following is an example of using both tools on the same system.
How it works When configuring a recovery operation, you select disks or volumes to recover from a backup. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 scans the selected disks or volumes in the backup. If this scan finds a supported operating system, the Acronis Active Restore option becomes available. If you do not enable the option, the system recovery will proceed in the usual way and the machine will become operational after the recovery is completed.
5. Once the system recovery is started, the operating system boots from the backup. The Acronis Active Restore icon appears in the system tray. The machine becomes operational and ready to provide necessary services. The immediate user sees the drive tree and icons and can open files or launch applications even though they were not yet recovered.
Using the management server, you can create one or more centralized archive storages (centralized vaults (p. 392)), which will be shared by the registered machines. A centralized vault can be used by any backup policy as well as by any backup plan created on the registered machines using direct management.
You have to protect each server as a whole, the users' data on the workstations, and the virtual machines. You want to be able to track the health of the data protection, be sure that the backup archives do not store duplicated information and that the obsolete backups are deleted from the storage in a timely manner. These goals can be achieved by regular backup of the desired data items to a centralized vault with deduplication. Setting up the Acronis infrastructure 1.
When installing the storage node, register it on the management server in the same way as you register the agents. Installation tips Both AMS and ASN can be installed on a workstation operating system as well. Multiple Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components can be installed on a machine with a single installation procedure. In an Active Directory domain, you can deploy the components using the Group Policy. There can be multiple storage nodes on the network.
When you need and have the opportunity to back up any of the servers, navigate to the backup plan as described above, select the plan and run it. 2.12.2.2 Protecting the workstations Here is how to set up the most popular schedule: weekly full backup and daily incremental backup of users' default document folders. In addition, we will retain only backups from the last 7 days. 1. Create a policy that backs up [All Profiles Folder] to the managed vault on the storage node.
Install Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux on each virtual machine. Register the machines on the management server. The machines will be considered as physical machines. You can apply a backup policy to these machines or create a backup plan on each machine separately. If any of the machines meets membership criteria set for a dynamic group of physical machines, the machine will be protected by the policy applied to this group.
2.12.4.1 A policy on a machine or a group In the diagrams below, each numbered scheme illustrates the result of the respectively numbered action. The container stands for a group; the colored circle stands for a machine with applied policy; the dark colored circle stands for a machine with two applications of the same policy; the white circle stands for a machine to which no policy is applied. Policy on a machine 1. A policy can be applied to a machine. 2. A policy can be revoked from a machine.
In the diagram below, the container stands for a group; the one-color circle stands for a machine with one applied policy; the two-color circle stands for a machine with two applied policies; the white circle stands for a machine with no policy applied. 1. Here is the initial state: two custom groups contain different machines. A policy is applied to one group; another policy is applied to another group. The next schemes illustrate results of the specified actions. 2.
In the diagram below, the container stands for a group; the two-color circle stands for a machine with two applied policies; the three-color circle stands for a machine with three applied policies and so on. Besides the All machines group, we have the custom G1 group in the root and the custom G2 group, which is G1's child. The "green" policy, applied to the All machines group, is inherited by all machines.
#4 #5 or #6 "green" Inherited All machines -> #4 "orange" Inherited G1 -> G2 -> #4 "blue" Inherited G2 -> #4 "violet" Applied directly "green" Inherited All machines -> #5 or #6 "orange" Inherited G1 -> G2 -> #5 or #6 "blue" Inherited G2 -> #5 or #6 2.12.5 Backup policy's state and statuses Centralized management presumes that the administrator can monitor the health of the entire product infrastructure using a few easily understandable parameters.
another policy. In this case, the first policy's state on the machine will be Revoking and the second policy's state will be Deploying. The policies can appear in the GUI simultaneously or one after another. Backup policy state diagram 2.12.5.2 Policy status on a machine To see this parameter, select any group of machines in the tree, then select the machine, and then select the Backup policies tab on the Information pane.
The policy gets the Warning status on Windows machines that have either a D: or F: volume, unless an event that will result in an error occurs. The policy that has to back up the [System] and the /dev/sda1 volumes, will get the Warning status on the Windows machines (since /dev/sda is not found) and on the Linux machines that have the /dev/sda1 volume (since the [System] volume is not found). The policy will get the Error status on Linux machines that do not have a SCSI device.
This status is defined as the most severe status of the policy on the machines included in the group and its child groups. If the policy is currently not applied to any machine, its status is "OK". 2.12.5.5 Cumulative state and status of a policy In addition to the deployment state and status as related to a specific machine or group, the backup policy has a cumulative deployment state and a cumulative status.
Deduplication at source Performed on a managed machine during backup. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent uses the storage node to determine what data can be deduplicated, and does not transfer the data whose duplicates are already present in the vault. Deduplication at target Performed in the vault after a backup is completed. The storage node analyses the vault's archives and deduplicates data in the vault. When creating a backup plan, you have the option to turn off deduplication at source for that plan.
Deduplication at target After backup to a deduplicating vault is completed, the storage node runs the indexing task to deduplicate data in the vault as follows: 1. It moves the items (disk blocks or files) from the archives to a special file within the vault, storing duplicate items there only once. This file is called the deduplication data store. If there are both disk-level and file-level backups in the vault, there are two separate data stores for them.
The deduplicated items that have changed are not identical anymore and therefore will not be deduplicated. 2.12.6.4 Deduplication best practices Follow these recommendations when using deduplication: When creating a deduplicating vault, place the vault and its deduplication database on different disks. This will make deduplication faster, because deduplication involves extensive simultaneous use of both the vault and the database.
Similarly, in case of three machines, the ratio becomes 1.5:1; for four machines, it is 1.6:1. It approaches 2:1 as more such machines are backed up to the same vault. This means that you can buy, say, a 10-TB storage device instead of a 20-TB one. The actual amount of capacity reduction is influenced by numerous factors such as the type of data that is being backed up, the frequency of the backup, and the backups' retention period. 2.12.6.
2.12.7 Privileges for centralized management This section describes the users' privileges that are required to manage a machine locally and remotely, to manage a machine registered on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server, and to access and manage Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node. 2.12.7.1 Types of connection to a managed machine There are two types of connection to a managed machine: local connection and remote connection.
For information about Acronis security groups and their default members, see Acronis security groups (p. 69). 2.12.7.4 Acronis security groups On a machine running Windows, Acronis security groups determine who can manage the machine remotely and act as Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server administrator. These groups are created when Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agents or Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server are being installed.
DCNAME stands for the NetBIOS name of the domain controller. Each dollar sign is surrounded by a single space on either side. Instead of explicitly including the names of all members of the Administrators group, the Administrators group itself is included. Tip: To ensure proper group names, you should install Acronis components in a domain controller after you have set up the domain controller itself.
Example Suppose that two users on a machine, UserA and UserB, perform backups from this machine to a centralized vault managed by a storage node. On the storage node, let these users have regular (nonadministrative) accounts UserA_SN and UserB_SN, respectively. Normally, UserA can access only the archives created by UserA (and owned by UserA_SN), and UserB can access only the archives created by UserB (and owned by UserB_SN).
The setup program will assign the above listed user rights to any existing account you specify for a corresponding service. If you choose to specify an existing user account for the agent service or the storage node service, make sure that this account is a member of the Backup Operators group, before proceeding with the installation. If you choose to specify an existing user account for the management server service, this account will be added to the Acronis Centralized Admins group automatically.
For instructions on how to manage SSL certificates used for secure authentication, see SSL certificates (p. 77). Note: The components of earlier Acronis products, including those of the Acronis True Image Echo family, cannot connect to the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components, regardless of the secure authentication and data encryption settings. 2.12.8.
3. In the Acronis pane to the right, double-click a communication option that you want to configure. The Administrative Template contains the following options (each option is explained later in this topic): Remote Agent ports If Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console is running, close it and start it again. Client Encryption options Server Encryption options 4.
Required Data transfer will be performed only if encryption is enabled on the server application (see "Server Encryption options"); it will be encrypted. Authentication parameters Selecting the Trust self-signed certificates check box allows the client to connect to the server applications that use self-signed SSL certificates such as certificates created during the installation of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components—see SSL certificates (p. 77).
Do not use The use of SSL certificates is disabled. Any connection to a client application which requires the use of SSL certificates will not be established. Use if possible The use of SSL certificates is enabled. The server will use SSL certificates if their use is enabled on the client application, and will not use them otherwise. Always use The use of SSL certificates is enabled. The connection will be established only if the use of SSL certificates is enabled on the client application.
2.12.8.5 SSL certificates Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates for secure authentication. SSL certificates for the components can be one of the two types: Self-signed certificates, such as certificates automatically generated during the installation of an Acronis component.
To generate a new self-signed certificate 1. Log on as a member of the Administrators group. 2. In the Start menu, click Run, and then type: cmd 3. Run the following command (note quotation marks): "%CommonProgramFiles%\Acronis\Utils\acroniscert" --reinstall 4. Restart Windows, or restart the running Acronis services.
3 Options This section covers Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 options that can be configured using Graphical User Interface. The content of this section is applicable to both stand-alone and advanced editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. 3.1 Console options The console options define the way information is represented in the Graphical User Interface of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. To access the console options, select Options > Console options from the top menu. 3.1.
The preset is: Enabled for all results. To make a setting for each result (successful completion, failure or success with warnings) individually, select or clear the respective check box. 3.1.3 Time-based alerts Last backup This option is effective when the console is connected to a managed machine (p. 397) or to the management server (p. 398). The option defines whether to alert if no backup was performed on a given machine for a period of time.
The option defines the fonts to be used in the Graphical User Interface of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. The Menu setting affects the drop-down and context menus. The Application setting affects the other GUI elements. The preset is: System Default font for both the menus and the application interface items. To make a selection, choose the font from the respective combo-box and set the font's properties. You can preview the font's appearance by clicking the button to the right. 3.
This parameter can also be set by using Acronis Administrative Template (p. 334). 3.2.3 Event tracing You can configure the management server to log events in the Application Event Log of Windows, besides the management server's own log. You can configure the management server to send Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) objects to a specified SNMP manager. 3.2.3.
3.2.4 Domain access credentials This option determines the user name and password that the management server will use to access the domain. The preset is: No credentials The management server needs domain access credentials when working with a dynamic group that is based on the Organizational unit criterion (p. 307). When you are creating such group and no credentials are given by this option, the program will ask you for credentials and save them in this option.
3.2.6.1 VMware vCenter integration This option defines whether to show virtual machines managed by a VMware vCenter Server in the management server and show the backup status of these machines in the vCenter. Integration is available in all Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 advanced editions; a license for Virtual Edition is not required. No software installation is required on the vCenter Server.
Note: Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Online supports only HTTP and HTTPS proxy servers. Proxy settings for the agent and the management server are configured separately, even if both are installed on the same machine. To set up proxy server settings 1. Select the Use a proxy server check box. 2. In Address, specify the network name or IP address of the proxy server—for example: proxy.example.com or 192.168.0.1 3. In Port, specify the port number of the proxy server—for example: 80 4.
3.3.2 Event tracing It is possible to duplicate log events generated by the agent(s), operating on the managed machine, in the Application Event Log of Windows; or send the events to the specified SNMP managers. If you do not modify the event tracing options anywhere except for here, your settings will be effective for each local backup plan and each task created on the machine.
You can override the settings set here, exclusively for the events that occur during backup or during recovery, in the Default backup and recovery options (p. 89). In this case, the settings set here will be effective for operations other than backup and recovery, such as archive validation or cleanup. You can further override the settings set in the default backup and recovery options, when creating a backup plan or a recovery task.
/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf - configuration file for the Net-SNMP SNMP agent /etc/snmp/snmptrapd.conf - configuration file for the Net-SNMP trap daemon. 3.3.3 Log cleanup rules This option specifies how to clean up the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent log. This option defines the maximum size of the agent log folder (in Windows XP/2003 Server, %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\LogEvents). The preset is: Maximum log size: 1 GB. On cleanup, keep 95% of the maximum log size.
If you choose Yes, I want to participate in the ACEP, information about the hardware configuration, the most and least used features and about any problems will be automatically collected from the machine and sent to Acronis on a regular basis. The end results are intended to provide software improvements and enhanced functionality to better meet the needs of Acronis customers. Acronis does not collect any personal data.
(p. 93) Pre/Post data capture commands (p. 95) + + - - Multi-volume snapshot (p. 97) + + - - File-level backup snapshot (p. 97) - + - - Use VSS (p. 97) + + - - Compression level (p. 98) + + + + + + - - Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Network connection speed (p. 100) Dest: network share Dest: network share Dest: network share Dest: network share Fast incremental/differential backup (p. 103) + - + - Backup splitting (p.
Additional settings (p.
The AES cryptographic algorithm operates in the Cipher-block chaining (CBC) mode and uses a randomly generated key with a user-defined size of 128, 192 or 256 bits. The larger the key size, the longer it will take for the program to encrypt the archive and the more secure your data will be. The encryption key is then encrypted with AES-256 using a SHA-256 hash of the password as a key.
Exclusion examples Criterion Example Description Windows and Linux By name By mask (*) By mask (?) F.log Excludes all files named "F.log" F Excludes all folders named "F" *.log Excludes all files with the .log extension F* Excludes all files and folders with names starting with "F" (such as folders F, F1 and files F.log, F1.log) F???.log Excludes all .log files with names consisting of four symbols and starting with "F" Windows By file path C:\Finance\F.log Excludes the file named "F.
To specify pre/post commands 1. Enable pre/post commands execution by checking the following options: Execute before the backup Click Edit to specify a new command or a batch file Execute after the backup 2. Do any of the following: Select the existing command or the batch file from the drop-down list 3. Click OK. Pre-backup command To specify a command/batch file to be executed before the backup process starts 1. In the Command field, type a command or browse to a batch file.
4. If successful execution of the command is critical for your backup strategy, select the Fail the task if the command execution fails check box. In case the command execution fails, the program will remove the resulting TIB file and temporary files if possible, and the task will fail. When the check box is not selected, the command execution result does not affect the task execution failure or success.
