Acronis® Backup & Recovery 10™ Advanced Server Virtual 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 ................................................
2.15 Understanding centralized management ................................................................................60 2.15.1 2.15.2 2.15.3 2.15.4 2.15.5 2.15.6 2.15.7 2.15.8 3 Options ............................................................................................................................... 93 3.1 Console options .......................................................................................................................93 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3 3.1.4 3.1.5 3.2 3.
.4 At Windows Event Log event .................................................................................................180 5.5 Advanced scheduling settings ...............................................................................................182 5.6 When an ADRM alert is received ...........................................................................................184 5.7 Conditions ................................................................................................
.5.2 6.5.3 6.5.4 Backup selection.......................................................................................................................................... 258 Access credentials ....................................................................................................................................... 259 Volume selection ......................................................................................................................................... 259 6.
.3.6 7.3.7 7.3.8 8 Online backup.................................................................................................................... 391 8.1 Introduction to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Online .........................................................391 8.1.1 8.1.2 8.1.3 8.1.4 8.1.5 8.1.6 8.1.7 8.1.8 8.1.9 What is Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Online? ....................................................................................... 391 What data can I back up and recover? ........
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.
Overview of all configured and running operations with color-coding for successful and failed operations Enterprise level of security Controlling user rights to perform operations and access backups 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 centralize
3. Install Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console (p. 23) on the machine from which you prefer to operate. We recommend that you use the console that installs on Windows if you have a choice between Windows and Linux console distributions. Install Acronis Bootable Media Builder. 4. Start the console. Create the bootable media. 5. Connect the console to the management server.
3. Install the Acronis Deduplication add-on to the agent on all machines that will back up to the deduplicating vault. 4. Ensure that the backup plans you create use the managed vault as destination for the backup archives. Creating a backup policy rather than backup plans Set up a centralized backup policy and apply it to the All machines group. This way you will deploy backup plans on each machine with a single action.
Key elements of the console workspace Name Description Navigation pane Contains the Navigation tree and the Shortcuts bar and lets you navigate to the different views (see the Navigation pane (p. 12) section.) Actions and tools pane Contains bars with a set of actions that can be performed and tools (see the Actions and Tools pane (p. 13) section). Main area The main place of working, where you create, edit and manage backup plans, policies, tasks and perform other operations.
[Management server name]. Root of the tree also called a Welcome view. Displays the name of the management server the console is currently connected to. Use this view for quick access to the main operations, available on the management server. Dashboard. Use this view to estimate at a glance whether the data is successfully protected on the machines registered on the management server. Backup policies. Use this view to manage backup policies existing on the management server.
actions bar will be named as 'System backup' actions and will have the set of actions typical to backup plans. All actions can also be accessed in the respective menu items. A menu item appears on the menu bar when you select an item in any of the navigation views. Examples of "'Item name' actions" bars 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.
Help Contains a list of help topics. Different views and action pages of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provided with lists of specific help topics. 1.2.1.3 Operations with panes How to expand/minimize panes By default, the Navigation pane appears expanded and the Actions and Tools - minimized. You might need to minimize the pane in order to free some additional workspace. To do this, click the chevron ( - for the Navigation pane; - for the Actions and tools pane).
"Tasks" view Common way of working with views Generally, every view contains a table of items, a table toolbar with buttons, and the Information panel. Use filtering and sorting capabilities to search the table for the item in question In the table, select the desired item In the Information panel (collapsed by default), view the item's details Perform actions on the selected item.
Action page - Create backup plan Using controls and specifying settings The action pages offer two ways of representation: basic and advanced. The basic representation hides such fields as credentials, comments, etc. When the advanced representation is enabled, all the available fields are displayed. You can switch between the views by selecting the Advanced view check box at the top of the action page. Most settings are configured by clicking the respective Change… links to the right.
Navigation buttons 1.3 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components This section contains a full list of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components with a brief description of their functionality. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 includes the following main types of components. Components for a managed machine (agents) These are applications that perform data backup, recovery and other operations on the machines managed with Acronis Backup & Recovery 10.
File backup File-level data protection is based on backing up files and folders residing on the machine where the agent is installed or on a network share. Files can be recovered to their original location or to another place. It is possible to recover all files and folders that were backed up or select which of them to recover.
Disk backup Disk-level data protection is based on backing up either a disk or a volume file system as a whole, along with all information necessary for the operating system to boot; or all the disk sectors using the sector-by-sector approach (raw mode.) A backup that contains a copy of a disk or a volume in a packaged form is called a disk (volume) backup or a disk (volume) image. It is possible to recover disks or volumes as a whole from such backup, as well as individual folders or files.
The configuration database that stores the list of registered machines and other configuration information, including backup policies created by the administrator. The synchronization database used for synchronization of the management server with registered machines and storage nodes. This is a database with rapidly changing operational data. The reporting database that stores the centralized log. This database may grow large. Its size depends on the logging level you set.
A managed vault can be organized: on the hard drives local to the storage node on a network share on a Storage Area Network (SAN) on a Network Attached Storage (NAS) on a tape library locally attached to the storage node. The management operations are as follows. Storage node-side cleanup and validation Archives, stored in unmanaged vaults, are maintained by the agents (p. 411) that create the archives.
1.3.4.4 License Server The server enables you to manage licenses of Acronis products and install the components that require licenses. For more information about Acronis License Server please see "Using Acronis License Server". 1.3.
ReiserFS3 - particular files cannot be recovered from disk backups located on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node ReiserFS4 - volume recovery without the volume resize capability; particular files cannot be recovered from disk backups located on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node XFS - volume recovery without the volume resize capability; particular files cannot be recovered from disk backups located on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node JFS - particular files cannot be re
Windows Server 2003/2003 R2 - the Standard, Enterprise, Small Business Server editions (x86, x64) Windows Vista - all editions except for Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium (x86, x64) Windows Server 2008 R2* - the Standard, Enterprise, Small Business Server, Datacenter, Foundation editions Windows MultiPoint Server 2010* * Windows 7* - all editions except for the Starter and Home editions (x86, x64) Windows Server 2008 - the Standard, Enterprise, Small Business Server, Foundation e
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.x and 5.x Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), 9.10 (Karmic Koala) and 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) Fedora 11 and 12 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and 11 Debian 4 (Lenny) and 5 (Etch) CentOS 5 Agent for Linux is in fact a 32-bit executable. For authentication, the agent uses system libraries, 32-bit versions of which are not always installed by default with 64-bit distributions.
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. 29 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 User privileges on a managed machine Windows When managing a machine running Windows, the scope of a user's management rights depends on the user's privileges on the machine.
Members of the Administrators group also can: View and manage backup plans and tasks owned by any user on the machine. Linux When managing a machine running Linux, the user has or obtains the root privileges, and so can: Back up and recover any data or the entire machine, having full control over all Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent operations and log files on the machine. Manage local backup plans and tasks owned by any user registered in the operating system.
Manual start You can skip the Plan's (Task) credentials step. Every time you start the task, the task will run under the credentials with which you are currently logged on. Any person that has administrative privileges on the machine can also start the task. The task will run under this person's credentials. The task will always run under the same credentials, regardless of the user who actually starts the task, if you specify the task credentials explicitly. To do so, on the plan (task) creation page: 1.
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. Example: An Internet cafe, school or university lab where the administrator often undoes changes made by the students or guests but rarely updates the reference backup (in fact, after installing software updates only).
Creation time Maximal Medium Minimal Recovery time Minimal Medium Maximal 2.5 GFS backup scheme This section covers implementation of the Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) backup scheme in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. With this backup scheme you are not allowed to back up more often than once a day. The scheme enables you to mark out the daily, weekly and monthly cycles in your daily backup schedule and set the retention periods for the daily, monthly and weekly backups.