4. Depending on the result you want to obtain, select the appropriate options as described in the table below. 5. Click Test command to check if the command is correct.
fails. 3.4.1.5 File-level backup snapshot This option is effective only for file-level backup in Windows and Linux operating systems. This option defines whether to back up files one by one or by taking an instant data snapshot. Note: Files that are stored on network shares are always backed up one by one. The preset is: Create snapshot if it is possible. Select one of the following: Always create a snapshot The snapshot enables backing up of all files including files opened for exclusive access.
transactions, at the moment of taking the data snapshot by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. Data consistency, in turn, ensures that the application will be recovered in the correct state and become operational immediately after recovery. The preset is: Create snapshots using VSS Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 will select the VSS provider automatically based on the operating system running on the machine and whether the machine is a member of an Active Directory domain.
Maximum – the data will be compressed as much as possible. The backup duration will be maximal. You may want to select maximum compression when backing up to removable media to reduce the number of blank disks required. 3.4.1.9 Backup performance Use this group of options to specify the amount of network and system resources to allocate to the backup process. Backup performance options might have a more or less noticeable effect on the speed of the backup process.
Click Writing speed stated in kilobytes per second, and then enter the writing speed in kilobytes per second. Network connection speed This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media. This option is available when a location on the network (network share, managed vault or an FTP/SFTP server) is selected as the backup destination. The option defines the amount of network connection bandwidth allocated for transferring the backup data.
4. For the e-mail message to include the log entries related to the backup, select the Add full log to the notification check box. 5. Click Additional e-mail parameters, to configure additional e-mail parameters as follows, then click OK: From - type the e-mail address of the user from whom the message will be sent. If you leave this field empty, messages will be constructed as if they are from the destination address. Use encryption – you can opt for encrypted connection to the mail server.
The When user interaction is required check box – to send notification during the operation when user interaction is required – is always selected. Click Send test WinPopup message to check if the settings are correct. 3.4.1.11 Event tracing It is possible to duplicate log events of the backup operations, performed on the managed machine, in the Application Event Log of Windows; or send the events to the specified SNMP managers.
To select whether to send the backup operations events to the SNMP managers: Choose one of the following: Use the setting set in the Machine options – to use the setting specified for the machine. For more information refer to Machine options (p. 85). Send SNMP notifications individually for backup operation events – to send the events of the backup operations to the specified SNMP managers.
The backup will automatically be split into several files if the destination disk's file system does not allow the estimated file size. Such might be the case when the backup is placed on FAT16 and FAT32 file systems that have a 4GB file size limit. If the destination disk runs out of free space while creating the backup, the task enters the Need interaction state. You have the ability to free additional space and retry the operation.
To access file or folder NTFS permissions, select Properties > Security. 3.4.1.15 Media components This option is effective for both Windows and Linux operating systems, when the backup destination is removable media. When backing up to removable media, you can make this media work as regular Linux-based bootable media (p. 391) by writing additional components to it. As a result, you will not need a separate rescue disc. The preset is: None selected.
For example, if the backup destination on the network becomes unavailable or not reachable, the program will attempt to reach the destination every 30 seconds, but no more than 5 times. The attempts will be stopped as soon as the connection is resumed OR the specified number of attempts is performed, depending on which comes first. Ignore bad sectors The preset is: Disabled.
3.4.1.18 Task start conditions This option is effective in Windows and Linux operating systems. This option is not available when operating under bootable media. This option determines the program behavior in case a backup task is about to start (the scheduled time comes or the event specified in the schedule occurs), but the condition (or any of multiple conditions) is not met. For more information on conditions please see Scheduling (p. 158) and Conditions (p. 169).
3.4.1.19 Task failure handling This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems. This option is not available when operating under the bootable media. This option determines the program behavior when any of the backup plan's tasks fails. The preset is not to restart a failed task. The program will try to execute the failed task again if you select the Restart a failed task check box and specify the number of attempts and the time interval between the attempts.
If you leave this option unchanged, then the backups, belonging to the policy or plan being created, might be written onto tapes containing backups written by different backup policies and comprising of data from different machines. Similarly, backups from other policies might be written onto the tapes containing this policy's backups. You will not have a problem with such tapes, as the program manages all the tapes automatically.
Overwrite data on a tape without prompting for user confirmation This option is effective only when backing up to a tape device. The preset is: Disabled. When starting backup to a non-empty tape in a locally attached tape device, the program will warn that you are about to lose data on the tape. To disable this warning, select this check box. Dismount media after backup has finished This option is effective in Windows and Linux operating systems.
When the option is enabled, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 will restart the machine after the backup process is completed. For example, if the machine boots from a hard disk drive by default and you select this check box, the machine will be restarted and the operating system will start as soon as the bootable agent has finished creating the backup.
creating a recovery task, you can either use a default option, or override the default option with the custom value that will be specific for this task only. You can also customize a default option itself by changing its value against the pre-defined one. The new value will be used by default in all recovery tasks you will create later on this machine.
+ + - - Windows recovery - Windows recovery - E-mail (p. 115) + + - - Win Pop-up (p. 116) + + - - Windows events log (p. 117) + + - - SNMP (p. 117) + + - - Reboot machine automatically if it is required for recovery Change SID after recovery Notifications: Event tracing: 3.4.2.1 Pre/Post commands This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and PE-based bootable media.
5. Click Test command to check if the command is correct. Check box Selection Fail the task if the command execution fails Selected Cleared Selected Cleared Do not recover until the command execution is complete Selected Selected Cleared Cleared N/A Perform the recovery concurrently with the command execution and irrespective of the command execution result.
To specify the recovery process priority Select one of the following: Low – to minimize resources taken by the recovery process, leaving more resources to other processes running on the machine Normal – to run the recovery process with normal speed, allocating resources on a par with other processes High – to maximize the recovery process speed by taking resources from the other processes. 3.4.2.
From - type the e-mail address of the user from whom the message will be sent. If you leave this field empty, messages will be constructed as if they are from the destination address. Use encryption – you can opt for encrypted connection to the mail server. SSL and TLS encryption types are available for selection. Some Internet service providers require authentication on the incoming mail server before being allowed to send something.
3.4.2.5 Event tracing It is possible to duplicate log events of the recovery operations, performed on the managed machine, in the Application Event Log of Windows; or send the events to the specified SNMP managers. Windows event log This option is effective only in Windows operating systems. This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
Types of events to send – choose the types of events to be sent: All events, Errors and warnings, or Errors only. Server name/IP – type the name or IP address of the host running the SNMP management application, the messages will be sent to. Community – type the name of SNMP community to which both the host running SNMP management application and the sending machine belong. The typical community is "public". Click Send test message to check if the settings are correct.
This option defines whether to validate a backup to ensure that the backup is not corrupted, before data is recovered from it. Check file system after recovery This option is effective only when recovering disks or volumes. When operating under bootable media, this option is not effective for the NTFS file system. The preset is Disabled. This option defines whether to check the integrity of the file system after a disk or volume recovery.
4 Vaults A vault is a location for storing backup archives. For ease of use and administration, a vault is associated with the archives' metadata. Referring to this metadata makes for fast and convenient operations with archives and backups stored in the vault. A vault can be organized on a local or networked drive, detachable media or a tape device attached to the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node. There are no settings for limiting a vault size or number of backups in a vault.
Way of working with the "Vaults" view Vaults (on the navigation pane) - top element of the vaults tree. Click this item to display groups of centralized and personal vaults. Centralized. This group is available when the console is connected to a managed machine or to a management server. Expand this group to display a list of centralized vaults added by the management server administrator. Click any centralized vault in the vaults tree to open the detailed view of this vault (p.
To learn more about privileges depending on the user rights, see the User privileges on a storage node (p. 70) section. Unmanaged vaults An unmanaged vault is a centralized vault that is not managed by a storage node. To access an unmanaged vault, a user has to have access privileges for the location from the network. Any user that has permission to read/write files in an unmanaged vault can: back up data to the unmanaged vault recover data from any backup located in the unmanaged vault.
Related sections: Operations with archives stored in a vault (p. 154) Operations with backups (p. 155) Filtering and sorting archives (p. 157) Bars of the "Actions and tools" pane [Vault Name] The Actions bar is available when clicking the vault in the vaults tree. Duplicates actions of the vault's toolbar. [Archive Name] The Actions bar is available when you select an archive in the archives table. Duplicates actions of the archives toolbar.
Delete a vault 1. Select the vault. 2. Click Delete. You'll be asked whether to keep the archives stored in the vault, or delete the vault along with all the archives. The plans and tasks that use this vault will fail. If you choose to keep the archives for a managed vault, the vault will be detached from the storage node. Later on, you'll be able to attach this vault to the same or to another storage node. Explore an unmanaged vault 1. Select the unmanaged vault. 2. Click Explore.
Storage node Select the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node that will manage the vault. You may need to enter access credentials for the storage node. Path (p. 125) Specify where the vault will be created. Managed centralized vaults can reside on a network share, SAN, NAS, or on a hard drive local to the storage node. Database path (p. 126) Specify a local folder on the storage server to create a vault-specific database.
Vault database path To specify the path where the vault's database will be created 1. In the Local folders of the storage node, select the desired folder or enter the full path to the folder in the Path field. To create a new folder for the database, click 2. Click OK. Create folder. When choosing a folder for the vault's database, follow these considerations: The folder must reside on a fixed drive. Please do not try to place the database on external detachable drives.
4.1.2.2 Creating an unmanaged centralized vault To create an unmanaged centralized vault, perform the following steps. Vault Name Specify a unique name for the vault. The creation of two centralized vaults with the same name is prohibited. Comments Enter the distinctive description of the vault. Type Select the Unmanaged type. Path (p. 127) Specify where the vault will be created. After you have performed all the required steps, click OK to commit creating the unmanaged centralized vault.
To attach a managed vault to a storage node, perform the following steps. Vault Storage node Select the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node that will manage the vault. Path Specify the path to the location where the archives are stored. Database path Specify a local folder on the storage server to create a vault-specific database. This database will store the metadata required for cataloguing the archives and performing deduplication.
by different components of other versions of the product by means of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, see the Tape compatibility table (p. 43) section. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 enables you to set up distribution of backups by media. For example, a separate tape set can be used to back up some specific data, and the backups of all other data will be written onto any currently mounted tape, which does not belong to the tape set. See the Tape support (p. 108) section for more information.
4. A tape with backups written by the storage node cannot be read on a tape device, locally attached to a machine, the agent is installed on, because of a difference in tape format. To get information about the readability of the archives on tapes, written by different components of other versions of the product by means of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, see the Tape compatibility table (p. 43) section. 5. Barcode printers are not used. 4.1.3.
4.1.3.5 Getting started with a tape library If you have a tape library device attached to a machine with Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node installed, all you need to do to back up onto the tape library is to create an archive vault on the device under storage node management. Prerequisites A tape library device has to be installed on a machine running Windows in accordance with the device manufacturer’s installation instructions.
If the tape barcode cannot be read, another Tasks Need Interaction window asks you to label a tape. Actions on a tape library vault If a tape library vault is selected on the Navigation pane of the console, the Centralized vaults page toolbar will contain the following two actions that are used for tape libraries only: Manage tapes displays the Tape Management window allowing you to refresh information on the library slots, inventory tapes in the slots, and define labels for the tapes.
To change the settings of the backup policy/plan to be created click Change… in the Backup options section on the Create backup policy/plan page. It opens the Backup options window where the Tape support page is contained with the pre-defined values. When backing up to a tape and the end of the tape is reached, a free tape will be mounted automatically and the operation will continue onto the new tape.
Any user with access to a managed vault on a tape library is able to perform these operations. However two or more users cannot manage a tape library drive simultaneously, because some operations can take minutes, hours or even days. For example, if a user launches a tape library Rescan task, all other users' requests to perform the same task will be canceled automatically, as it is already running on the vault.
Labeling When a tape required for data recovery is not found, the Task Need Interaction window will ask the user to bring the tape and insert it into a tape library slot. So, all the tape cartridges need a barcode or other readable labels. If a tape does not get a label, you should define it before the tape will be used.
If you leave this option unchanged, then the backups, belonging to the policy or plan being created, might be written onto tapes containing backups written by different backup policies and comprising of data from different machines. Similarly, backups from other policies might be written onto the tapes containing this policy's backups. You will not have a problem with such tapes, as the program manages all the tapes automatically.
cycle. The same tape rotation enables you to get by with the minimum number of cartridges and not to be buried in used tapes. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 enables you to achieve full automation of tape rotation while backing up onto tape libraries. This section provides you with useful information to choose a backup scheme and tape options for tape rotation. To calculate the number of tapes required for tape rotation schemes, you can use the method described in the Tape planning (p. 148) section.
capability of the tape library (number of drives, loaders, slots and available tapes; capacity of tapes) requirements for performing data recovery (maximal duration) You need to analyze every argument that is relevant for your case and select the main criteria for the choice. Then choose a backup scheme and specify the tape options. Note, that any backup scheme in combination with different tape options will have quite different results for efficient use of both tapes and devices.
backup policy/plan starts on Wednesday and full backups should be created on every fourth Friday, on Wednesday the first backup will be full instead of an incremental one. There are analyzed examples showing how the GFS scheme can be combined with different tape options in the following sections: GFS Example 1 (p. 139). The Use a separate tape set option is selected. All the Always use a free tape options are cleared. It requires 25 tapes in rotation. GFS Example 2 (p. 142).
The next figure demonstrates the data backup archive at the moment. The differential backup is drawn as a blue rectangle in the figure. Number 1 in the green rectangle marks the incremental backup created on Monday of the 1st week of the year. Then the following backups are written onto tape 02: four incremental and one differential backup on the second week four incremental and one differential backup on the third week four incremental backups on the 4th week.
Below, the figure shows the deleted backups as actual, but demonstrates tape usage during the whole year for the GFS backup scheme in combination with the specified tape options. A number in the green rectangle marks an incremental backup created on Monday of the corresponding week of the year. Tape usage during the first year The next figure shows the actual usage of the tapes with free space instead of the deleted backups on the first Friday of the following year.
The full backup stored on tape 01 is deleted after the next full backup is created onto both tapes 23 and 24 on Friday of the 52nd week. As all backups of tape 01 have been deleted, the tape is considered as free and can be reused. Further analysis of the example proves that the maximal number of tapes required to store the data backups is 25 tapes. This maximum occurs on the 16th week of the following year.