Weekly/Monthly This step forms the daily, weekly and monthly cycles in the schedule. Select a day of the week from the days selected in the previous step. Each 1st, 2nd and 3rd backup created on this day of the week will be considered as a weekly backup. Each 4th backup created on this day of the week will be considered as a monthly backup. Backups created on the other days will be considered as daily backups. Assume you select Friday for Weekly/Monthly backup.
backups’ retention period cannot be less than the weekly backups’ retention period. It is usually set several times longer. You have the option to keep the monthly backups indefinitely. The resulting archive: ideal Assume you select to keep daily backups for 7 days, weekly backups for 2 weeks and monthly backups for 6 months. Here is how your archive would appear after the backup plan is launched if all the backups were full and so could be deleted as soon as the scheme requires.
The resulting archive: real In reality, the archive content will somewhat differ from the ideal scheme. When using the incremental and differential backup methods, you cannot delete a backup as soon as the scheme requires if later backups are based on this backup. Regular consolidation is unacceptable because it takes too much system resources. The program has to wait until the scheme requires the deletion of all the dependent backups and then deletes the entire chain.
2.6 Tower of Hanoi backup scheme The need to have frequent backups always conflicts with the cost of keeping such backups for a long time. The Tower of Hanoi (ToH) backup scheme is a useful compromise. Tower of Hanoi overview The Tower of Hanoi scheme is based on a mathematical puzzle of the same name. In the puzzle a series of rings are stacked in size order, the largest on the bottom, on one of three pegs. The goal is to move the ring series to the third peg.
Tower of Hanoi by Acronis The Tower of Hanoi backup scheme is generally too complex to mentally calculate the next media to be used. But Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provides you with automation of the scheme usage. You can set up the backup scheme while creating a backup plan.
For information about using Tower of Hanoi for tape libraries, see Using the Tower of Hanoi tape rotation scheme (p. 160). 2.7 Retention rules The backups produced by a backup plan make an archive. The two retention rules described in this section enable you to limit the archive size and set the lifetime (retention period) of the backups. The retention rules are effective if the archive contains more than one backup.
There is a certain risk that all but one backup will be deleted if the maximum archive size is set improperly (too small) or a regular backup turns out to be too large. To protect the recent backups from deletion, select the Never delete backups younger than check box and specify the maximum age of backups that must be retained. The diagram below illustrates the resulting rule. Combination of rules 1 and 2 You can limit both the backups’ lifetime and the archive size.
Retain the backup until all dependent backups become subject to deletion The outdated backup will be kept until all backups that depend on it also become outdated. Then all the chain will be deleted at once during the regular cleanup. This mode helps to avoid the potentially time-consuming consolidation but requires extra space for storing backups whose deletion is postponed. The archive size and/or the backup age can exceed the values you specify.
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 can back up and recover dynamic volumes and, with minor limitations, basic GPT volumes. Backing up dynamic volumes Dynamic and basic GPT volumes are backed up in the same way as basic MBR volumes. When creating a backup plan through the GUI, all types of volumes are available for selection as Items to back up. When using the command line, specify the dynamic and GPT volumes with the DYN prefix.
Backed up (source): Recovered to: Dynamic volume Basic MBR volume Basic GPT volume Dynamic volume Type as of the target Dynamic volume Simple Dynamic volume Type as of the target N/A Basic MBR volume Dynamic volume Type as of the target Dynamic volume Type as of the source Basic MBR volume Basic MBR volume Basic MBR volume Basic GPT volume Basic GPT volume Basic GPT volume Basic GPT volume Unallocated space (basic MBR disk) Basic MBR volume Basic MBR volume Basic MBR volume Unallocated spa
Backup (GUI) In Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 GUI, logical volumes appear under Dynamic & GPT Volumes at the end of the list of volumes available for backup. To back up all available disks, specify all logical volumes plus basic volumes not belonging to them. This is the default choice when you open the Create backup plan page. Basic volumes included in logical volumes are shown in the list with None in the File system column. If you select such volumes, the program will back them up sector-by-sector.
When recovering MD devices under bootable media, the structure of MD devices can be automatically created if it has been saved in the backup (p. 48). For detailed information about recovering MD devices under bootable media, see Recovering MD devices and logical volumes (p. 282). For information about assembling MD devices when performing recovery in Linux, see Assembling MD devices for recovery (Linux) (p. 250). 2.9.
Num ---Disk 1-1 1-2 1-3 Partition -------------------1 (sda): sda1 sda2 sda3 Unallocated 1-4 Acronis Secure Zone Unallocated Disk 2 (sdb): 2-1 sdb1 2-2 sdb2 Unallocated Disk 3 (sdc): Table Unallocated Disk 4 (sdd): 4-1 sdd1 4-2 sdd2 Unallocated Dynamic & GPT Volumes: DYN1 VolGroup00-LogVol00 DYN2 Flags Start Size Type ----------- ---------- ---------- ----------Pri,Act Pri Pri 63 417690 24997140 27101655 32499495 33543720 208813 12289725 1052257 2698920 522112 5356 Ext2 ReiserFS Linux Swap Unallocated
2.11 Backing up virtual machines Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server Virtual Edition allows for backing up virtual machines from the host. Preparation On Windows 2008 Server x64 (any edition) or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008: Install the Agent for Hyper-V on the Hyper-V host. Integration services (p. 52) have to be installed on the guest systems. On VMware ESX/ESXi: Install the Agent for ESX/ESXi on the ESX or ESXi host. The agent is delivered as a virtual appliance.
An online (running) ESX/ESXi virtual machine that has an independent disk or an RDM disk attached in the physical compatibility mode cannot be backed up from the host. To back up such machine or its disks, either stop the machine or install Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux on the machine. Virtual machine backup vs. physical machine backup Backing up an entire virtual machine or its volumes yields a standard disk backup (p. 416).
Cause: This happens because there is no registry key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{F2C2787D-95AB-40D4-942D-298F5F757874} Solution: Add this key to the registry. To do so, create and run the following script (xxx.
2.12.1 Tape compatibility table The following table summarizes the readability of tapes written by Acronis True Image Echo and Acronis True Image 9.1 product families in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. The table also illustrates the compatibility of tapes written by various components of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. ...is readable on a tape device attached to a machine with... Tape written on a locally attached tape device (tape drive or tape library) by...
You might experience short pauses that are required to rewind the tape. Low-quality or old tape, as well as dirt on the magnetic head, might lead to pauses that can last up to several minutes. Limitations 1. Multiple full backups within one archive are not supported. 2. Individual files cannot be recovered from a disk backup. 3. Backups cannot be deleted from a tape either manually or automatically during cleanup.
About the management information base (MIB) The MIB file acronis-abr.mib is located in the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 installation directory. By default: %ProgramFiles%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery in Windows and /usr/lib/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery in Linux. This file can be read by a MIB browser or a simple text editor such as Notepad or vi. About the test message When configuring SNMP notifications, you can send a test message to check if your settings are correct.
Backup to Acronis Secure Zone is not possible when working under bootable media or Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. Managing the Acronis Secure Zone Acronis Secure Zone is considered as a personal vault (p. 423). Once created on a managed machine, the zone is always present in the list of Personal vaults. Centralized backup plans (p. 414) can use Acronis Secure Zone as well as local plans (p. 419). If you have used Acronis Secure Zone before, please note a radical change in the zone functionality.
Limitation Acronis Startup Recovery Manager requires re-activation of third-party loaders after activation. Upgrade from Acronis True Image Echo After upgrade from Acronis True Image Echo to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, Acronis Startup Recovery Manager appears as deactivated regardless of its status before the upgrade. You can activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager again at any time. 2.14.
2. Manual selection of the mass storage device driver. If the target hardware has a specific mass storage controller (such as a SCSI, RAID, or Fibre Channel adapter) for the hard disk, you can install the appropriate driver manually, bypassing the automatic driver search-and-install procedure. 3. Installing drivers for Plug and Play devices.
Limitation The only supported archive location is a local drive, or more precisely, any device available through the machine’s BIOS. This may be Acronis Secure Zone, a USB hard drive, a flash drive or any internal hard drive. 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.
Acronis Active Restore will choose for the boot-up and subsequent recovery the first operating system found during the backup scan. Do not try to recover more than one operating system using Active Restore if you want the result to be predictable. When recovering a multi-boot system, choose only one system volume and boot volume at a time. 5. Once the system recovery is started, the operating system boots from the backup. The Acronis Active Restore icon appears in the system tray.