If all the backups have to be kept during the year, the archive will require 28 tapes. As the GFS backup scheme forces automatic deletion of the outdated backups, on the first Friday of the second year the tapes keep only the backups displayed in the next figure. 143 Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
This figure demonstrates that the GFS Example 2 tape rotation scheme is more suitable for the case than GFS Example 1. The advantages of the GFS Example 2 tape rotation scheme for the analyzed case are the following: it uses 16 tapes instead of 25 a data recovery task requires one (25%) or two (75%) tapes data recovery from a full backup requires only one tape that makes the data recovery from an incremental or differential backup faster.
backup deletion frees a tape so it can be reused. The main drawback is the large number of required tapes that is used 5-10%. If we have to keep a daily backup for a week (4 backups) and a weekly backup for a month (4 backups), the total number of required tapes will be equal to 4+4+13+1 = 22. Using the Tower of Hanoi tape rotation scheme The ToH scheme requires fewer tapes for rotation as compared with the GFS scheme.
ToH Example 1 Suppose, the backup plan has the following tape options: the Use a separate tape set option is selected the Always use a free tape: For each full backup option is cleared the Always use a free tape: For each incremental backup option is cleared the Always use a free tape: For each differential backup option is cleared. The figure below shows the tapes’ usage for the ToH scheme combined with the above mentioned tape options.
five-level scheme requires up to five tapes for this case. ToH Example 2 Suppose, the backup plan has the following tape options: the Use a separate tape set option is selected the Always use a free tape: For each full backup option is selected the Always use a free tape: For each incremental backup option is cleared the Always use a free tape: For each differential backup option is cleared.
ToH Example 3 Imagine the backup plan has the following tape options: the Use a separate tape set option is selected the Always use a free tape: For each full backup option is selected the Always use a free tape: For each incremental backup option is selected the Always use a free tape: For each differential backup option is selected. The figure shows tape rotation for the ToH scheme with these options.
To simplify the tape planning lets discard the possibility that the calculated tapes might contain backups of other data. It is implied that the Use a separate tape set option is enabled.
Total number of required tapes = round up ((2*F_GB + 12*I_GB + 11*D_GB) * CL / T_GB) + 1 = round up ( (2*320 + 12*16 + 11*40) * 1 / 400 ) + 1 = round up ( 3.18 ) + 1 = 5 (tapes).
node database has all the required information about the content of the moved tapes. So all you need to do is to perform the inventory (p. 134) procedure for the managed vault on the library where the tapes were placed to. 2. If you move tapes to a tape library managed by another storage node, you should rescan (p. 134) each relocated tape to provide the storage node with information about backups contained on the tape.
Metadata The .meta folder is created during backup in every personal vault. This folder contains additional information about archives and backups stored in the vault, such as archive owners or the machine name. If you accidentally delete the .meta folder, it will be automatically recreated next time you access the vault. But some information like owner names and machine names may be lost. 4.2.
[Archive Name] The Actions bar is available when you select an archive in the archives table. Duplicates actions of the archives toolbar. [Backup Name] The Actions bar is available when you expand the archive and click on any of its backups. Duplicates actions of the archives toolbar. 4.2.2 Actions on personal vaults To perform any operation (except for creation) with a vault, you must select it first.
4.2.2.1 Creating a personal vault To create a personal vault 1. In the Name field, type a name for the vault being created. 2. [Optional] In the Comments field, add a description of the vault. 3. In the Path field, click Change... In the opened Personal Vault Path window, specify a path to the folder that will be used as the vault. A personal vault can be organized on detachable or removable media, on a network share, or on FTP. 4. Click OK.
To Do Validate an archive Click Validate. The Validation (p. 233) page will be opened with the pre-selected archive as a source. Validation of an archive will check all the archive's backups. Export an archive Click Export. The Export (p. 240) page will be opened with the pre-selected archive as a source. The export of an archive creates a duplicate of the archive with all its backups in the location you specify. Delete a single archive or multiple archives 1.
Validate a backup Click Validate. The Validation (p. 233) page will be opened with the pre-selected backup as a source. Validation of a file backup imitates recovering of all files from the backup to a dummy destination. Validation of a disk backup calculates a checksum for every data block saved in the backup. Export a backup Click Export. The Export (p. 240) page will be opened with the pre-selected backup as a source.
4.3.4 Filtering and sorting archives The following is a guideline for you to filter and sort archives in the archives table. To Do Sort backup archives by any column Click the column's header to sort the archives in ascending order. Filter archives by name, owner, or machine. In the field below the corresponding column's header, type the archive name (the owner name, or the machine name). Click it once again to sort the archives in descending order.
5 Scheduling Acronis scheduler helps the administrator adapt backup plans to the company’s daily routine and each employee’s work style. The plans’ tasks will be launched systematically keeping the critical data safely protected. The scheduler uses local time of the machine the backup plan exists on. Before creating a schedule, be sure the machine’s date and time settings are correct. Schedule To define when a task has to be executed, you need to specify an event or multiple events.
The specified period of time has passed since the last successful backup completed The scheduler behavior, in case the event occurs but the condition (or any of multiple conditions) is not met is defined by the Task start conditions (p. 107) backup option. What-ifs What if an event occurs (and a condition, if any, is met) while the previous task run has not completed? The event will be ignored.
Examples "Simple" daily schedule Run the task every day at 6PM. The schedule's parameters are thus set up as follows. 1. Every: 1 day(s). 2. Once at: 06:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: not set. The task will be started on the current day, if it has been created before 6PM. If you have created the task after 6 PM, the task will be started for the first time on the next day at 6 PM. To: not set. The task will be performed for an indefinite number of days.
task's recurrences is 4 hours, and between the third, fourth and fifth is 2 hours. In this case, the optimal way is to add two schedules to the task. First daily schedule 1. Every: 3 day(s). 2. Every: 4 hours. From: 08:00:00 AM Until: 12:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: 09/20/2009. To: not set. Second daily schedule 1. Every: 3 day(s). 2. Every: 2 hour(s). From: 03:00:00 PM Until: 07:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: 09/20/2009. To: not set. 5.
Examples "One day in the week" schedule Run the task every Friday at 10PM, starting from a certain date (say 05/14/2009) and ending after six months. The schedule's parameters are thus set up as follows. 1. Every: 1 week(s) on: Fri. 2. Once at: 10:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: 05/13/2009. The task will be started on the nearest Friday at 10 PM. To: 11/13/2009. The task will be performed for the last time on this date, but the task itself will still be available in the Tasks view after this date.
Thursday: every 3 hours from 9 AM till 9 PM Friday: twice at 12 PM and 9 PM (i.e. same as on Monday) Saturday: once at 9 PM Sunday: once at 9 PM Combining the identical times, the following three schedules can be added to the task: First schedule 1. Every: 1 week(s) on: Mon, Fri. 2. Every: 9 hours From: 12:00:00 PM Until: 09:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: not set. To: not set. Second schedule 1. Every 1 week(s) on: Tue, Wed, Thu. 2. Every 3 hours From 09:00:00 AM until 09:00:00 PM. 3.
Every: <...> From: <...> Until: <...> Set up how many times the task will be run during the specified time interval. For example, setting the task frequency to Every 1 hour From 10:00:00 AM until 10:00:00 PM allows the task to be run 12 times from 10 AM to 10 PM during one day. In the Effective... area, set the following settings: From: <...> Set up a date when this schedule will be enabled (an effective date).
To: 12/01/2010. Actually the task will end on the last workday of November. By setting up this date we just define that the task must be discontinued in 2010, after autumn ends in the northern hemisphere. Several monthly schedules for one task In the case when the task needs to be run on different days or weeks with different time intervals depending on the month, consider adding a dedicated schedule to every desired month or several months. Suppose that the task goes into effect on 11/01/2009.
Use Wake-On-LAN When this setting is enabled, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server will use the WakeOn-LAN (WOL) functionality to wake up turned-off registered machines when a backup, cleanup or validation is scheduled to start. If the backup task on each machine starts with a delay (see the next setting), the management server will wake up the machines according to those delays. Before using this setting, make sure that you have enabled Wake-on-LAN on the registered machines.
Then the time of the task's first run on each machine may be any time between 09:00:00 AM and 09:59:59 AM; the interval between the first and the second run is exactly two hours—for instance: First machine: Every day at 09:30:03 AM and 11:30:03 AM Second machine: Every day at 09:00:00 AM and 11:00:00 AM Third machine: Every day at 09:59:59 AM and 11:59:59 AM To specify advanced settings 1.
Examples "Bad block" emergency backup One or more bad blocks that have suddenly appeared on a hard disk usually indicate that the hard disk drive will soon fail. Suppose that you want to create a backup plan that will back up hard disk data as soon as such a situation occurs. When Windows detects a bad block on a hard disk, it records an event with the event source disk and the event number 7 into the System log; the type of this event is Error.
2. In the list of events in the right pane, double-click the name of an event whose properties you want to view. 3. In the Event Properties dialog box, view the event's properties such as the event source, shown in the Source field; and the event number, shown in the Event ID field. When you are finished, click OK to close the Event Properties dialog box. 5.6 When an ADRM alert is received This schedule is effective in Windows operating systems when Acronis® Drive Monitor™ (ADRM) is installed.
Example: It is required to run the backup task after free space on the managed machine is changed by at least 1 GB, but only if all users are logged off and more than 12 hours have passed since the last backup. Set the schedule, conditions and the Task start conditions backup option as follows: Schedule: When free space changed; Value: Run task if free space has changed by at least: 1 GB. Condition: User logged off; Value: Run the task on schedule only if all users are logged off.
Task start conditions: Skip the task execution. As a result, (1) If 9:00 PM comes and the location's host is available, the backup task starts right on time. (2) If 9:00 PM comes but the host is unavailable at the moment, the backup task will start on the next workday if the location's host is available. (3) If the location's host will never be available on workdays at 9:00 PM, the task never starts. 5.7.
If the task start conditions are Wait until the conditions are met and the Run the task anyway after check box is selected with, say, the 1 Hour waiting time, the task (scheduled to run at 3:00 PM) will start at 4:00 PM—the time when the waiting period ends. 5.7.4 User logged off Applies to: Windows Enables to put a backup task run on hold until all users log off from Windows on the managed machine.
6 Direct management This section covers operations that can be performed directly on a managed machine by using the direct console-agent connection. The content of this section is applicable to both stand-alone and advanced editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. 6.1 Administering a managed machine This section describes the views that are available through the navigation tree of the console connected to a managed machine, and explains how to work with each view. 6.1.
licenses. After a successful license check the agent will start working. Please make sure you have a valid license on Acronis License Server. Trial version of product expires in X day(s) Connect Once the trial version of the product is installed, the program starts the countdown of days remaining until the trial period expires. Connect 15 day trial period has expired. Enter a full license key.
How it is determined Errors Highlight the date in red if at least one "Error" entry appeared in the log on this date. Warnings Highlight the date in yellow if no "Error" entries appeared and at least one "Warning" entry appeared in the log on this date. Information Highlight the date in green if only "Information" log entries appeared on this date (normal activity.) The Select current date link focuses selection to the current date.
In the backup table, select the backup plan (task). Use the Information panel to review detailed information on the selected plan (task). The panel is collapsed by default. To expand the panel, click the chevron. The content of the panel is also duplicated in the Plan details (p. 185) and Task details (p. 183) windows respectively. Use the toolbar's buttons to take an action on the selected plan (task). See the Actions on backup plans and tasks (p. 179) section for details.
A backup plan status is derived from the results of the last run of the plans' tasks. 1 Status How it is determined How to handle Error At least one task has failed.
Need interaction Any running task can put itself into the Need interaction state when it needs human interaction such as changing media or ignoring a read error. The next state may be Stopping (if the user chooses to stop the task) or Running (on selecting Ignore/Retry or another action, such as Reboot, that can put the task to the Running state.) Stopping The user can stop a running task or a task that needs interaction. The task changes to the Stopping state and then to the Idle state.
centralized plan has failed 2 Warning Last result is "Succeeded View the log to read the warnings -> [optionally] Perform with warning" actions to prevent the future warnings or failure. 3 OK Last result is "Succeeded", "-", or "Stopped" 6.1.2.2 No action is required. The "-" state means that the task has never been started or has been started, but has not finished yet and so its result is not available.
Run a plan/task Backup plan Click Run. In the Run Backup Plan (p. 183) window, select the task you need to be run. Running the backup plan starts the selected task of that plan immediately in spite of its schedule and conditions. Why can't I run the backup plan? Do not have the appropriate privilege Without the Administrator privileges on the machine, a user cannot run plans owned by other users. Task Click Run. The task will be executed immediately in spite of its schedule and conditions.
Edit a plan/task Backup plan Click Edit. Backup plan editing is performed in the same way as creation (p. 188), except for the following limitations: It is not always possible to use all scheme options, when editing a backup plan if the created archive is not empty (i.e. contains backups). 1. It is not possible to change the scheme to Grandfather-Father-Son or Tower of Hanoi. 2. If the Tower of Hanoi scheme is used, it is not possible to change the number of levels.
Delete a plan/task Backup plan Click Delete. What will happen if I delete the backup plan? The plan's deletion deletes all its tasks. Why can't I delete the backup plan? The backup plan is in the "Running" state A backup plan cannot be deleted, if at least one of its tasks is running. Do not have the appropriate privilege Without the Administrator's privileges on the machine, a user cannot delete plans owned by other users. The backup plan has a centralized origin.
Configuring backup plans and the tasks table By default, the table has six columns that are displayed, others are hidden. If required, you can hide the displayed columns and show hidden ones. To show or hide columns 1. Right-click any column header to open the context menu. The menu items that are ticked off correspond to the column headers presented in the table. 2. Click the items you want to be displayed/hidden.
Recovery (disk) Disk backup recovery Recovery (file) File and folder recovery Recovery (volume) Recovery of volumes from a disk backup Recovery (MBR) Master boot record recovery Recovery (disk to existing VM) Recovery of a disk/volume backup to an existing virtual machine Recovery (disk to new VM) Recovery of a disk/volume backup to a new virtual machine Recovery (existing VM) Recovery of a virtual machine backup to an existing virtual machine Recovery (new VM) Recovery of a virtual machine b
Progress The Progress tab is available while the task is running. It is common for all types of tasks. The tab provides information about task progress, elapsed time and other parameters. Backup plan details The Backup plan details window (also duplicated on the Information panel) aggregates in four tabs all the information on the selected backup plan. The respective message will appear at the top of the tabs, if one of the plan's tasks requires user interaction.
Validation (if selected) - events before or after which the validation is performed, and validation schedule. Backup options - backup options changed against the default values. 6.1.3 Log The Log stores the history of operations performed by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 on the machine, or actions a user takes on the machine using the program. For instance, when a user edits a task, the respective entry is added to the log. When the program executes a task, it adds multiple entries.
View a log entry’s details 1. Select a log entry. 2. Do one of the following Click View Details. The log entry's details will be displayed in a separate window. Expand the Information panel, by clicking the chevron. Save the selected log entries to a file 1. Select a single log entry or multiple log entries. 2. Click Save Selected to File. 3. In the opened window, specify a path and a name for the file. Save all the log entries to a file 1. Make sure, that the filters are not set. 2.
Configuring the log table By default, the table has seven columns that are displayed, others are hidden. If required, you can hide the shown columns and show the hidden ones. To show or hide columns 1. Right-click any column header to open the context menu. The menu items that are ticked off correspond to the column headers presented in the table. 2. Click the items you want to be displayed/hidden. 6.1.3.
To create a backup plan, perform the following steps. General Plan name [Optional] Enter a unique name for the backup plan. A conscious name lets you identify the plan among others. Plan's credentials (p. 191) [Optional] The backup plan will run on behalf of the user who is creating the plan. You can change the plan account credentials if necessary. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box . Comments [Optional] Type a description of the backup plan.
Access credentials (p. 200) [Optional] Provide credentials for the location if the plan account does not have access permissions to the location. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. Archive comments [Optional] Enter comments on the archive. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. How to back up Backup scheme (p.
Virtualization server (p. 211) Here you select the resulting virtual machine type and location. Available options depend on the host you selected in the previous step. Storage (p. 211) Choose the storage on the virtualization server or the folder to place the virtual machine files in. Resultant VMs Specify the name of the virtual machine. After you have performed all the required steps, click OK to create the backup plan. After that, you might be prompted for the password (p. 191).
Files Available if the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows (or for Linux) is installed. Select this option to back up specific files and folders. If you are not concerned about recovery of the operating system along with all the settings and applications, but plan to keep safe only certain data (the current project, for example), choose file backup. This will reduce the archive size, thus saving storage space.
Windows The swap file (pagefile.sys) and the file that keeps the RAM content when the machine goes into hibernation (hiberfil.sys) are not backed up. After recovery, the files will be re-created in the appropriate place with the zero size.
6.2.6 Exclusions Set up exclusions for the specific types of files you do not wish to back up. For example, you may not want database, hidden and system files and folders, as well as files with specific extensions, to be stored in the archive. To specify which files and folders to exclude: Set up any of the following parameters: Exclude all hidden files and folders This option is effective only for file systems that are supported by Windows.
Windows By file path C:\Finance\F.log Excludes the file named "F.log" located in the folder C:\Finance By folder path C:\Finance\F\ Excludes the folder C:\Finance\F (be sure to specify the full path starting from the disk letter) Linux By file path /home/user/Finance/F.log Excludes the file named "F.log" located in the folder /home/user/Finance By folder path /home/user/Finance/ Excludes the folder /home/user/Finance 6.2.
To back up data to a locally attached tape device, expand the Tape drives group, then click the required device. 2. Using the archives table To assist you with choosing the right destination, the table displays the names of the archives contained in each location you select. While you are reviewing the location content, archives can be added, deleted or modified by another user or by the program itself according to scheduled operations. Use the Refresh button to refresh the list of archives. 3.
This behavior can be suppressed by adding the [Date] variable (p. 200) to the archive name. If you do not select the Name backup files using the archive name... check box: Each backup will have a unique file name with the exact time stamp and the backup type; for example: MyData_2010_03_26_17_01_38_960D.tib. This standard file naming allows for a wider range of backup destinations and backup schemes.
Your script can move older backups based on the date stamp. See also “The *Date+ variable” (p. 200). Example 3. Hourly backups within a day Consider the following scenario: You want to perform hourly backups of your server's critical files every day. You want to keep older backups in the archive. You want the first backup of each day to be full and to run at midnight; and the subsequent backups of the day to be differential and to run at 01:00, 02:00, and so on.
You want to swap the drives each Monday, so that one drive contains backups of the current week (Monday through Sunday), and the other drive those of the previous week. In this scenario, you need to create two backup plans as follows: a) When creating the first backup plan, specify MyMachine as the archive name and D:\ as the archive location, select the Name backup files using the archive name... check box, select Full as the backup type, and schedule the backups to run every week on Monday.
6.2.8.2 The [DATE] variable If you specify the [DATE] variable in the archive name, the file name of each backup will include that backup’s creation date. When using this variable, the first backup of a new day will be a full backup. Before creating the next full backup, the software deletes all backups taken earlier that day. Backups taken before that day are kept. This means you can store multiple full backups with or without incremental ones, but no more than one full backup per day.
The program will access the source data using the credentials of the backup plan account specified in the General section. Use the following credentials The program will access the source data using the credentials you specify. Use this option if the plan account does not have access permissions to the location. You might need to provide special credentials for a network share or a storage node vault. Specify: User name.
In the Backup type field, select whether you want to create a full, incremental or differential backup (p. 29). 6.2.10.2 Back up later scheme With the Back up later scheme, the backup will be performed only once, at the date and time you specify. Specify the appropriate settings as follows Backup type Select the type of backup: full, incremental, or differential. If there is no full backup in the archive, a full backup will be created regardless of your selection.
Feb 5—Feb 11 D D D D W - - Feb 12—Feb 18 D D D D W - - Feb 19—Feb 25 D D D D M - - Feb 26—Mar 4 D D D D W - - Daily backups run every workday except Friday, which is left for weekly and monthly backups. Monthly backups run every fourth Friday, and weekly backups run on all other Fridays. Monthly ("Grandfather") backups are full; Weekly ("Father") backups are differential; Daily ("Son") backups are incremental.
Keep monthly backups indefinitely. Backup scheme parameters can then be set up as follows. Start backup at: 11:00 PM Back up on: All days Weekly/monthly: Saturday (for example) Keep backups: Daily: 1 week Weekly: 1 month Monthly: indefinitely As a result, an archive of daily, weekly, and monthly backups will be created. Daily backups will be available for seven days since creation.
Have a weekly summary of file changes since last month (Friday weekly differential backup). Have a monthly full backup of your files. Moreover, assume that you want to retain access to all backups, including the daily ones, for at least six months.
Parameters You can set up the following parameters of a Tower of Hanoi scheme. Schedule Set up a daily (p. 159), weekly (p. 161), or monthly (p. 163) schedule. Setting up schedule parameters allows creating simple schedules (example of a simple daily schedule: a backup task will be run every 1 day at 10 AM) as well as more complex schedules (example of a complex daily schedule: a task will be run every 3 days, starting from January 15.
Number of levels Full backup every On different days, can go back Roll-back period 2 2 days 1 to 2 days 1 day 3 4 days 2 to 5 days 2 days 4 8 days 4 to 11 days 4 days 5 16 days 8 to 23 days 8 days 6 32 days 16 to 47 days 16 days Adding a level doubles the full backup and roll-back periods. To see why the number of recovery days varies, let us return to the previous example. Here are the backups we have on day 12 (numbers in gray denote deleted backups).
Incremental Specifies on what schedule and under which conditions to perform an incremental backup. If the archive contains no backups at the time of the task run, a full backup is created instead of the incremental backup. Differential Specifies on what schedule and under which conditions to perform a differential backup. If the archive contains no full backups at the time of the task run, a full backup is created instead of the differential backup.
Examples Weekly full backup The following scheme yields a full backup performed every Friday night. Full backup: Schedule: Weekly, every Friday, at 10:00 PM Here, all parameters except Schedule in Full backup are left empty. All backups in the archive are kept indefinitely (no archive cleanup is performed). Full and incremental backup plus cleanup With the following scheme, the archive will consist of weekly full backups and daily incremental backups.
Finally, we create retention rules for the archive: let us retain only backups that are no older than six months, and let the cleanup be performed after each backup task and also on the last day of every month. Retention rules: Delete backups older than 6 months Apply the rules: After backing up, On schedule Cleanup schedule: Monthly, on the Last day of All months, at 10:00 PM By default, a backup is not deleted as long as it has dependent backups that must be kept.
6.2.11 Archive validation Set up the validation task to check if the backed up data is recoverable. If the backup could not pass the validation successfully, the validation task fails and the backup plan gets the Error status. To set up validation, specify the following parameters 1. When to validate – select when to perform the validation. As the validation is a resourceintensive operation, it makes sense to schedule the validation to the managed machine's offpeak period.
Which agent is installed on the host? The resulting virtual machine type and location depend on the agent that resides on the selected host. Agent for Windows is installed on the host You have a choice of virtual machine types: VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, or Parallels Workstation. Files of the new virtual machine will be placed in the folder you select. Agent for ESX/ESXi is installed on the host A VMware virtual machine will be created on the ESX/ESXi server.
If the managed machine's operating system fails to start or you need to recover data to bare metal, boot the machine from the bootable media (p. 391) or using Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (p. 47). Then, create a recovery task. Acronis Universal Restore (p. 48) lets you recover and boot up Windows on dissimilar hardware or a virtual machine. A Windows system can be brought online in seconds while it is still being recovered. Using the proprietary Acronis Active Restore (p.
Access credentials (p. 217) [Optional] Provide credentials for the archive location if the task account does not have the right to access it. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. Where to recover This section appears after the required backup is selected and the type of data to recover is defined. The parameters you specify here depend on the type of data being recovered. Disks (p. 218) Volumes (p.
After any of the settings is changed against the default value, a new line that displays the newly set value appears. The setting status changes from Default to Custom. Should you modify the setting again, the line will display the new value unless the new value is the default one. When the default value is set, the line disappears and so you always see only the settings that differ from the default values in the Settings section. Clicking Reset to default resets all the settings to default values.
If the archive is located on removable media, e.g. DVDs, first insert the last DVD and then insert the discs in order starting from the first one when the program prompts. If the archive is stored on a network share, expand the Network folders group, then select the required networked machine and then click the shared folder. If the network share requires access credentials, the program will ask for them.
6.3.4.1 Disks/volumes selection To select a backup and disks/volumes to recover: 1. Select one of the successive backups by its creation date and time. Thus, you can revert the disk data to a certain moment in time. Specify the items to recover. By default, all items of the selected backup will be selected. If you do not want to recover certain items, just uncheck them. To obtain information on a disk/volume, right-click it and then click Information. 2. Click OK.
Use the following credentials The program will access the location using the credentials you specify. Use this option if the task account does not have access permissions to the location. You might need to provide special credentials for a network share or a storage node vault. Specify: User name. When entering the name of an Active Directory user account, be sure to also specify the domain name (DOMAIN\Username or Username@domain) Password. The password for the account. 2. Click OK.
Please be aware that the target machine will be powered off automatically before the recovery. If you prefer to power it off manually, modify the VM power management option. Disk #: Disk # (MODEL) (p. 221) Select the destination disk for each of the source disks. NT signature (p. 219) Select the way the recovered disk's signature will be handled. The disk signature is used by Windows and the Linux kernel version 2.6 and later. Disk destination To specify a destination disk: 1.
Keep existing The program will leave the existing NT signature of the target hard disk as is. 6.3.6.2 Volumes Available volume destinations depend on the agents operating on the machine. Recover to: Physical machine Available when the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux is installed. The selected volumes will be recovered to the physical disks of the machine the console is connected to.
MBR destination To specify a destination disk: 1. Select the disk to recover the MBR to. 2. Click OK. Volume destination To specify a destination volume: 1. Select a volume or unallocated space where you want the selected volume to be recovered to. The destination volume/unallocated space should be at least the same size as the uncompressed image data. 2. Click OK.
Logical. Information about logical volumes is located not in the MBR, but in the extended partition table. The number of logical volumes on a disk is unlimited. A logical volume cannot be set as active. If you recover a system volume to another hard disk with its own volumes and operating system, you will most likely need only the data. In this case, you can recover the volume as logical to access the data only. File system Change the volume file system, if required.
Storage Initial setting: the default storage of the virtualization server if the new machine is created on the virtualization server. Otherwise the current user's documents folder. This is the place where the new virtual machine will be created. Whether you can change the storage on the virtualization server or not, depends on the virtualization product brand and settings. VMware ESX may have multiple storages. A Microsoft Hyper-V server enables creating a new virtual machine in any local folder.
Recovery exclusions Set up exclusions for the specific files you do not wish to recover. Use the Add, Edit, Remove and Remove All buttons to create the list of file masks. Files whose names match any of the masks will be skipped during recovery. You can use one or more wildcard characters * and ? in a file mask: The asterisk (*) substitutes for zero or more characters in a file name; for example, the file mask Doc*.txt yields files such as Doc.txt and Document.
Do not overwrite existing file - this will give the file on the hard disk priority over the file in the backup. If you allow files to be overwritten, you still have an option to prevent overwriting of specific files by excluding (p. 224) them from the recovery operation. 6.3.7 Access credentials for destination To specify credentials 1.
DVD supplied by the hardware vendor or download the drivers from the vendor’s Web site. The driver files should have the *.inf, *.sys or *.oem extensions. If you download the drivers in the *.exe, *.cab or *.zip format, extract them using a third-party application, such as WinRAR (http://www.rarlab.com/) or Universal Extractor (http://legroom.net/software/uniextract).
Drivers for a virtual machine When recovering a system to a new virtual machine, the Universal Restore technology is applied in the background, because the program knows what drivers are required for the supported virtual machines. When recovering the system to an existing virtual machine that uses SCSI hard drive controller, be sure to specify SCSI drivers for the virtual environment, in the Mass storage drivers to install anyway step.