Centralized management does not rule out the direct management (p. 415) of each machine. You can connect the console to each machine and perform any direct management operation. However, centralized backup plans can be managed through the management server only, since a well-thought out policy functions automatically and rarely requires human intervention. Using the management server, you can create one or more centralized archive storages (centralized vaults (p.
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. 2.15.2.2 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.
make the best use of the AD OU criterion, consider reproducing the Active Directory hierarchy in the management server. Grouping by the IP address range enables taking account of the network topology. The groups you create can be nested. The management server is capable of maintaining up to 500 groups in total. A machine can be a member of more than one group. Besides physical machines, you can group virtual machines (p. 330) hosted on registered virtualization servers.
To protect the salesmen's workstations with a different policy, the administrator creates the G2 dynamic group using the AD OU criterion. Any change in the OU membership of a machine will be reflected in the G2 membership. The appropriate policy will be applied to the new OU members and revoked from machines deleted from the OU. The international sales manager's laptop is not included in the OU but it has some of the data the sales machines have.
Operations with groups to which backup policies are applied will result in changing the policies on the member machines. On any hierarchy change, that is, when moving, removing, creating groups; adding machines to static groups; or when machines enter a group based on dynamic criteria, a huge number of inheritance changes may occur.
2. A policy can be revoked from a group. 3. A policy applied to a group cannot be revoked from a machine. 4. To revoke the policy from the machine, remove the machine from the group. The same policy on a group and on a machine 1. The same policy can be applied to a group and to a machine. Nothing changes on the machine at the second application of the same policy, but the server remembers that the policy has been applied twice. 2. A policy, revoked from the group, remains on the machine. 3.
2.15.4.3 Inheritance of policies Policy inheritance can be easily understood if we assume that a machine can be a member of only one group besides the All machines group. Let's start from this simplified approach. 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. 70 Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
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. The "orange" policy, applied to G1, is inherited by the G1 members and all its child groups, both immediate and indirect. The "blue" policy, applied to G2, is inherited only by the G2 members since G2 does not have child groups. The "violet" policy is applied straight to machine #4.
#5 or #6 "green" Inherited All machines -> #5 or #6 "orange" Inherited G1 -> G2 -> #5 or #6 "blue" Inherited G2 -> #5 or #6 2.15.5 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. The state and status of a backup policy are included in such parameters.
Backup policy state diagram 2.15.5.2 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. In each of the states, the backup policy can have one of the following statuses: Error; Warning; OK. While the policy is in the Deployed state, its status reflects how successfully the policy is executed.
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. The following table provides details.
2.15.5.5 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. The cumulative state of a backup policy To see this parameter, select Backup policies in the tree. The Deployment state column displays the cumulative deployment state for each policy.
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. This may lead to faster backups but a greater load on the network and storage node. Deduplicating vault A managed centralized vault where deduplication is enabled is called a deduplicating vault.
disk-level and file-level backups in the vault, there are two separate data stores for them. Items that cannot be deduplicated remain in the archives. 2. In the archives, it replaces the moved items with the corresponding references to them. As a result, the vault contains a number of unique, deduplicated items, with each item having one or more references to it from the vault's archives. The indexing task may take considerable time to complete.
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. Indexing of a backup requires that the vault have free space with a minimum size of 1.1 multiplied by the size of the archive the backup belongs to.
2.15.6.6 Deduplication restrictions Block-level deduplication restrictions During a disk backup to an archive in a deduplicating vault, deduplication of a volume's disk blocks is not performed in the following cases: If the volume is a compressed volume If the volume's allocation unit size—also known as cluster size or block size—is not divisible by 4 KB Tip: The allocation unit size on most NTFS and ext3 volumes is 4 KB and so allows for block-level deduplication.
Local connection The local connection is established between Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console on a machine and Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent on the same machine. To establish a local connection On the toolbar, click Connect, then point to New connection, and then click This machine. Remote connection A remote connection is established between Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console on one machine and Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent on another machine.
To establish a local connection as a non-root user 1. Make sure that the root user has allowed you to start the console, as described in the previous procedure. 2. Run the following command: sudo /usr/sbin/acronis_console 3. Click Manage this machine. 2.15.7.3 Privileges for remote connection in Windows To establish a remote connection to a machine running Windows, the user must be a member of the Acronis Remote Users security group on that machine.
Example 1 This authentication policy uses the pam_succeed_if module and works with Linux distributions with kernel version 2.6 or later. For an authentication policy which works with kernel version 2.4, see the next example. Perform the following steps as the root user: 1. Create the Acronis_Trusted group account, by running the following command: groupadd Acronis_Trusted 2. Add the names of the non-root users, whom you want to allow to connect to the machine remotely, to the Acronis_Trusted group.
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agents When Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows is being installed on a machine, the Acronis Remote Users group is created (or updated). A user who is a member of this group can manage the machine remotely by using Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console, according to the management rights described in Users' privileges on a managed machine (p. 32). By default, this group includes all members of the Administrators group.
2.15.7.6 Management server administrator rights Normally, the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server administrator operates on a registered machine on behalf of the Acronis Managed Machine Service (also known as the Acronis service) on that machine and has the same privileges as the service has.
Additional right of machine administrators A user who is a member of the Administrators group on a machine can view and manage any archives created from that machine in a managed vault—regardless of the type of that user's account on the storage node. 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.
If the machine is part of an Active Directory domain, make sure that the domain's security policies do not prevent the accounts described in this section (whether existing or newly created) from having the above listed user rights. Important: After the installation, do not specify a different user account for a component's service. Otherwise, the component may stop working.
2.15.8.2 Client and server applications There are two stakeholders of the secure communication process: Client application, or client, is an application that tries to establish connection. Server application, or server, is an application to which the client tries to connect. For example, if Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console is connecting to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent on a remote machine, the former is the client and the latter is the server.
4. For the new communication settings to take effect, restart all running Acronis components— preferably, by restarting Windows. If restart is not possible, make sure you do the following: If Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console is running, close it and start it again. If other Acronis components, such as Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows or Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server are running, restart their correspondent services from the Services snap-in in Windows.
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. 90). You should keep this check box selected, unless you have a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) in your environment. In Use Agent Certificate Authentication, select one of the following: Do not use The use of SSL certificates is disabled.
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. Disabled The same as Not configured. 2.15.8.4 Network port configuration Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components use the 9876/TCP network communication port by default.
Self-signed certificates, such as certificates automatically generated during the installation of an Acronis component. Non-self-signed certificates, such as certificates issued by a third-party Certificate Authority (CA)—for example, by a public CA such as VeriSign® or Thawte™—or by your organization's CA. Certificate path All Acronis components installed on a machine, when acting as a server application, use an SSL certificate called the server certificate.
4. Restart Windows, or restart the running Acronis services. Non-self-signed certificates You have the option to use trusted third-party certificates or certificates created by your organization's CA as an alternative to self-signed certificates, by using Acronis Certificate Commandline Utility. To install a third-party certificate 1. 2. 3. 4. Click Start, then click Run, and then type: certmgr.msc In the Certificates console, double-click the name of the certificate that you want to install.
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. 419) or to the management server (p. 420). 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. 356). 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. 326). 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. 103). 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.
Pre/Post backup commands (p. 107) + + + + PE only PE only Pre/Post data capture commands (p. 109) + + + + - - Multi-volume snapshot (p. 111) + + - - - - File-level backup snapshot (p. 111) - + - + - - Use VSS (p. 111) + + - - - - Compression level (p. 112) + + + + + + + + + + - - HDD writing speed (p. 113) Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Network connection speed (p.
Additional settings (p.
AES 256 – the archive will be encrypted using the AES algorithm with a 256-bit key. 5. Click OK. 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.
Use the setting set in the Machine options – to use the setting specified for the machine. For more information refer to Machine options (p. 99). Send SNMP notifications individually for backup operation events – to send the events of the backup operations to the specified SNMP managers. Types of events to send – choose the types of events to be sent: All events, Errors and warnings, or Errors only.
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. If you do so, the resulting backup will be split into the parts created before and after the retry. When backing up to removable media (CD, DVD or a tape device locally attached to the managed machine): The task will enter the Need interaction state and ask for a new media when the previous one is full.