8. [Optionally] Review the Virtual machine settings (p. 222) and make changes if necessary. Here you can change the path to the new virtual machine. The same type of machines with the same name cannot be created in the same folder. Change either the VM name, or the path if you get an error message caused by identical names. 9. Select the destination disk for each of the source disks or source volumes and MBRs.
Windows was recovered to a dynamic volume that cannot be bootable Solution: Recover Windows to a basic, simple or mirrored volume. A system volume was recovered to a disk that does not have an MBR When you configure recovery of a system volume to a disk that does not have an MBR, the program prompts whether you want to recover the MBR along with the system volume. Opt for not recovering, only if you do not want the system to be bootable.
6.3.11.1 How to reactivate GRUB and change its configuration Generally, you should refer to the boot loader manual pages for the appropriate procedure. There is also the corresponding Knowledge Base article on the Acronis Web site. The following is an example of how to reactivate GRUB in case the system disk (volume) is recovered to identical hardware. 1. Start Linux or boot from the bootable media, and then press CTRL+ALT+F2. 2.
9. Specify the disk on which GRUB is located—typically, the boot or root partition: root (hd0,0) 10. Install GRUB. For example, to install GRUB in the master boot record (MBR) of the first disk, run the following command: setup (hd0) 11. Exit the GRUB shell: quit 12. Unmount the mounted file systems and then reboot: umount umount umount umount reboot /mnt/system/dev/ /mnt/system/proc/ /mnt/system/boot/ /mnt/system/ 13.
To resolve the problem, do either of the following: Recover the files as two or more groups. For example, if the problem occurs when recovering 1 million files, try recovering the first 500,000 of them and then the remaining 500,000. Modify the registry as follows: Note: This procedure requires restarting the machine. Use standard precautions when modifying the registry. 1.
1. Connect to the management server and remove the storage node from it. Note: All vaults managed by the storage node will also be removed from the management server. No archives will be lost. 2. Add the storage node to the management server again, by specifiying the machine on which the recovered storage node is installed. 3. Re-create the necessary managed vaults. 6.4 Validating vaults, archives and backups Validation is an operation that checks the possibility of data recovery from a backup.
What to validate Validate Choose an object to validate: Archive (p. 234) - in that case, you need to specify the archive. Backup (p. 235) - specify the archive first, and then select the desired backup in this archive. Vault (p. 236) - select a vault (or other location), which archives to validate. Access Credentials (p. 236) [Optional] Provide credentials for accessing the source if the task account does not have enough privileges to access it. To access this option, select the check box for Advanced view.
Exporting and mounting are not supported for backups stored in Acronis Online Backup Storage. If the archive is stored in a centralized vault, expand the Centralized group and click the vault. If the archive is stored in a personal vault, expand the Personal group and click the vault. If the archive is stored in a local folder on the machine, expand the Local folders group and click the required folder. If the archive is located on removable media, e.g.
6.4.4 Location selection To select a location Enter the full path to the location in the Path field or select the desired location in the folders tree. To select a centralized vault, expand the Centralized group and click the appropriate vault. To select a network share, expand the Network folders group, select the required networked machine and then click the shared folder. If the network share requires access credentials, the program will ask for them.
6.4.6 When to validate As validation is a resource-intensive operation, it makes sense to schedule validation to the managed machine's off-peak period. On the other hand, if you prefer to be immediately informed whether the data is not corrupted and can be successfully recovered, consider starting validation right after the task creation. Choose one of the following: Now - to start the validation task right after its creation, that is, after clicking OK on the Validation page.
Access credentials (p. 239) [Optional] Provide credentials for the archive location. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. Mount settings Volumes (p. 239) Select volumes to mount and configure the mount settings for every volume: assign a letter or enter the mount point, choose the read/write or read only access mode. When you complete all the required steps, click OK to mount the volumes. 6.5.1 Archive selection Selecting the archive 1.
To access a managed vault, type the following string in the Path field: bsp://node_address/vault_name/ To access an unmanaged centralized vault, type the full path to the vault's folder. 2. In the table to the right of the tree, select the archive. The table displays the names of the archives contained in each vault/folder you select. While you are reviewing the location content, archives can be added, deleted or modified by another user or by the program itself according to scheduled operations.
Read only - enables exploring and opening files within the backup without committing any changes. Read/write - with this mode, the program assumes that the backup content will be modified, and creates an incremental backup to capture the changes. Assign letter (in Windows) - Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 will assign an unused letter to the mounted volume. If required, select another letter to assign from the drop-down list.
Usage scenarios Export enables you to separate a specific backup from a chain of incremental backups for fast recovery, writing onto removable or detachable media or other purposes. Example. When backing up data to a remote location through an unstable or low-bandwidth network connection (such as backing up through WAN using VPN access), you may want to save the initial full backup to a detachable media. Then, send the media to the remote location.
export from an unmanaged centralized vault. The export is performed by the agent installed on the managed machine you specify. The destination can be any location accessible to the agent, including a managed vault. Tip. When configuring export to a deduplicating managed vault, choose a machine where the deduplication add-on to the agent is installed. Otherwise the export task will fail. Operations with an export task An export task starts immediately after you complete its configuration.
Where to export Archive (p. 245) Enter the path to the location where the new archive will be created. Be sure to provide a distinct name and comment for the new archive. Access credentials (p. 246) [Optional] Provide credentials for the destination if the task credentials do not have enough privileges to access it. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. After you have performed all the required steps, click OK to start the export task. 6.7.
If the archive is stored in a local folder on the machine, expand the Local folders group and click the required folder. If the archive is located on removable media, e.g. DVDs, first insert the last DVD and then insert the discs in order starting from the first one when the program prompts. If the archive is stored on a network share, expand the Network folders group, then select the required networked machine and then click the shared folder.
To specify credentials 1. Select one of the following: Use the task credentials The program will access the location using the credentials of the task account specified in the General section. Use the following credentials The program will access the location using the credentials you specify. Use this option if the task account does not have access permissions to the location. You might need to provide special credentials for a network share or a storage node vault. Specify: User name.
According to the original FTP specification, credentials required for access to FTP servers are transferred through a network as plaintext. This means that the user name and password can be intercepted by an eavesdropper using a packet sniffer. To export data to a locally attached tape device, expand the Tape drives group, then click the required device. For the management server the folders tree contains: Local folders group to export data onto the hard drives that are local to the storage node.
Specify: User name. When entering the name of an Active Directory user account, be sure to also specify the domain name (DOMAIN\Username or Username@domain) Password. The password for the account. 2. Click OK. According to the original FTP specification, credentials required for access to FTP servers are transferred through a network as plaintext. This means that the user name and password can be intercepted by an eavesdropper using a packet sniffer. 6.
To allocate space for Acronis Secure Zone 1. Choose a hard disk (if several) on which to create the zone. The unallocated space is selected by default. The program displays the total space available for the Acronis Secure Zone. 2. If you need to allocate more space for the zone, you can select volumes from which free space can be taken. Again, the program displays the total space available for the Acronis Secure Zone depending on your selection.
If there is no or not enough unallocated space at the end of the disk, but there is unallocated space between volumes, the volumes will be moved to add more unallocated space to the end. When all unallocated space is collected but it is still not enough, the program will take free space from the volumes you select, proportionally reducing the volumes' size. Resizing of locked volumes requires a reboot.
If there is not enough unallocated space, the program will take free space from the selected volumes, proportionally reducing the volumes' size. Resizing of locked partitions requires a reboot. Reducing a system volume to the minimum size might prevent the machine's operating system from booting. 4. Click OK. 6.8.2.2 Decreasing Acronis Secure Zone To decrease Acronis Secure Zone 1. On the Manage Acronis Secure Zone page, click Decrease. 2.
Under Linux, when using a boot loader other than GRUB (such as LILO), consider installing it to a Linux root (or boot) partition boot record instead of the MBR before activating ASRM. Otherwise, reconfigure the boot loader manually after the activation. Do not activate Disables boot time prompt "Press F11 for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager…" (or the menu item in GRUB).
Advantages: Using Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 in Windows Preinstallation Environment provides more functionality than using Linux-based bootable media. Having booted PC-compatible hardware into WinPE, you can use not only Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent, but also PE commands and scripts and other plug-ins you've added to the PE. PE-based bootable media helps overcome some Linux-related bootable media issues such as support for certain RAID controllers or certain levels of RAID arrays only.
1. Download and install Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK). Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows Vista (PE 2.0): http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C7D4BC6D-15F3-4284-9123679830D629F2&displaylang=en Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 (PE 2.1): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=94bb6e34-d890-4932-81a55b50c657de08&DisplayLang=en Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows 7 (PE 3.0): http://www.microsoft.
user name and password to be entered on the console side at connection to the agent. If you leave these fields empty, the connection will be enabled on typing any symbols in the prompt window. 5. [optional] Network settings (p. 255): TCP/IP settings to be assigned to the machine network adapters. 6. [optional] Network port (p. 256): the TCP port that the bootable agent listens for incoming connection. 7. The type of media to create.
quiet Disables displaying of startup messages when the Linux kernel is loading, and starts the management console after the kernel is loaded. This parameter is implicitly specified when creating the bootable media, but you can remove this parameter while in the boot menu. Without this parameter, all startup messages will be displayed, followed by a command prompt.
IP address Subnet mask Gateway DNS server WINS server. Once the bootable agent starts on a machine, the configuration is applied to the machine’s network interface card (NIC.) If the settings have not been pre-configured, the agent uses DHCP auto configuration. You also have the ability to configure the network settings manually when the bootable agent is running on the machine.
Drivers for Universal Restore While creating bootable media, you have an option to add Windows drivers to the media. The drivers will be used by Universal Restore when recovering Windows on a machine with a dissimilar processor, different motherboard or different mass storage device than in the backed up system.
4. Specify path to the folder where the WinPE files are located. 5. Specify network settings (p. 255) for the machine network adapters or choose DHCP auto configuration. 6. Specify the full path to the resulting ISO file including the file name. 7. Check your settings in the summary screen and click Proceed. 8. Burn the .ISO to CD or DVD using a third-party tool or copy to a flash drive. Once a machine boots into the WinPE, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 starts automatically. 6.10.1.
6. 7. 8. 9. controller, network adapter, tape drive or other device. You will have to repeat this procedure for each driver you want to be included in the resulting WinPE boot media. Choose whether you want to create ISO or WIM image or upload the media on Acronis PXE Server. Specify the full path to the resulting image file including the file name, or specify the PXE server and provide the user name and password to access it. Check your settings in the summary screen and click Proceed. Burn the .
Once the machine boots into the Bart PE and you configure the network connection, select Go -> System -> Storage -> Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 to start. 6.10.2 Connecting to a machine booted from media Once a machine boots from bootable media, the machine terminal displays a startup window with the IP address(es) obtained from DHCP or set according to the pre-configured values.
6.10.3.1 Setting up a display mode For a machine booted from media, a display video mode is detected automatically based on the hardware configuration (monitor and graphics card specifications). If, for some reason, the video mode is detected incorrectly, do the following: 1. In the boot menu, press F11. 2. Add to the command prompt the following command: vga=ask, and then proceed with booting. 3.
6.10.4 List of commands and utilities available in Linux-based bootable media Linux-based bootable media contains the following commands and command line utilities, which you can use when running a command shell. To start the command shell, press CTRL+ALT+F2 while in the bootable media's management console.
grep ping umount growisofs pktsetup uuidgen grub poweroff vconfig gunzip ps vi halt raidautorun zcat hexdump readcd hotplug reboot 6.10.5 Recovering MD devices and logical volumes To recover MD devices, known as Linux Software RAID, and/or devices created by Logical Volume Manager (LVM), known as logical volumes, you need to create the corresponding volume structure before starting the recovery.
To create the volume structure by using a script 1. Boot the machine from a Linux-based bootable media. 2. Click Acronis Bootable Agent. Then, click Run management console. 3. On the toolbar, click Actions, and then click Start shell. Alternatively, you can press CTRL+ALT+F2. 4. Run the restoreraids.sh script, specifying the full file name of the archive—for example: /bin/restoreraids.sh smb://server/backups/linux_machine_2010_01_02_12_00_00_123D.tib 5.
Example Suppose that you previously performed a disk backup of a machine with the following disk configuration: The machine has two 1-gigabyte and two 2-gigabyte SCSI hard disks, mounted on /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, and /dev/sdd, respectively. The first and second pairs of hard disks are configured as two MD devices, both in the RAID-1 configuration, and are mounted on /dev/md0 and /dev/md1, respectively.
--- Volume group --VG Name my_volgroup ... VG Access read/write VG Status resizable ... VG Size 1.99 GB ... VG UUID 0qoQ4l-Vk7W-yDG3-uF1l-Q2AL-C0z0-vMeACu 5. Run the following command to create the logical volume; in the -L parameter, specify the size given by VG Size: lvm lvcreate -L1.99G --name my_logvol my_volgroup 6. Activate the volume group by running the following command: lvm vgchange -a y my_volgroup 7. Press CTRL+ALT+F1 to return to the management console. Step 2: Starting the recovery 1. 2. 3.
2. Use the --mount command, specifying the volume's index in the -i parameter. For example: trueimagemnt --mount /mnt --filename smb://server/backups/linux_machine.tib -i 4 This command mounts the logical volume DYN1, whose index in the backup is 4, on the mount point /mnt. To unmount a backup volume Use the --unmount command, specifying the volume's mount point as a parameter. For example: trueimagemnt --unmount /mnt 6.10.
On a machine that has an operating system on the hard disk, the BIOS must be configured so that the network interface card is either the first boot device, or at least prior to the Hard Drive device. The example below shows one of reasonable BIOS configurations. If you don’t insert bootable media, the machine will boot from the network. In some BIOS versions, you have to save changes to BIOS after enabling the network interface card so that the card appears in the list of boot devices.
Sometimes after the volume has been backed up and its image placed into a safe storage, the machine disk configuration might change due to a HDD replacement or hardware loss. In such case with the help of Acronis Disk Director Lite, the user has the possibility to recreate the necessary disk configuration so that the volume image can be recovered exactly “as it was” or with any alteration of the disk or volume structure the user might consider necessary.
6.11.3 Choosing the operating system for disk management On a machine with two or more operating systems, representation of disks and volumes depends on which operating system is currently running. A volume may have a different letter in different Windows operating systems. For example, volume E: might appear as D: or L: when you boot another Windows operating system installed on the same machine.