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. 413) by writing additional components to it. As a result, you will not need a separate rescue disc. The preset is: None selected.
Ignore bad sectors The preset is: Disabled. When the option is disabled, the program will display a pop-up window each time it comes across a bad sector and ask for a user decision as to whether to continue or stop the backup procedure. In order to back up the valid information on a rapidly dying disk, enable ignoring bad sectors. The rest of the data will be backed up and you will be able to mount the resulting disk backup and extract valid files to another disk. 3.4.1.
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. 173) and Conditions (p. 184). The preset is: Wait until the conditions are met.
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. The program stops trying as soon as an attempt completes successfully OR the specified number of attempts is performed, depending on which comes first.
When this option is enabled, the backups, belonging to the policy or plan being created, will be located on a separate tape set. Other backups will not be written to this tape set. If the console is connected to the management server The Use a separate tape set option has more precise definitions. So for the backup policy to be created you can use a separate tape set for all machines or for each single machine. The A single tape set for all machines option is selected by default.
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. This option is effective when backing up to a removable media (CD, DVD, tape or floppy disk.) The preset is: Disabled.
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. Deduplicate backup only after transferring it to the vault (do not deduplicate at source) This option is available only in advanced editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10.
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. To view and change the default recovery options, connect the console to the managed machine and then select Options > Default backup and recovery options > Default recovery options from the top menu.
Windows recovery - Windows recovery - Windows recovery - E-mail (p. 129) + + + + - - Win Pop-up (p. 130) + + + + - - Windows events log (p. 131) + + - - - - SNMP (p. 131) + + + + - - 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. The option enables you to define the commands to be automatically executed before and after the data recovery.
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. Result Preset Perform the recovery after the Perform the recovery command is only after the executed despite command is execution failure successfully executed. or success.
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. 3.4.2.3 File-level security This option is effective only for recovery from file-level backup of Windows files.
Some Internet service providers require authentication on the incoming mail server before being allowed to send something. If this is your case, select the Log on to incoming mail server check box to enable a POP server and to set up its settings: Incoming mail server (POP) – enter the name of the POP server. Port – set the port of the POP server. By default, the port is set to 110. User name – enter the user name Password – enter the password.
Windows event log This option is effective only in Windows operating systems. This option is not available when operating under the bootable media. This option defines whether the agent(s) operating on the managed machine have to log events of the recovery operations in the Application Event Log of Windows (to see this log, run eventvwr.exe or select Control Panel > Administrative tools > Event Viewer). You can filter the events to be logged. The preset is: Use the setting set in the Machine options.
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. Do not send SNMP notifications – to disable sending the log events of the recovery operations to SNMP managers. 3.4.2.6 Error handling These options are effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media.
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. Restart machine automatically if it is required for recovery This option is effective when recovery takes place on a machine running an operating system. The preset is Disabled.
Recovery to an existing virtual machine is not possible if the machine is online, and so the machine is powered off automatically as soon as the recovery task starts. Users will be disconnected from the machine and any unsaved data will be lost. Clear the check box for this option if you prefer to power off virtual machines manually before the recovery. Power on the target virtual machine when recovery is completed The preset is: Off.
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. 84) 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. 169) Operations with backups (p. 170) Filtering and sorting archives (p. 172) 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. 140) 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. 141) 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. 142) 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. 53) 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. 122) 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. 53) 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. 163) 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. 154). 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. 157).
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. 158 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. 149) 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. 149) 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. 252) 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. 260) 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. 252) 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. 260) 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. 120) 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.
For example, you may want to set up a backup plan that will automatically perform an emergency full backup of your data as soon as Windows discovers that your hard disk drive is about to fail. Parameters Log name Specifies the name of the log.
WindowsUpdateClient and event number 18 into the System log; the type of this event is Information. When creating the plan, type or select the following in the Schedule area: Log name: System Event source: Microsoft-Windows-WindowsUpdateClient Event type: Information Event ID: 18 Tip: To set up a similar backup plan for machines running Microsoft Windows XP, replace the text in Event source with Windows Update Agent and leave the remaining fields the same.
Distribute start time within the time window When this setting is enabled, the backup task on each registered machine will start with a specific delay from the start time set in the policy. This distributes the tasks' actual start times within a time interval. You may want to use this setting when creating a backup policy for backing up multiple machines to a network location, to avoid excessive network load.
2. In How to back up, select the Simple, Tower of Hanoi, or Custom scheme, and then click Change to specify a schedule for the scheme. 3. Under Run the task, select Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. 4. In the Advanced settings area, click Change. 5. To enable the use of the Wake-On-LAN functionality, select the Use Wake-on-LAN check box. 6.
Adding multiple conditions Multiple conditions must be met simultaneously to enable task execution. 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.
Event: Weekly, Every 1 week(s) on ; Once at 09:00:00 PM. Condition: Location's host is available 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.
If the task start conditions are Wait until the conditions are met and the Run the task anyway after check box is cleared, the task (scheduled to run at 3:00 PM) will start at 6:00 PM—the time when the condition is met. 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.
(3) if the machine is never restarted, the task will never start. You can start the backup manually, if need be, in the Backup plans and tasks view. 188 Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
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. 201) and Task details (p. 199) 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. 195) 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. 199) 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. 204), 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. 207) [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. 220) [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. 231) Here you select the resulting virtual machine type and location. Available options depend on the host you selected in the previous step. Storage (p. 231) 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. 207).
defined text label. The label may include the department or machine owner's name or similar information that can be used as a tag or a key. If you recover (p. 232) the machine to a VMware ESX Server using Agent for ESX/ESXi, or convert (p. 230) the backup to a ESX/ESXi virtual machine, these properties will be transferred to the virtual machine's configuration. You can view them in the virtual machine settings: Edit settings > Options > Advanced > General > Configuration parameters.
Windows Vista winVistaGuest Windows Vista (64 bit) winVista64Guest Windows 7 windows7Guest Windows 7 (64 bit) windows7_64Guest Windows Server 2008 R2 (64 bit) windows7Server64Guest Linux otherLinuxGuest Linux (64 bit) otherLinux64Guest Other Operating System otherGuest Other Operating System (64 bit) otherGuest64 Example acronisTag.label = “DEPT:BUCH; COMP:SUPERSERVER; OWNER:EJONSON” acronisTag.hostname = “superserver.corp.local” acronisTag.os.type = “windows7Server64Guest” acronisTag.os.
Select this option to back up one or more virtual machines residing on a virtualization server. Backing up a virtual machine means backing up all the machine's disks plus the machine configuration. With this source type, you can back up multiple machines. This comes in handy when having small (in terms of virtual disks size) but numerous legacy servers such as those resulting from workload consolidation. A separate archive will be created for each machine.
A volume backup stores all other files and folders of the selected volume independent of their attributes (including hidden and system files), the boot record, the file allocation table (FAT) if it exists, the root and the zero track of the hard disk with the master boot record (MBR). The boot code of GPT volumes is not backed up. A disk backup stores all volumes of the selected disk (including hidden volumes such as the vendor's maintenance partitions) and the zero track with the master boot record.
A SAN-LUN disk attached to an ESX/ESXi virtual machine in the "Physical compatibility" mode, cannot be backed up from the host while the virtual machine is online (running). To back up such disk, either stop the machine or install Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux on the machine. 6.2.5.4 Selecting a virtual machine's disks and volumes To back up individual disks or volumes within a virtual machine residing on a virtualization server 1. Select the virtual machine whose volumes you need to back up.
6.2.7 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 simple naming scheme enables you to create a portable image of a machine on a detachable media or move the backups to a different location by using a script. Before creating a new full backup, the software will delete the entire archive and start a new one. This behavior is useful when you rotate USB hard drives and want each drive to keep a single full backup (p. 217) or all backups created during a week (p. 218). But you might end up with no backups if a full backup to your only drive fails.
In this scenario, create a backup plan with a daily schedule. When creating the backup plan, specify MyMachine-[DATE] as the archive name, select the Name backup files using the archive name... check box, and select Full as the backup type. Result: The backups of January 1, 2011, January 2, 2011, and so on, are stored respectively as MyMachine-1.1.2011.tib, MyMachine-1.2.2011.tib, and so on. Your script can move older backups based on the date stamp. See also “The *Date+ variable” (p. 219).
Example 5. Daily backups with weekly drive swaps Consider the following scenario: You want to perform daily backups of your machine: a full backup each Monday and incremental backups on Tuesday through Sunday. You want to back up to the archive MyMachine on an external hard disk drive. 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. You have two such drives.
The 10 differential backups of January 31, 2011, will be stored as ServerFiles(1.31.2011)2.tib, ServerFiles(1.31.2011)3.tib, and so on up to ServerFiles(1.31.2011)11.tib. The following day, February 1, the backups will start with the full backup ServerFiles(2.1.2011).tib. The differential backups will start with ServerFiles(2.1.2011)2.tib. See also “The *Date+ variable” (p. 219). 6.2.9.
6.2.10 Access credentials for archive location Specify credentials required for access to the location where the backup archive will be stored. The user whose name is specified will be considered as the archive owner. To specify credentials 1. Select one of the following: Use the plan's credentials The program will access the source data using the credentials of the backup plan account specified in the General section.
Initial seeding - to save locally a full backup whose final destination is Acronis Online Backup Storage. 6.2.11.1 Back up now scheme With the Back up now scheme, the backup will be performed immediately, right after you click the OK button at the bottom of the page. In the Backup type field, select whether you want to create a full, incremental or differential backup (p. 34). 6.2.11.
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Jan 1—Jan 7 D D D D W - - Jan 8—Jan 14 D D D D W - - Jan 15—Jan 21 D D D D W - - Jan 22—Jan 28 D D D D M - - Jan 29—Feb 4 D D D D W - - 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.
Examples Each day of the past week, each week of the past month Let us consider a GFS backup scheme that many may find useful. Back up files every day, including weekends Be able to recover files as of any date over the past seven days Have access to weekly backups of the past month Keep monthly backups indefinitely. Backup scheme parameters can then be set up as follows.
With this scheme, you will have a week to recover a previous version of a damaged file from a daily backup; as well as 10-day access to weekly backups. Each monthly full backup will be available for six months since the creation date. Work schedule Suppose you are a part-time financial consultant and work in a company on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On these days, you often make changes to your financial documents, statements, and update the spreadsheets etc. on your laptop.
6.2.11.5 Tower of Hanoi scheme At a glance Up to 16 levels of full, differential, and incremental backups Next-level backups are twice as rare as previous-level backups One backup of each level is stored at a time Higher density of more recent backups Parameters You can set up the following parameters of a Tower of Hanoi scheme. Schedule Set up a daily (p. 174), weekly (p. 176), or monthly (p. 178) schedule.
Roll-back period The number of days we can go back in the archive is different on different days. The minimum number of days we are guaranteed to have is called the roll-back period. The following table shows full backup and roll-back periods for schemes of various levels.
Parameters Parameter Meaning Full backup Specifies on what schedule and under which conditions to perform a full backup. For example, the full backup can be set up to run every Sunday at 1:00 AM as soon as all users are logged off. 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.
Apply the rules Specifies when to apply the retention rules (p. 42). (only if the retention rules are set) For example, the cleanup procedure can be set up to run after each backup, and also on schedule. This option is available only if you have set at least one retention rule in Retention rules. Cleanup schedule Specifies a schedule for archive cleanup. (only if On schedule is selected) For example, the cleanup can be scheduled to start on the last day of each month.
Further, we want to add conditions that have to be satisfied for a backup task to start. This is set up in the Conditions fields for each backup type. Full backup: Conditions: Location available Incremental: Conditions: User is logged off Differential: Conditions: User is idle As a result, a full backup—originally scheduled at 9:00 PM—may actually start later: as soon as the backup location becomes available.
Initial seeding enables you to transfer the first backup, which is full and usually the largest, to the online storage on a hard drive instead of over the Internet. Subsequent backups, which are all incremental and thus usually much smaller, can be transferred over the Internet after the full backup has arrived in the online storage. If you back up a large amount of data, initial seeding ensures faster delivery of the backed-up data and lower traffic costs. Please refer to the "Initial Seeding FAQ (p.
task manually after powering off the machine. Any changes made to the machine while it was powered on, will be overwritten. 6.2.13.2 Selecting a host that will perform conversion Specify the machine that will perform the conversion. The machine has to have Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows, Agent for ESX/ESXi or Agent for Hyper-V installed. Take into account the following considerations.
Virtual machines created on a Hyper-V server or workstation type machines (VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC or Parallels Workstation) use as much disk space as the original data occupies. Since the space is not pre-allocated, the physical disk on which the virtual machine will run is expected to have sufficient free space for the virtual disks to increase in size. 6.
What to recover Archive (p. 234) Select the archive to recover data from. Data type (p. 235) Applies to: disk recovery Choose the type of data you need to recover from the selected disk backup. Content (p. 236) Select the backup and content to be recovered. Access credentials (p. 236) [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.
Mass storage drivers to install anyway [Optional] Specify the mass storage drivers manually if the automatic drivers search has not found the appropriate drivers. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. Recovery options Settings [Optional] Customize the recovery operation by configuring the recovery options, such as pre/post recovery commands, recovery priority, error handling or notification options. If you do nothing in this section, the default values (p. 125) will be used.
If the archive is stored in Acronis Online Backup Storage, click Log in and specify the credentials to log in to the online storage. Then expand the Online backup storage group and select the account. 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.
Volumes - to recover volumes Files - to recover specific files and folders 6.3.4 Content selection The representation of this window depends on the type of data stored in the archive. 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.
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.
Existing virtual machine Available when the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for ESX/ESXi is installed. On selecting this, you specify the virtualization server and the target virtual machine. Then you proceed to the regular disk mapping procedure described below. 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.
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 creates scheduled tasks using the signature of the source hard disk.
Recover [Volume] [Letter] to: Disk # /Volume (p. 240) Sequentially map each of the source volumes to a volume or an unallocated space on the destination disk. Size (p. 240): [Optional] Change the recovered volume size, location and other properties. 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.
Primary. Information about primary volumes is contained in the MBR partition table. Most operating systems can boot only from the primary volume of the first hard disk, but the number of primary volumes is limited. If you are going to recover a system volume to a basic MBR disk, select the Active check box. Active volume is used for loading an operating system. Choosing active for a volume without an installed operating system could prevent the machine from booting.
2. In the left part of the window, select the virtual machine type. Use the right part of the window to review details on the selected virtual machine type. 3. Click OK to return to the Data recovery page. 6.3.6.4 Virtual machine settings The following virtual machine settings can be configured. 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.
Original location - files and folders will be recovered to the same path(s) as they are in the backup. For example, if you have backed up all files and folders in C:\Documents\Finance\Reports\, the files will be recovered to the same path. If the folder does not exist, it will be created automatically. New location - files will be recovered to the location that you specify in the tree.
folder, and selected to skip all .tmp files. In this case, all .tmp files in the folder MyFolder will be skipped during the recovery process, but the file MyFile.tmp will not be skipped. Overwriting Choose what to do if the program finds in the target folder a file with the same name as in the archive: Overwrite existing file - this will give the file in the backup priority over the file on the hard disk.
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Universal Restore is not available when: a machine is booted with Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (using F11) the backup image is located in Acronis Secure Zone you have chosen to use Acronis Active Restore (p. 410) because these features are primarily meant for instant data recovery on the same machine. Preparation Before recovering Windows to dissimilar hardware, make sure that you have the drivers for the new HDD controller and the chipset.
Mass storage drivers to install anyway To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. If the target hardware has a specific mass storage controller such as RAID (especially NVIDIA RAID) or a fibre channel adapter, specify the appropriate drivers in the Drivers field. The drivers defined here will have priority. They will be installed, with appropriate warnings, even if the program finds a better driver. Use this option only if the automatic drivers search does not help to boot the system.