6.11.5 Disk operations Acronis Disk Director Lite includes the following operations that can be performed on disks: Disk Initialization (p. 271) - initializes the new hardware added to the system Basic disk cloning (p. 272) - transfers complete data from the source basic MBR disk to the target Disk conversion: MBR to GPT (p. 274) - converts an MBR partition table to GPT Disk conversion: GPT to MBR (p. 274) - converts a GPT partition table to MBR Disk conversion: Basic to Dynamic (p.
6.11.5.2 Basic disk cloning Sometimes it is necessary to transfer all the disk data onto a new disk. It can be a case of expanding the system volume, starting a new system layout or disk evacuation due to a hardware fault. In any case, the reason for the Clone basic disk operation can be summed up as the necessity to transfer all the source disk data to a target disk exactly as it is. Acronis Disk Director Lite allows the operation to be carried out to basic MBR disks only.
volumes, then the Clone basic disk operation will be impossible and the user will not be able to continue. If you are about to clone a disk comprising of a system volume, pay attention to the Advanced options. By clicking Finish, you'll add the pending operation of the disk cloning. (To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 283) it. Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.
6.11.5.3 Disk conversion: MBR to GPT You would want to convert an MBR basic disk to a GPT basic disk in the following cases: If you need more than 4 primary volumes on one disk. If you need additional disk reliability against any possible data damage. If you need to convert a basic MBR disk to basic GPT: 1. Select a basic MBR disk to convert to GPT. 2. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Convert to GPT in the context menu.
(To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 283) it. Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.) 6.11.5.5 Disk conversion: basic to dynamic You would want to convert a basic disk to dynamic in the following cases: If you plan to use the disk as part of a dynamic disk group. If you want to achieve additional disk reliability for data storage. If you need to convert a basic disk to dynamic: 1. Select the basic disk to convert to dynamic.
dynamic disks (all volume types except Simple volumes), then you will be warned here about the possible damage to the data involved in the conversion. Please note, the operation is unavailable for a dynamic disk containing Spanned, Striped, or RAID-5 volumes. 3. If you click OK in this warning window, the conversion will be performed immediately. After the conversion the last 8Mb of disk space is reserved for the future conversion of the disk from basic to dynamic.
6.11.6 Volume operations Acronis Disk Director Lite includes the following operations that can be performed on volumes: Create Volume (p. 277) - Creates a new volume with the help of the Create Volume Wizard. Change Letter (p. 282) - Changes the selected volume letter Delete Volume (p. 281) - Deletes the selected volume. Set Active (p. 281) - Sets the selected volume Active so that the machine will be able to boot with the OS installed there. Change Label (p.
space available on each disk that you want to include in the volume and the size of the volume will depend on the size of the smallest space. Access to the data on a striped volume is usually faster than access to the same data on a single physical disk, because the I/O is spread across more than one disk. Striped volumes are created for improved performance, not for their better reliability - they do not contain redundant information.
RAID-5 You will obtain a brief description of every type of volume for better understanding of the advantages and limitations of each possible volume architecture. If the current operating system, installed on this machine, does not support the selected type of volume , you will receive the appropriate warning. In this case the Next button will be disabled and you will have to select another type of volume to proceed with the new volume creation.
The maximum value normally includes the most possible unallocated space. But in some cases the possible unallocated space and the proposed maximum volume size might differ (e.g. when the size of one mirror establishes the size of the other mirror, or the last 8Mb of the disk space is reserved for the future conversion of the disk from basic to dynamic). For basic volumes if some unallocated space is left on the disk, you also will be able to choose the position of the new volume on the disk.
6.11.6.2 Delete volume This version of Acronis Disk Director Lite has reduced functionality because it is mainly a tool for preparing bare-metal systems for recovering previously saved volume images.
6.11.6.4 Change volume letter Windows operating systems assign letters (C:, D:, etc) to hard disk volumes at startup. These letters are used by applications and operating systems to locate files and folders in the volumes. Connecting an additional disk, as well as creating or deleting a volume on existing disks, might change your system configuration. As a result, some applications might stop working normally or user files might not be automatically found and opened.
to save additional space which is being lost due to the cluster size on the FAT16 or FAT32 file systems as a quick and more or less reliable way of destroying data, residing in this volume If you want to format a volume: 1. Select a volume to format. 2. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Format in the context menu. You will be forwarded to the Format Volume window, where you will be able to set the new file system options.
Quitting Acronis Disk Director Lite without committing the pending operations effectively cancels them, so if you try to exit Disk management without committing the pending operations, you will receive the appropriate warning. 6.12 Collecting system information The system information collection tool gathers information about the machine to which the management console is connected, and saves it to a file. You may want to provide this file when contacting Acronis technical support.
7 Centralized management This section covers operations that can be performed centrally by using the components for centralized management. The content of this section is only applicable to advanced editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. 7.1 Administering Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server This section describes the views that are available through the navigation tree of the console connected to the management server, and explains how to work with each view. 7.1.
Vaults with low free space: X View vaults The alert is displayed if at least one centralized vault has less than 10% free space. View vaults will take you to the Centralized vaults (p. 122) view where you can examine the vault size, free space, content and take the necessary steps to increase the free space. Bootable media was not created Create now To be able to recover an operating system when the machine fails to boot, you must: 1.
Statistics for the selected date are displayed to the right of the chart. All the statistics fields are interactive, i.e. if you click any field, the Log view will be opened with the log entries pre-filtered by this field. At the top of the chart, you can select the activities to display depending on the presence and severity of the errors. The Select current date link focuses selection to the current date.
7.1.2.1 Backup policy deployment states A backup policy deployment state is a combination of the policy deployment states on all machines the policy is applied to. For example, if the policy is applied to three machines and has the "Deploying" state on the 1st machine, the "Updating" state on the 2nd machine and the "Deployed" state on the 3rd machine, the state of the policy will be "Deploying, Updating, Deployed.
In the Log view, apply the Error filter if there are too many log entries. You can also sort the "error" entries by backup plans, managed entities or machines. 2. Once the reason of the failure is clear, do one or more of the following: Remove the reason of the failure. After that, you may want to start the failed task manually to maintain the backup scheme consistency, for example, if the policy uses the GFS or Tower of Hanoi backup scheme. Edit the backup policy to prevent future failure.
Edit a policy Click Edit. Editing policies is performed in the same way as creating (p. 346). Once the policy is edited, the management server updates the policy on all machines the policy was deployed to. Delete a policy Click Delete. As a result, the policy will be revoked from the machines it was deployed to and deleted from the management server. If the machine is currently offline, the policy will be revoked when the machine comes online again.
To Do Sort backup policies by any column Click the column's header to sort the backup policies in ascending order. Filter backup policies by name/owner Type a policy's name / owner's name in the fields below the corresponding column's header. Click it once again to sort the backup policies in descending order. As a result you will see the list of the backup policies, whose names (or their owners' names) fully or just partly coincide with the entered value.
Actions To Do View details of the machine (group). Click View tasks of the machine (group). Click View log of the machine (group) Click Revoke policy from the machine (group). Click 7.1.3 View details. In the Machine details (p. 299)/Group details (p. 309) window, examine all information on the selected machine (or the selected group). View tasks. The Tasks (p. 318) view will display a list of the tasks, pre-filtered by the selected machine (group). View log. The Log (p.
Custom groups - groups created manually by the management server administrator. Static groups Static groups contain machines manually added to the group by the administrator. A static member remains in the group until the administrator removes the member from the group or deletes the corresponding managed machine from the management server. Dynamic groups Dynamic groups contain machines added automatically according to the criteria specified by the administrator.
To Do Add a new machine to the management server Click Add a machine to AMS. In the Add machine (p. 296) window, select the machine that needs to be added to the management server. Import machines from Active Click Import machines from Active Directory. Directory In the Import machines from Active Directory (p. 296) window, specify the machines or organizational units whose machines you need to import to the management server. Import machines from a text Click Import machines from file.
The backup policies applied to the group the machine is now a member of will be deployed to the machine. Remove a machine from the Click Remove from group. current static group The backup policies applied to the group will be revoked from the machine automatically. Deleting the selected machine from the management server To Do Delete a machine from the management server Click Delete machine from AMS.
Refresh a list of machines Click Refresh. The management console will update the list of machines from the management server with the most recent information. Though the list of machines is refreshed automatically based on events, the data may not be retrieved immediately from the management server due to some latency. Manual refresh guarantees that the most recent data is displayed.
3. In the Search for field, type the machine's (or the organizational unit) name, then click Search. You can use the asterisk (*) to substitute for zero or more characters in a machine (or an organizational unit) name. The left part of the window displays the machine (or organizational unit) names that fully or just partly coincide with the entered value. Click the item you want to add for import, then click Add>>. The item will be moved to the right part of the window.
2. Click Synchronize machines with text file on the toolbar. 3. In the Path field, enter the path to a .txt or .csv file containing the list of machines, or click Browse and select the file in the Browse window. 4. Under Logon settings, specify the user name and password of a user who is a member of the Administrators group on all machines listed in the file. 5. Click OK to start synchronizing the machines.
The machine being added becomes a member of more than one group. As a result, the backup policies applied to the first group will remain on the machine, and the backup policies applied to the second, third, etc. group will be deployed to the machine. Moving a machine to another group To move the selected machine to another group 1. In the group tree, select the group the machine will be moved to. 2. Click OK. The machine being moved leaves one group and becomes a member of another group.
Offline - the machine is unavailable for the management server: it is turned off, or its network cable is unplugged. Unknown - this status is displayed until the first connection between the management server and the machine is established after adding the machine or starting the management server's service. Withdrawn - the machine was registered on another management server, or the Standalone management parameter is selected in the Options > Machine options > Machine management (p.
Filtering and sorting Filtering and sorting of the backup policies is performed in the same way as for the Backup policies view. See the Filtering and sorting backup policies (p. 290) section for details. Plans and tasks Displays a list of the plans (both local and centralized) and tasks existing on the selected machine. Operations The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with backup plans and tasks. To Do View details of a plan/task Backup plan Click View details.
Stop a plan/task Backup plan Click Stop. Stopping the running backup plan stops all its tasks. Thus, all the task operations will be aborted. Task Click Stop. What will happen if I stop the task? Generally, stopping the task aborts its operation (backup, recovery, validation, exporting, conversion, migration). The task enters the Stopping state first, then becomes Idle. The task schedule, if created, remains valid. To complete the operation you will have to run the task again.
Only tasks that do not belong to a backup plan, such as a recovery task, can be modified by direct editing. When you need to modify a task belonging to a local backup plan, edit the backup plan. A task belonging to a centralized backup plan can be modified by editing the centralized policy that spawned the plan. Delete a plan/task Backup plan Click Delete. What will happen if I delete the backup plan? The plan's deletion deletes all its tasks.
Refresh table Click Refresh. The management console will update the list of backup plans and tasks existing on the machine with the most recent information. Though the list is refreshed automatically based on events, the data may not be retrieved immediately from the managed machine, due to some latency. Manual refresh guarantees that the most recent data is displayed.
Group1 in the root contains Group2 to which the policy is applied directly. Group2, in turn, contains child Group3 that inherits the policy from the parent and applies the policy to Machine1 respectively. The machine (or group) to which the policy was applied directly is boldfaced and marked with an icon. All items are interactive, i.e. when you click on a machine or a group, its parent group view will be opened.
View detailed information on a group Click Rename a custom group/subgroup Click View details. In the Group details (p. 309) window, examine information on the selected group. Rename. In the Name column, type a new name for the selected group. Built-in groups cannot be renamed. Edit a custom group Click Edit. In the Edit group (p. 308) window, change the required parameters of the group. Move one custom group to another Click Delete a custom group Click Move to. In the Move to group (p.
Listed in txt/csv file (p. 308) All the machines that are listed in the specified .txt or .csv file will be members of the dynamic group. 3. In the Comments field, enter a description of the created group. 4. Click OK. Adding multiple criteria Adding multiple criteria forms a condition according to the following rules: a) All the entries of the same criteria are combined by logical addition (OR).
If OU3 has child containers and you also need to add the machines of those containers to the group, select the Include child containers check box. Listed in txt/csv file criterion When you use this criterion, the dynamic group will include machines from the list given in the specified .txt or .csv file. If you later modify the file, the contents of the group will change accordingly. The file is checked every 15 minutes.
Group details Aggregates in two tabs all information on the selected group. Allows performing operations with the policies applied to the group. This information is also duplicated in the Information panel.
The policy that is directly applied to the group is displayed as follows: Group name The following example illustrates how the policy that is applied on the group through inheritance is displayed. Group1 > Group2 > Group3 Group1 in the root contains Group2 to which the policy is applied directly. Group2, in turn, contains child Group3 that inherits the policy from the parent. The group to which the policy was applied directly is boldfaced and marked with an icon. All items are interactive, i.e.
2. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for ESX/ESXi is delivered as a virtual appliance. Do either of the following: Deploy the agent (p. 312) to the ESX/ESXi server or Install and configure the agent manually as described in "Installing ESX/ESXi virtual appliance" Add (p.
You can create both static and dynamic groups of virtual machines. Any virtual machine that is currently available can be added to a static group. You cannot create groups that contain both physical and virtual machines. The dynamic membership criteria for virtual machines are as follows: Virtualization server type (Hyper-V, ESX/ESXi). Using this criterion, you can create a dynamic group of virtual machines hosted on all registered Hyper-V (or ESX/ESXi, respectively) servers.
management server and you will be able to apply backup policies to the virtual machines or back up each machine individually. The update of already installed agents is performed in the same way as deployment. Upon selecting a host or cluster where the agent is installed, you will be suggested to update the agent on that host. If you are using VMware vSphere, it is recommended that you integrate (p. 312) the management server with your vCenter Server before starting the agent deployment.
By default, the software will use the account that you have already specified, either when configuring integration with the vCenter, or when getting access to the ESX/ESXi server. You have the option to specify credentials for a different account if need be. The virtual appliance's time zone will be set automatically according to the management server's time zone. You can change the time zone directly in the virtual appliance GUI as described in "Installing ESX/ESXi Virtual Appliance.