3. In Data type, select Disks or Volumes depending on what you need to convert. 4. In Content, select the disks to convert or the volumes with the Master Boot Records (MBR) of the corresponding disks. 5. In Recover to, select New virtual machine. 6. In VM server, select the type of the new virtual machine to be created or on which virtualization server to create the machine. 7. In VM name, enter the name for the new virtual machine. 8. [Optionally] Review the Virtual machine settings (p.
Why a recovered operating system may be unbootable The machine BIOS is configured to boot from another HDD. Solution: Configure the BIOS to boot from the HDD where the operating system resides. The system was recovered on dissimilar hardware and the new hardware is incompatible with the most critical drivers included in the backup Solution for Windows: Recover the volume once again.
Linux was recovered from an LVM volume backup to a basic MBR disk Such system cannot boot because its kernel tries to mount the root file system at the LVM volume. Solution: Change the loader configuration and /etc/fstab so that the LVM is not used and reactivate the boot loader. 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.
8. Start the GRUB shell by running one of the following commands: chroot /mnt/system/ /sbin/grub or chroot /mnt/system/ /usr/sbin/grub 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.
Example 2.
If this does not resolve the problem, or for more details on adding these registry settings, see the corresponding Microsoft Help and Support article. Tip: In general, if a volume contains many files, consider using a disk-level backup instead of a file-level one. In this case, you will be able to recover the entire volume as well as particular files stored on it. 6.3.
Different ways to create a validation task Using the Validation page is the most general way to create a validation task. Here you can validate immediately or set up a validation schedule for any backup, archive or location you have permission to access. Validation of an archive or of the latest backup in the archive can be scheduled as part of the backup plan. For more information see the Creating a backup plan (p. 204) section. You can access the Validation page from the Vaults (p. 135) view.
Run under the current user The task will run under the credentials with which the user who starts the tasks is logged on. If the task has to run on schedule, you will be asked for the current user's password on completing the task creation. Use the following credentials The task will always run under the credentials you specify, whether started manually or executed on schedule. Specify: User name.
You can access the server as an anonymous user if the server enables such access. To do so, click Use anonymous access instead of entering credentials. 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.
Using the archives table To assist you with choosing the right location, 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. 6.4.5 Access credentials for source Specify the credentials required for access to the location where the backup archive is stored.
6.5 Mounting an image Mounting volumes from a disk backup (image) lets you access the volumes as though they were physical disks. Multiple volumes contained in the same backup can be mounted within a single mount operation. The mount operation is available when the console is connected to a managed machine running either Windows or Linux.
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. DVDs, first insert the last DVD and then insert the discs in order starting from the first one when the program prompts.
6.5.3 Access credentials To specify credentials 1. Select one of the following: Use the current user credentials The program will access the location using the credentials of the current user. Use the following credentials The program will access the location using the credentials you specify. Use this option if the current user 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.
To explore a mounted volume select it in the table and click Explore. The default file manager window opens, allowing the user to examine the mounted volume contents. Unmounting images Maintaining the mounted volumes takes considerable system resources. It is recommended that you unmount the volumes after the necessary operations are completed. If not unmounted manually, a volume will remain mounted until the operating system restarts.
The resulting archive's name By default, the exported archive inherits the name of the original archive.
You can access the Export page from the Vaults view. Right-click the object to export (archive or backup) and select Export from the context menu. The Export page will be opened with the preselected object as a source. All you need to do is to select a destination and (optionally) provide a name for the task. To export an archive or a backup perform the following steps. General Task name [Optional] Enter a unique name for the task. A conscious name lets you quickly identify the task among the others.
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. To learn more about using credentials in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, see the Owners and credentials (p. 33) section. To learn more about operations available depending on the user privileges, see the User privileges on a managed machine (p. 32) section. 6.7.
For the management server: in the folders tree, select the managed vault. 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. If the archive is password-protected, provide the password. 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.
1. Selecting the export destination Enter the full path to the destination in the Path field, or select the desired destination in the folders tree. To export data to a centralized unmanaged vault, expand the Centralized vaults group and click the vault. To export data to a personal vault, expand the Personal vaults group and click the vault. To export data to a network share, expand the Network folders group, select the required networked machine and then click the shared folder.
3. Naming the new archive By default, the exported archive inherits the name of the original archive.
To create Acronis Secure Zone, perform the following steps. Space Disk (p. 267) Choose a hard disk (if several) on which to create the zone. Acronis Secure Zone is created using unallocated space, if available, or at the expense of the volume's free space. Size (p. 267) Specify the exact size of the zone. Moving or resizing of locked volumes, such as the volume containing the currently active operating system, requires a reboot. Settings Password (p.
6.8.1.3 Password for Acronis Secure Zone Setting up a password protects the Acronis Secure Zone from unauthorized access. The program will ask for the password at any operation relating to the zone and the archives located there, such as data backup and recovery, validating archives, resizing and deleting the zone. To set up a password 1. 2. 3. 4. Choose Use password. In the Enter the password field, type a new password. In the Confirm the password field, re-type the password. Click OK.
Use backup schemes with automatic cleanup to back up to the zone, or delete outdated archives manually using the vault management functionality. With the new Acronis Secure Zone behavior, you obtain the ability to: list archives located in the zone and backups included in each archive examine backup content mount a volume backup to copy files from the backup to a physical disk safely delete archives and backups from the archives. To learn more about operations with vaults, see the Vaults (p.
2. In the Delete Acronis Secure Zone window, select volumes to which you want to add the space freed from the zone and then click OK. If you select several volumes, the space will be distributed proportionally to each partition. If you do not select any volume, the freed space becomes unallocated. After you click OK, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 will start deleting the zone. 6.9 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is a modification of the bootable agent (p.
deploy an operating system on bare metal create basic or dynamic volumes on bare metal back up sector-by-sector a disk with an unsupported file system back up offline any data that cannot be backed up online because of restricted access, being permanently locked by the running applications or for any other reason.
A media with Linux-style volume handling displays the volumes as, for example, hda1 and sdb2. It tries to reconstruct MD devices and logical (LVM) volumes before starting a recovery. A media with Windows-style volume handling displays the volumes as, for example, C: and D:. It provides access to dynamic (LDM) volumes. The wizard will guide you through the necessary operations. Please refer to Linux-based bootable media (p. 273) for details.
Using Bart PE You can create a Bart PE image with Acronis Plug-in using the Bart PE Builder. Please refer to Building Bart PE with Acronis Plug-in from Windows distribution (p. 279) for details. 6.10.1.1 Linux-based bootable media When using the media builder, you have to specify: 1. [optional] The parameters of the Linux kernel. Separate multiple parameters with spaces.
These parameters are typically used when experiencing problems while working with the bootable media. Normally, you can leave this field empty. You also can specify any of these parameters by pressing F11 while in the boot menu. Parameters When specifying multiple parameters, separate them with spaces. acpi=off Disables Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI). You may want to use this parameter when experiencing problems with a particular hardware configuration.
nomouse Disables mouse support. module_name=off Disables the module whose name is given by module_name. For example, to disable the use of the SATA module, specify: sata_sis=off pci=bios Forces the use of PCI BIOS instead of accessing the hardware device directly. You may want to use this parameter if the machine has a non-standard PCI host bridge. pci=nobios Disables the use of PCI BIOS; only direct hardware access methods will be allowed.
The bootable agent assigns each known NIC the appropriate settings, identifying the NICs by their MAC addresses. After the NICs with known MAC addresses are configured, the remaining NICs are assigned the settings that you have made for non-existent NICs, starting from the upper nonassigned NIC. You can customize bootable media for any machine, and not only for the machine where the media is created.
The drivers can be added to the list only in groups, by adding the INF files or folders containing such files. Selecting individual drivers from the INF files is not possible, but the media builder shows the file content for your information. To add drivers: 1. Click Add and browse to the INF file or a folder that contains INF files. 2. Select the INF file or the folder. 3. Click OK. The drivers can be removed from the list only in groups, by removing INF files. To remove drivers: 1. Select the INF file.
Bootable Media Builder supports only x86 WinPE 2.x or 3.0. These WnPE distributions can also work on x64 hardware. A PE image based on Win PE 2.0 requires at least 256MB RAM to work. The recommended memory size for PE 2.0 is 512MB. A PE image based on Win PE 3.0 requires at least 512MB RAM to work. Adding Acronis Plug-in to WinPE 2.x or 3.0 ISO To add Acronis Plug-in to WinPE 2.x or 3.0 ISO: 1.