Server 3 uses storages B, C, D The VA can be deployed to either C or D. If there is no storage shared by all the servers, you can import the VA manually into any of the hosts. This will work, but backup performance will be far from optimal. After deployment, the agent virtual appliance can appear on any of the hosts included in the cluster, depending on how the load balancing is configured.
Note: You can skip this step if both the storage node and the users' machines are in the same Active Directory domain. For information about user rights on a storage node and in its managed vaults, see User rights on a storage node (p. 70). 3. Add (p. 317) the storage node to the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server. 4. Create a managed vault (p.
Change the compacting task schedule After deleting backups from deduplicating vaults, either manually or during cleanup, unreferenced data may appear in the deduplicating vaults and their databases. The compacting procedure deletes such data in order to free up more storage space. Only one compacting task is available per storage node. Click Reschedule compacting. In the Schedule window, set up the schedule for the compacting procedure. Only the time events (daily (p. 159), weekly (p.
Storage node properties The tab displays the following information about the selected storage node: Name - the name of the machine where the storage node is installed IP - the IP address of the machine where the storage node is installed Availability: Unknown - this status is displayed until the first connection between the management server and the storage node is established after adding the storage node or starting the management server's service.
7.1.6.1 Actions on tasks The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with tasks. To Do Create a new backup plan, or a task on a registered machine Click New, and select one of the following: Backup plan (p. 188) Recovery task (p. 212) Validation task (p. 233) Then, you have to specify the registered machine on which the selected task, or the backup plan will run. View details of a task Click View details. In the Tasks details (p.
tasks owned by other users Delete a task Click Delete. Why can't I delete the task? Task belongs to a backup plan A task belonging to a backup plan cannot be deleted separately from the plan. Edit the plan to remove the task or delete the entire plan. Do not have the appropriate privilege Without Administrator privileges on the machine, a user cannot delete tasks owned by other users. This is a built-in compacting task Each storage node has a built-in service task called a compacting task.
Filter tasks by type, execution In a field below the corresponding header, select the required value from the list. state, status, type, origin, last result, schedule. Configuring tasks table By default, the table has eight columns that are displayed, others are hidden. If required, you can hide the shown columns and show the hidden ones. To show or hide columns 1. Right-click any column header to open the context menu.
Use the Information panel to review the detailed information on the selected log entry. The panel is collapsed by default. To expand the panel, click the chevron. The content of the panel is also duplicated in the Log entry details (p. 324) window. Ways to open the "Log" view with the pre-filtered log entries Having selected items in other administration views (Dashboard, Machines, Backup policies, Tasks), you can open the Log view with already filtered log entries for the item in question.
Save all the filtered log entries to a file 1. Set filters to get a list of the log entries that satisfy the filtering criteria. 2. Click Save All to File. 3. In the opened window, specify a path and a name for the file. As a result, the log entries of that list will be saved. Delete all the log entries Click Clear Log. All the log entries will be deleted from the log, and a new log entry will be created. It will contain information about who deleted the entries and when.
7.1.7.3 Centralized log entry details Displays detailed information on the log entry you have selected and lets you copy the details to the clipboard. To copy the details, click the Copy to clipboard button. Log entry data fields A centralized log entry contains the following data fields: Type - Type of event (Error; Warning; Information) Module - Blank or the number of program module where an error was occurred.
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server offers report templates for: Registered machines Backup policies existing on the management server Local and centralized backup plans existing on the registered machines Local and centralized tasks existing on the registered machines Archives and backups stored in the centralized managed vaults Statistics about centralized managed vaults Task activities history Reports about machines, backup policies, backup plans, tasks, and archives and backu
Availability (physical machines only): The types of the machines' availability—Online or Offline. With the default filter settings, the report includes all physical machines. Report view Under Report view, choose how the report will look: Select whether to show all items in a single table or to group them by a particular column. Specify which table columns to show, and in which order. Specify how to sort the table. 7.1.8.
Execution state: The execution states of the backup plans—for example, Running. Schedule: The types of the backup plans' schedules—Manual and/or Scheduled. Manual schedule means that a backup plan runs only when you start it manually. Owner: The list of users who created the backup plans. Status: The statuses of the backup plans—OK, Warning, and/or Error. Last finish time: The period within which the last backup finished under each of the backup plans.
7.1.8.5 Report about the archives and backups In this view, you can generate a report about the archives that are stored in managed centralized vaults. This report consists of one or more tables. Filters Under Filters, choose which archives to include in the report. Only the archives that meet all filter criteria are included. Vaults: The list of centralized managed vaults that store the archives.
Report view Under Report view, choose how the report will look: Specify which table columns to show, and in which order. Select which diagrams to include in the report. The diagrams show space usage in the vaults. 7.1.8.7 Report about the task activities In this view, you can generate a report about the tasks that existed on registered machines within a chosen period. This report consists of one or more diagrams, one diagram per machine.
Explorer, click the Information bar that appears at the top of the webpage by default, and then click Allow blocked content. To allow active content permanently in Internet Explorer 1. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options, and then click the Advanced tab. 2. Select the Allow active content to run files on My Computer check box under Security. 3. Click OK. in Mozilla Firefox 1. On the Options menu, click Content. 2. Make sure, that the Enable JavaScript check box is selected. 3. Click OK. 7.
To load the Acronis Administrative Template 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Run Windows Group Policy Objects Editor (%windir%\system32\gpedit.msc.) Open the Group Policy object (GPO) you want to edit. Expand Computer Configuration. Right click Administrative Templates. Click Add/Remove Templates. Click Add. Browse to Acronis Administrative Template (\Program files\Common Files\Acronis\Agent\Acronis_agent.adm or \Program files\Acronis\BackupAndRecoveryConsole\Acronis_agent.adm), and click Open.
Default value: 10 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agents connect to the storage node to access its managed vaults during backup or recovery. The Client Connection Limit parameter determines the maximum number of such connections that the storage node can handle simultaneously. When this limit is reached, the storage node will use the backup queue (see the next parameter) for the agents that are awaiting connection.
If the volume has 5 GB of free space, then the total size of Vault A is 20 GB + 5 GB = 25 GB, and that of Vault B is 45 GB + 5 GB = 50 GB, regardless of the size of the volume. The percentage of free space in a vault is the vault's free space divided by the vault's total size. In the previous example, Vault A has 5 GB / 25 GB = 20% of free space, and Vault B has 5 GB / 50 GB = 10% of free space.
7.2.1.3 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server that can be set by using Acronis Administrative Template. Collecting Logs Specifies when to collect log entries from machines managed by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server. This parameter contains two settings: Trace State Description: Specifies whether to collect the log entries about the components' events from the registered machines.
Trace Level Description: Specifies the minimum level of severity of events to be recorded into the event log. Only events of levels greater than or equal to the value in Trace Level will be recorded.
Otherwise, it connects to a number of registered machines depending on the allotted number of simultaneous connections. After synchronization for a machine is complete, the management server may disconnect from that machine and use the free connection for synchronization with another machine, and so on. (Note: Connections to machines with high synchronization priority—see Period-High Priority later in this topic—are likely to be always kept.
If Real Time Monitoring is set to True, the management server instead sends requests to machines to provide new data whenever it will appear, and then enters a listening mode. This approach is called real-time monitoring. Real-time monitoring may reduce network traffic—for example, when centralized backup tasks run infrequently. However, it is effective only when there are relatively few registered machines.
You may want to increase the initial size of the snapshot storage—or to place it on a different volume—when experiencing problems with backing up data that changes extensively during backup. This parameter is used when creating a backup policy and applies to all centralized backup plans that will be based on this policy. Changes to this parameter do not affect already existing backup policies (and their centralized backup plans).
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent periodically checks whether its license key is present on the license server. The first check is performed every time that Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent starts and subsequent checks are performed once in the number of days given by License Check Interval. When the agent cannot connect to the license server, a warning is recorded into the agent's log. You can view this warning in the Dashboard.
For details on how the agent log is cleaned up, see Log cleanup rules (p. 88). Windows Event Log Specifies when to record Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent's events into the Application event log in Windows. This parameter has two settings: Trace State Description: Specifies whether to record the agent's events into the event log. Possible values: True or False Default value: False Trace Level Description: Specifies the minimum level of severity of events to be recorded into the event log.
With the default settings, the snapshot storage is created in a Windows' temporary files folder and initially occupies 50 percent of the space available on the volume containing that folder. This size may then grow if more space is needed for the snapshot. You may want to increase the initial size of the snapshot storage—or to place it on a different volume—when experiencing problems with backing up data that changes extensively during backup. This parameter is used when creating a backup plan.
Connection parameters Remote Agent ports Specifies the port that the component will use for incoming and outgoing communication with other Acronis components. Select one of the following: Not Configured The component will use the default TCP port number 9876. Enabled The component will use the specified port; type the port number in the Server TCP Port box. Disabled The same as Not configured.
Always use The use of SSL certificates is enabled. The connection will be established only if the use of SSL certificates is enabled on the server application. Disabled The same as Not configured. Server Encryption options Specifies whether to encrypt the transferred data when the component acts as a server application. Select one of the following: Not Configured The component will use the default setting, which is to use encryption if possible (see the following option). Enabled Encryption is enabled.
Level Name Description 0 Unknown Event whose level of severity is unknown or not applicable 1 Debug Event used for debug purposes 2 Information Informational event, such as one about the successful completion of an operation or startup of a service 3 Warning Event which is a possible impending problem, such as low free space in a vault 4 Error Event that resulted in a loss of data or functionality 5 Critical Event that resulted in the termination of a process such as the agent's process
regular basis. The end results are intended to provide software improvements and enhanced functionality to better meet the needs of Acronis customers. Acronis does not collect any personal data. The terms of participation can be found on the Acronis Web site. Disable The information will not be sent. Disabled The same as Not configured. 7.2.
Parameters related to vault databases The following two parameters determine paths to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node's internal databases, which contain information about managed vaults. The database that is located in the folder specified by the DatabasePath parameter is typically small. However, the database that is located in the folder specified by the TapeDatabasePath parameter (called the tape database), may be large if the tape library contains thousands of archives.
Policy credentials (p. 349) [Optional] You can change the policy account credentials if necessary. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. Policy comments [Optional] Type a description of the backup policy. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. Label [Optional] Type a text label for the machine(s) you are going to back up. The label can be used to identify the machine or group of machines in various scenarios. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box.
Backup options Settings [Optional] Configure parameters of the backup operation, such as pre/post backup commands, maximum network bandwidth allocated for the backup stream or the backup archive compression level. If you do nothing in this section, the default values (p. 89) as set in the management server, will be used. After any of the settings is changed against the default value, a new line that displays the newly set value appears. The setting status changes from Default to Custom.
After you have performed all the required steps, click OK to create the backup policy. 7.3.1 Policy credentials Provide the credentials under which the centralized tasks will run on the machines. To specify credentials 1. Select one of the following: Use Acronis service credentials The tasks will run under the Acronis service account, whether started manually or executed on schedule.
To include In the Volumes column: Comments Windows and Linux volumes All volumes Type or select: [All Volumes] Refers to all volumes on machines running Windows, and all mounted volumes on machines running Linux. Windows volumes Volume C: Type C:\ or select it from the list System volume Type or select: [SYSTEM] The system volume contains the hardwarespecific files that are needed to start Windows, such as Ntldr, Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com.
The names of templates are case-sensitive. What does a disk or volume backup store? For supported file systems, a disk or volume backup stores only those sectors that contain data. This reduces the resulting backup size and speeds up the backup and recovery operations. Windows The swap file (pagefile.sys) and the file that keeps the RAM content when the machine goes into hibernation (hiberfil.sys) are not backed up. After recovery, the files will be re-created in the appropriate place with the zero size.
For example, let a Linux machine contain a hard disk which is split into three volumes, or partitions: the first, second, and third partitions. These partitions are available in the tree as /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2, and /dev/hda3, respectively. To perform a disk backup of the, say, third partition, one can type /dev/hda3 in the row of the Volumes to back up selection rules dialog box. Furthermore, a Linux partition can be mounted anywhere inside the tree.
--- Logical volume --LV Name /dev/vg_mymachine/lv_root VG Name vg_mymachine … --- Logical volume --LV Name /dev/vg_mymachine/lv_bin VG Name vg_mymachine … Tip: To be able to automatically create the volume structure information during recovery, make sure that the volume with the /etc/Acronis directory of each machine is selected for backup. For more details, see “Saving the volume structure information”. 7.3.2.
C:\ProgramData in Windows Vista) You can use other environment variables or a combination of environment variables and text. For example, to refer to the Acronis folder in the machines' Program Files folder, type: %PROGRAMFILES%\Acronis Templates Templates are similar to environment variables, but are already pre-customized. To include In the Files and folders column, type or select: Comments All files on all volumes on [All Files] a machine Points to all files on all volumes of the machine.
Password. The password for the account. 2. Click OK. 7.3.4 Exclusions Set up exclusions for the specific types of files you do not wish to back up. For example, you may not want database, hidden and system files and folders, as well as files with specific extensions, to be stored in the archive. To specify which files and folders to exclude: Set up any of the following parameters: Exclude all hidden files and folders This option is effective only for file systems that are supported by Windows.
Windows By file path C:\Finance\F.log Excludes the file named "F.log" located in the folder C:\Finance By folder path C:\Finance\F\ Excludes the folder C:\Finance\F (be sure to specify the full path starting from the disk letter) Linux By file path /home/user/Finance/F.log Excludes the file named "F.log" located in the folder /home/user/Finance By folder path /home/user/Finance/ Excludes the folder /home/user/Finance 7.3.
The program generates a common name for the new archives and displays it in the Name field. The name looks like [PolicyName]_[MachineName]_Archive1. If you are not satisfied with the automatically generated name, construct another name. If you selected Store all machines' archives in a single location, you have to use variables in order to provide the unique archive names within the location. 1.
Back up now – to create a backup task for manual start and run the task immediately after its creation. Back up later – to create a backup task for manual start OR schedule one-time task execution in the future. Simple – to schedule when and how often to backup data and specify retention rules. Tower of Hanoi – to use the Tower of Hanoi backup scheme, where you schedule when and how often to back up (sessions) and select the number of backup levels (up to 16).