6.10.1.4 Building Bart PE with Acronis Plug-in from Windows distribution 1. Get the Bart PE builder. 2. Install Bootable Media Builder from the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 setup file. 3. Change the current folder to the folder where the Acronis Plug-in for WinPE is installed—by default: C:\Program Files\Acronis\Bootable Components\WinPE.
1. Disk letters seen under Windows-style bootable media might differ from the way Windows identifies drives. For example, the D: drive under the rescue utility might correspond to the E: drive in Windows. Be careful! To be on the safe side, it is advisable to assign unique names to the volumes. 2. The Linux-style bootable media shows local disks and volumes as unmounted (sda1, sda2...). 3. The Linux-style bootable media cannot write a backup to an NTFS-formatted volume.
An iSCSI device is sometimes called an iSCSI target. A hardware or software component that provides interaction between the machine and the iSCSI target is called the iSCSI initiator. The name of the iSCSI initiator is usually defined by an administrator of the server that hosts the device. To add an iSCSI device 1. In a bootable media (Linux-based or PE-based), run the management console. 2. Click Configure iSCSI/NDAS devices (in a Linux-based media) or Run the iSCSI Setup (in a PEbased media). 3.
chroot kpartx sed cp ln sg_map26 dd ls sh df lspci sleep dmesg lvm ssh dmraid mdadm sshd e2fsck mkdir strace e2label mke2fs swapoff echo mknod swapon egrep mkswap sysinfo fdisk more tar fsck mount tune2fs fxload mtx udev gawk mv udevinfo gpm pccardctl udevstart grep ping umount growisofs pktsetup uuidgen grub poweroff vconfig gunzip ps vi halt raidautorun zcat hexdump readcd hotplug reboot 6.10.
6.10.5.1 Creating the volume structure automatically Let's assume that you saved (p. 48) the volume structure to the /etc/Acronis directory and that the volume with this directory is included in the archive. To recreate the volume structure in Linux-based bootable media, use either of the methods described below. Caution: As a result of the following procedures, the current volume structure on the machine will be replaced with the one stored in the archive.
3. On the toolbar, click Actions, and then click Start shell. Alternatively, you can press CTRL+ALT+F2. 4. If necessary, examine the structure of volumes which are stored in the archive, by using the trueimagecmd utility. Also, you can use the trueimagemnt utility to mount one or more of these volumes as if they were regular volumes (see "Mounting backup volumes" later in this topic). 5.
Step 1: Creating the volume structure 1. Boot the machine from a Linux-based bootable media. 2. In the management console, press CTRL+ALT+F2. 3. Run the following commands to create the MD devices: mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sd[ab] mdadm --create /dev/md1 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sd[cd] 4. Run the following commands to create the logical volume group: Caution: The pvcreate command destroys all data on the /dev/md0 and /dev/md1 devices.
To mount a backup volume 1. Use the --list command to list the volumes which are stored in the backup. For example: trueimagecmd --list --filename:smb://server/backups/linux_machine.tib The output will contain lines similar to the following: Num Idx Partition Flags Start Size ---- --- --------- ----- ----- --------Disk 1: Table 0 Disk 2: Table 0 ...
Acronis PXE Server runs as a service immediately after installation. Later on it will automatically launch at each system restart. You can stop and start Acronis PXE Server in the same way as other Windows services. 6.10.6.2 Setting up a machine to boot from PXE For bare metal, it is enough that the machine’s BIOS supports network booting.
6.11 Disk management Acronis Disk Director Lite is a tool for preparing a machine disk/volume configuration for recovering the volume images saved by the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 software. 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.
Running Acronis Disk Director Lite from a bootable media You can run Acronis Disk Director Lite on a bare metal, on a machine that cannot boot or on a nonWindows machine. To do so, boot the machine from a bootable media (p. 413) created with the Acronis Bootable Media Builder; run the management console and then click Disk Management. 6.11.
Displaying operation results The results of any disk or volume operation, you have just planned, are immediately displayed in the Disk management view of the console. For example, if you create a volume, it will be immediately shown in the table, as well as in graphical form at the bottom of the view. Any volume changes, including changing the volume letter or label, are also immediately displayed in the view. 6.11.
If you decide to change the disk settings it can be done later using the standard Acronis Disk Director Lite disk tools. 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.
data loss , then the user will be allowed to proceed. If due to the size limitations safe transfer of all the source disk data to the target disk is impossible even with the proportional resizing of the 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.
5. Wait until the task is finished. 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.
Please note, a volume, belonging to a GPT disk to convert, will be a logical one after the operation and is irreversible. 3. By clicking OK, you'll add a pending operation of GPT to MBR disk conversion. (To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 302) it. Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.) 6.11.5.
You will be advised about the changes that will happen to the system if the chosen disk is converted from dynamic into basic. E.g.
the following Microsoft knowledge base article: http://technet.microsoft.com/enus/library/cc732026.aspx. 6.11.6 Volume operations Acronis Disk Director Lite includes the following operations that can be performed on volumes: Create Volume (p. 296) - Creates a new volume with the help of the Create Volume Wizard. Change Letter (p. 301) - Changes the selected volume letter Delete Volume (p. 300) - Deletes the selected volume. Set Active (p.
Striped Volume A volume, also sometimes called RAID 0, consisting of equal sized stripes of data, written across each disk in the volume; it means that to create a striped volume, a user will need two or more dynamic disks. The disks in a striped volume don’t have to be identical, but there must be unused 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.
Basic Simple/Spanned Striped Mirrored 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.
Set the volume size On the third wizard page, you will be able to define the size of the future volume, according to the previously made selections. In order to choose the necessary size between the minimum and the maximum values, use the slider or enter the necessary values into the special windows between the minimum and the maximum values or click on the special handle, and hold and drag the borders of the disk's picture with the cursor.
To perform the planned operation click Commit in the toolbar, and then click Proceed in the Pending Operations window. If you set a 64K cluster size for FAT16/FAT32 or on 8KB-64KB cluster size for NTFS, Windows can mount the volume, but some programs (e.g. Setup programs) might calculate its disk space incorrectly. 6.11.6.
The new volume structure will be graphically represented in the Disk management view immediately. 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.
6.11.6.6 Format volume You might want to format a volume if you want to change its file system: 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.
The Commit action forwards you to the Pending Operations window, where you will be able to view the pending operation list. Clicking Proceed will launch their execution. You will not be able to undo any actions or operations after you choose the Proceed operation. You can also cancel the commitment by clicking Cancel. Then no changes will be done to the pending operation list.
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. 137) 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. 369). 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. 318)/Group details (p. 328) window, examine all information on the selected machine (or the selected group). View tasks. The Tasks (p. 341) 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. 315) 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. 315) 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. 309) 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. 328) 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. 327) 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.
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).
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. If you later delete the file or if it becomes unavailable, the contents of the group will correspond to the list that was last stored in the file.
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. 331) 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. 331) 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.
7.1.4.6 Privileges for VM backup and recovery Once Agent for ESX/ESXi is deployed to a vCenter's host or cluster, any user of the vCenter Server can connect a management console to the agent. The scope of available operations depends on the privileges a user has on the vCenter Server. Only those actions are available that the user has permission to perform. The below tables contain the privileges required for backup and recovery of ESX virtual machines and, additionally, for virtual appliance deployment.
Change CPU count + Memory + Remove disk + + Rename + + Settings Virtual machine > Interaction + + Configure CD media + Console interaction + Power off Virtual machine > Inventory + + + Power on + + Create from existing + + Create new + + + Remove + + + + + Virtual machine > Provisioning Allow disk access Virtual machine > State Create snapshot Remove snapshot + + + + + + + + Privileges for a folder To enable a user to operate within a specific vCenter folder,
Resource Assign VM to resource pool Virtual machine > Configuration Add existing disk + + + Add new disk Remove disk + + + Settings Virtual machine > Interaction Virtual machine > Inventory + Power off + Power on + Create from existing + Create new + Remove + Virtual machine > Provisioning Allow disk access Virtual machine > State Create snapshot Remove snapshot 7.1.4.