To set up the simple backup scheme, specify the appropriate settings as follows. Backup Set up the backup schedule - when and how often to back up the data. To learn more about setting up the schedule, see the Scheduling (p. 158) section. Retention rule 7.3.7.4 With the simple scheme, only one retention rule (p. 38) is available. Set the retention period for the backups.
Weekly/Monthly: Specifies which of the days selected in the Back up on field you want to reserve for weekly and monthly backups. A monthly backup will be performed every fourth such day. The default value is Friday. Keep backups: Specifies how long you want the backups to be stored in the archive. A term can be set in hours, days, weeks, months, or years. For monthly backups, you can also select Keep indefinitely if you want them to be saved forever.
As a result, an archive of daily, weekly, and monthly backups will be created. Daily backups will be available for seven days since creation. For instance, a daily backup of Sunday, January 1, will be available through next Sunday, January 8; the first weekly backup, the one of Saturday, January 7, will be stored on the system until February 7. Monthly backups will never be deleted.
Daily: 6 months Weekly: 6 months Monthly: 5 years Here, daily incremental backups will be created on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with weekly and monthly backups performed on Fridays. Note that, in order to choose Friday in the Weekly/monthly field, you need to first select it in the Back up on field. Such an archive would allow you to compare your financial documents as of the first and the last day of work, and have a five-year history of all documents, etc.
levels you select. See the example below for details. Example Schedule parameters are set as follows Recur: Every 1 day Frequency: Once at 6 PM Number of levels: 4 This is how the first 14 days (or 14 sessions) of this scheme's schedule look. Shaded numbers denote backup levels.
Here are the backups we have on day 12 (numbers in gray denote deleted backups). 1 4 2 1 3 2 4 1 5 3 6 1 7 2 8 1 9 4 10 1 11 2 12 1 A new level 3 differential backup has not yet been created, so the backup of day five is still stored. Since it depends on the full backup of day one, that backup is available as well. This enables us to go as far back as 11 days, which is the best-case scenario.
This setting is recommended for backup destinations such as shared folders or centralized vaults. When there is insufficient space while backing up The archive will be cleaned up only during backup and only if there is not enough space to create a new backup.
Incremental: Schedule: Weekly, every workday, at 9:00 PM Also, let all backups older than one year be deleted from the archive, and let the cleanup be performed upon creating a new backup. Retention rules: Delete backups older than 12 months Apply the rules: After backing up By default, a one-year-old full backup will not be deleted until all incremental backups that depend on it become subject to deletion too. For more information, see Retention rules (p. 38).
Resulting tasks Any custom scheme always produces three backup tasks and—in case the retention rules are specified—a cleanup task. Each task is listed in the list of tasks either as Scheduled (if the schedule has been set up) or as Manual (if the schedule has not been set up). You can manually run any backup task or cleanup task at any time, regardless of whether it has a schedule. In the first of the previous examples, we set up a schedule only for full backups.
3. Validation schedule (appears only if you have selected the on schedule in step 1) - set the schedule of validation. For more information see the Scheduling (p. 158) section. 368 Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
8 Online backup This section provides details about using the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Online service. This service enables you to do online backups to Acronis Online Backup Storage. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Online might be unavailable in your region. To find more information, click here: http://www.acronis.
8.1.2 What data can I back up and recover? You can back up files, volumes, disks, or the entire physical machine as often as you wish. Unlike most online backup solutions, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Online enables bare metal recovery directly from the online storage. Files can be recovered from disk-level backups as well as from filelevel backups. For information about backing up virtual machines see "How to back up virtual machines to the online storage? (p. 370)" 8.1.
Host-based backup is available only for paid licenses of VMware ESXi. Choose the below approach if your ESXi Server uses a free license. Install Acronis software into the guest system The machine will be treated as a physical one. You will need a separate server or workstation subscription for this machine.
8.1.6.4 What if a network connection is lost during online backup or recovery? The software will try to reach the online storage every 30 seconds. After five unsuccessful attempts the backup or recovery task will fail. You can change the number of attempts and the interval between the attempts in the Error handling > Re-attempt, if an error occurs option. Every backup plan or recovery task includes this option. 8.1.6.
The hard disk drive is sent back to you but it is not possible to recover from it. However, recovery from a locally attached device is possible with the Large scale recovery (p. 377) option. 8.1.7.2 Why would I want to use Initial Seeding? This service helps you save time and network traffic during the initial full backup. It is useful when backing up very large volumes of data or entire machines to the online storage. 8.1.7.
8.1.7.8 How to perform initial seeding? 1. Decide on the media (p. 373) that you will send. 2. Attach the media to the machine you are going to back up. Alternatively, you can back up to a local or network folder and then copy/move the backup to the media. 3. Start Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, click Back up and create a backup plan on this machine: 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. In Where to back up, specify Online Backup Storage.
Step 1 Delicately remove your hard disk drive from the machine. Step 2 Place the hard drive into an anti-static bag to protect the drive from electrostatic discharge. If you do not have an anti-static bag, simply wrap the hard drive into aluminum foil. Step 3 Use a sturdy box that is at least twice the size of the drive. Pack the drive with a bubble wrap around all 6 sides so it can fit tight into the box and cannot be moved within.
Step 4 Choose the transport company that you will use for shipping. On this company's web site, prepare and print two prepaid shipping labels: 1. Shipping label for sending your hard drive. This label is placed on the top of the box. You should send your package to one of the Acronis data centers. The data center address can be obtained on the Initial seeding/Recovery tab of your account management page by clicking Show data center address.
An order was created – The first backup is about to start and the license cannot be used for any other machine. From this point on, you can cancel the order if something goes wrong. This will return the license to the pool of available licenses. A full backup has started – This status is set when the first backup starts. The order start time occurs at this moment. A full backup has been successfully completed – The backup has been completed and the order is ready to ship.
Once you order Large Scale Recovery for a particular machine, Acronis sends you a USB hard disk drive with all of the backups made from this machine. You can recover data directly from the disk or copy the backups to a local or network folder. 8.1.8.2 Why would I use Large Scale Recovery? In the event of a disaster or the need to recover large volumes of data or the entire machines quickly, this service helps you save time and network traffic.
can cancel the order if something goes wrong. This will return the license to the pool of available licenses. The order is being processed - Order processing in the datacenter started. Writing data has been completed – Your backups have been successfully written to the media. [Occasional] The order is on hold – Your order was placed on hold due to technical difficulties processing the order. Acronis is working on resolving these issues.
If you purchased your subscriptions online using the Acronis Web site, they are available immediately on your account management Web page. The newly obtained subscriptions are listed at the Manage Subscriptions tab. 8.1.9.3 When does my subscription begin? Your subscription begins when you choose to have it begin, not at the time of purchase. The time count will begin as soon as the subscription is activated. The first activation occurs when you assign a subscription to a certain machine.
What does "Auto-renew" mean? Auto-renewal means that when the current subscription expires, the next subscription will be automatically selected from the available subscriptions. The next subscription must be identical to the current subscription. If an identical subscription is not found, auto-renewal will not take place and your backups may fail. No subscriptions will be bought automatically. Only those subscriptions available at the time of autorenewal can be used.
Windows Server 2008 R2 - the Standard, Enterprise, Small Business Server, Datacenter, Foundation editions Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 Workstation operating systems supported by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Online: Windows 2000 Professional SP4 Windows XP Professional SP2+ (x86, x64) Windows Vista - all editions except for Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium (x86, x64) Windows 7 - all editions except for the Starter and Home editions (x86, x64) Virtualization products supported by A
As soon as a subscription is activated, its subscription period starts. To avoid losing subscription time, activate the subscription only when you are ready to back up the machine. If a machine already has a subscription, the new subscription will replace the old one. You can reassign the old subscription to a different machine—see “Reassigning an activated subscription” later in this section. 8.4.
Depending on your settings, this backup will be either full or incremental. But its size is not likely to be less than a full backup size. Therefore, it is not practical to reassign a subscription to a machine whose first backup was done as an initial seeding. You will need to either redo the initial seeding (which requires a new license) or to transfer the sizeable backup over the Internet. All earlier created backups remain intact. You can delete them manually if necessary.
To configure proxy settings for an agent 1. 2. 3. 4. Connect the console to the machine for which you want to configure proxy settings. In the Options menu, located on the toolbar, click Machine options. Click Online backup proxy. Enter the proxy server settings. For detailed information (p. 88) about the settings please refer to the context-sensitive help. 5. Repeat steps 2–5 for all machines that connect to the Internet through a proxy server. To configure proxy settings for the management server 1. 2.
Dual destination (p. 106) By using the Backup performance > Network connection speed option, you can vary the transferring speed as kilobytes per second, but not as a percentage. Command-line mode Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 command-line utilities do not support online backup. 8.7 Terminology reference The following is the list of terms related to the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Online service. Activate a subscription Allow the machine to use the online storage according to the subscription.
Reassign a subscription Assign a subscription that is already activated, to a different machine. Registration code A character string for registering a subscription or license that was bought from an Acronis partner. When you purchase such subscriptions or licenses, you receive a confirmation e-mail containing the registration codes for each of them. You then enter the registration codes on the account management Web page, and these subscriptions and licenses become available for use.
9 Glossary A Acronis Active Restore The Acronis proprietary technology that brings a system online immediately after the system recovery is started. The system boots from the backup (p. 394) and the machine becomes operational and ready to provide necessary services. The data required to serve incoming requests is recovered with the highest priority; everything else is recovered in the background.
Limitation: requires re-activation of loaders other than Windows loaders and GRUB. Agent (Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent) An application that performs data backup and recovery and enables other management operations on the machine (p. 397), such as task management and operations with hard disks. The type of data that can be backed up depends on the agent type.
Backup options Configuration parameters of a backup operation (p. 389), such as pre/post backup commands, maximum network bandwidth allotted for the backup stream or data compression level. Backup options are a part of a backup plan (p. 390). Backup plan (Plan) A set of rules that specify how the given data will be protected on a given machine. A backup plan specifies: what data to back up [optionally] the archive validation rules (p. 401) where to store the backup archive (p.
4. On each machine, the agent (p. 389) installed on the machine finds data items using the selection rules. For example, if the selection rule is [All volumes], the entire machine will be backed up. 5. On each machine, the agent installed on the machine creates a backup plan (p. 390) using other rules specified by the policy. Such backup plan is called a centralized plan (p. 392). 6. On each machine, the agent installed on the machine creates a set of centralized tasks (p. 392) that will carry out the plan.
Built-in groups cannot be deleted, moved to other groups or manually modified. Custom groups cannot be created within built-in groups. There is no way to remove a physical machine from the built-in group except for removing the machine from the management server. Virtual machines are removed as a result of their host server removal. A backup policy (p. 390) can be applied to a built-in group. C Centralized backup plan A backup plan (p. 390) that appears on the managed machine (p.
Cleanup Deleting backups (p. 389) from a backup archive (p. 389) in order to get rid of outdated backups or prevent the archive from exceeding the desired size. Cleanup consists in applying to an archive the retention rules set by the backup plan (p. 390) that produces the archive. This operation checks if the archive has exceeded its maximum size and/or for expired backups. This may or may not result in deleting backups depending on whether the retention rules are violated or not.
Direct management Any management operation that is performed on a managed machine (p. 397) using the direct console (p. 393)-agent (p. 389) connection (as opposed to centralized management (p. 392) when the operations are configured on the management server (p. 398) and propagated by the server to the managed machines). The direct management operations include: creating and managing local backup plans (p.
222189 Description of Disk Groups in Windows Disk Management http://support.microsoft.com/kb/222189/EN-US/ Dynamic disk A hard disk managed by Logical Disk Manager (LDM) that is available in Windows starting with Windows 2000. LDM helps flexibly allocate volumes on a storage device for better fault tolerance, better performance or larger volume size. A dynamic disk can use either the master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT) partition style.
the administrator changes the criteria so that the machine does not meet them anymore. There is no way to remove a machine from a dynamic group manually except for deleting the machine from the management server. Dynamic volume Any volume located on dynamic disks (p. 395), or more precisely, on a disk group (p. 394). Dynamic volumes can span multiple disks.
F Full backup A self-sufficient backup (p. 389) containing all data chosen for backup. You do not need access to any other backup to recover the data from a full backup. G GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) A popular backup scheme (p. 391) aimed to maintain the optimal balance between a backup archive (p. 389) size and the number of recovery points (p. 399) available from the archive.
Managed vault A centralized vault (p. 392) managed by a storage node (p. 399). Archives (p. 389) in a managed vault can be accessed as follows: bsp://node_address/vault_name/archive_name/ Physically, managed vaults can reside on a network share, SAN, NAS, on a hard drive local to the storage node or on a tape library locally attached to the storage node. The storage node performs storage node-side cleanup (p. 400) and storage node-side validation (p. 400) for each archive stored in the managed vault.
Plan See Backup plan (p. 390). Policy See Backup policy (p. 390). R Recovery point Date and time to which the backed up data can be reverted to. Registered machine A machine (p. 397) managed by a management server (p. 398). A machine can be registered on only one management server at a time. A machine becomes registered as a result of the registration (p. 399) procedure. Registration A procedure that adds a managed machine (p. 397) to a management server (p. 398).
prevent access to the backup archives, even in case the storage medium is stolen or accessed by a malefactor, by using encrypted vaults (p. 396). Storage node-side cleanup Cleanup (p. 392) performed by a storage node (p. 399) according to the backup plans (p. 390) that produce the archives (p. 389) stored in a managed vault (p. 397). Being an alternative to the agentside cleanup (p. 389), the cleanup on the storage node side relieves the production servers of unnecessary CPU load.
U Universal Restore (Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Universal Restore) The Acronis proprietary technology that helps boot up Windows on dissimilar hardware or a virtual machine. The Universal Restore handles differences in devices that are critical for the operating system start-up, such as storage controllers, motherboard or chipset. The Universal Restore is not available: when the machine is booted with Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (p.
Virtual machine On Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server, a machine (p. 397) is considered virtual if it can be backed up from the virtualization host without installing an agent (p. 389) on the machine. A virtual machine appears on the management server after registration of the virtualization server that hosts the machine, provided that Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent for virtual machines is installed on that server.