7.1.5 Storage nodes Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node helps you to optimize usage of various resources required for the enterprise data protection. This goal is achieved through organizing managed vaults (p. 419) that serve as dedicated storages of the enterprise backup archives. Storage node enables you to: relieve managed machines of unnecessary CPU load by using the storage node-side cleanup (p. 422) and storage node-side validation (p. 422).
The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with storage nodes. To Do Add a storage node to the management server Click Add. In the Add storage node (p. 340) window, specify the machine the storage node is installed on. Adding a storage node establishes a trusted relationship between the management server and the storage node, in the same way as when you add machines to the server.
Adding a storage node To add a storage node 1. In the IP/Name field, enter the name or the IP address of the machine the storage node resides on, or click Browse... and browse the network for the machine. Use the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) of the storage node, that is, a completely specified domain name ending in a top-level domain. Do not enter “127.0.0.1” or “localhost” as the storage node IP/name.
To open a managed vault for detailed examination and to perform operations on it, select the vault, then click View vault (on the tab's toolbar). In the Centralized vault (p. 136) view, perform the required actions. Services This tab displays the compacting task scheduling parameters. Service tasks This tab lets the management server administrator manage the compacting task and review its parameters. Only one compacting task can exist on a storage node. 7.1.
Stop a 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 over again.
7.1.6.2 Filtering and sorting tasks The following is a guideline for you to filter and sort tasks. To Do Set a number of tasks to display Select Options > Console options > Number of tasks (p. 94) and set the desired value. The maximum number of tasks that can be displayed is 500. If the number of tasks exceeds the specified value, use filters to display the tasks that are beyond the scope. Sort tasks by column Click the column's header to sort the tasks in ascending order.
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node has its own local event log. This log's events are accessible through the centralized log only. Centralized event log Way of working with log entries The maximum number of entries stored in the centralized log is 50000. The maximum number of entries that can be displayed is 10000. In case the number of log entries is greater than 10000, use filtering and sorting capabilities to display the desired log entries in the table.
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. Click Save All to File. 3. In the opened window, specify a path and a name for the file. Save all the filtered log entries to a file 1.
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. 7.1.7.
7.1.8 Reporting Reporting provides the management server administrator with detailed and well-structured information concerning the enterprise data protection operations. Reports can be used as an instrument for profound analysis of the whole backup infrastructure within a corporate network. The management server generates reports using statistics and logs which are collected from registered machines and are stored in the dedicated databases. Reports are generated based on report templates.
Status: The machine statuses—OK, Warning, and/or Error. Last successful backup: The period within which the last successful backup finished on each of the machines. Next backup: The period within which the next scheduled backup will start on each of the machines. Operating system: The operating systems that the machines run. Availability (physical machines only): The types of the machines' availability—Online or Offline.
7.1.8.3 Report about the backup plans In this view, you can generate a report about backup plans existing on registered machines. This report consists of one or more tables. Filters Under Filters, choose which backup plans to include in the report. Only the backup plans that meet all filter criteria are included. Origin: The types of origin of the backup plans—Local and/or Centralized. Machines: The list of machines on which the backup plans exist.
Owner: The list of users who created the tasks. Duration: The limits for the amount of time within which each of the tasks last ran. With the default filter settings, the report includes all tasks from all 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.
Filters Under Filters, select which centralized managed vaults to include in the report, and whether to include information about the combined total of all the selected vaults. A combined total is the total free and occupied space, total amount of backed up data, total number of archives and backups, and average ratios across the selected vaults. With the default filter settings, the report includes information about all centralized managed vaults plus the combined total.
When choosing the columns to display, use the left arrow and right arrow buttons to include or exclude columns, and the up arrow and down arrow buttons to change the order of columns. Some columns—such as Machine name in a report about machines—cannot be excluded from the list, or moved up or down in it. 7.1.8.9 Report view In order for your web browser to correctly display dates and other information in generated reports, enable active content (JavaScript).
7.2.1 Parameters set through administrative template The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components that can be set by using Acronis Administrative Template. For information on how to apply the administrative template, see How to load Acronis Administrative Template (p. 353).
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa374177.aspx 7.2.1.2 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node that can be set by using Acronis Administrative Template. Client Connection Limit Description: Specifies the maximum number of simultaneous connections to the storage node by the agents that perform backup or recovery.
In this case, the component's connection to the storage node will fail. If the component is an Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent, the corresponding backup or recovery task will stop with the Failed status. Vault Warnings and Limits Specifies the amount of free space in a vault (both as an absolute value and as a percentage) below which a warning or error is recorded in the log.
When the amount of free space in a vault is equal to the value in Vault Free Space Error Limit or less, an error is recorded in the storage node's log. Backups performed to the vault will keep failing until the vault's free space is above the limit. Vault Database Free Space Warning Limit Description: Specifies the amount of free space, in megabytes, on the volume containing a managed vault's database, below which a warning is recorded in the storage node's log.
Possible values: 0 (Internal event), 1 (Debugging information), 2 (Information), 3 (Warning), 4 (Error), or 5 (Critical error) Default value: 0 (all entries will be collected) Log Cleanup Rules Specifies how to clean up the centralized event log stored in the management server's reporting database. This parameter has the following settings: Max Size Description: Specifies the maximum size of the centralized event log, in kilobytes.
Trace Level Description: Specifies the minimum level of severity of events for sending SNMP notifications about them. Only notifications about events of levels greater than or equal to Trace Level will be sent.
Each worker performs synchronization for exactly one machine at a time. A connected machine to be synchronized waits for an available worker. For this reason, the actual number of workers will never exceed the maximum number of connections (see Maximum Connections described previously).
When connecting to a registered machine, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server first uses the machine's network name—provided that the machine was added to the management server by name. If Second Connection Attempt is set to True and a connection to the machine by using its network name has failed, the management server performs a second connection attempt, this time using the latest IP address which was associated with that network name.
Snapshot Storage Absolute Size Description: Specifies the initial size of the snapshot storage, in megabytes. Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 2147483647 Default value: 0 If this setting is 0, the management server uses the Snapshot Storage Relative Size setting. The initial size will not exceed the available space minus 50 MB. Snapshot Storage Relative Size This setting is effective only when the Snapshot Storage Absolute Size setting is 0.
If Acronis License Server is unavailable, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 will continue working with full functionality for the number of days specified in Maximum Time Without License Server, as counted from the moment of installation or from the last successful check. License Server Connection Retry Interval (in hours) Description: Specifies the interval, in hours, between connection attempts when Acronis License Server is unavailable.
Default value: 4 (only errors and critical errors will be recorded—if Trace State is set to True) SNMP Specifies the types of the agent's events to send notifications about by means of Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). This parameter has the following settings: Trace State Description: Specifies whether to send the SNMP notifications.
You can specify a local folder on any volume, including a volume you are backing up. Snapshot Storage Absolute Size Description: Specifies the initial size of the snapshot storage, in megabytes. Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 2147483647 Default value: 0 If this setting is 0, the management server uses the Snapshot Storage Relative Size setting. The initial size will not exceed the available space minus 50 MB.
Not Configured The component will use the default settings, which is to use encryption if possible and to trust self-signed SSL certificates (see the following option). Enabled Encryption is enabled. In Encryption, select one of the following: Enabled Data transfer will be encrypted if encryption is enabled on the server application, otherwise it will be unencrypted. Disabled Encryption is disabled; any connection to a server application which requires encryption will not be established.
Enabled Data transfer will be encrypted if encryption is enabled on the client application, otherwise it will be unencrypted. Disabled Encryption is disabled; any connection to a client application which requires encryption will not be established. Required Data transfer will be performed only if encryption is enabled on the client application (see "Client Encryption options"); it will be encrypted.
Event tracing parameters are specified as the following settings in the administrative template: File Trace Minimal Level Description: Specifies the minimum severity level of events to be recorded in the file. Only events of levels greater than or equal to File Trace Minimal Level will be recorded.
7.2.3 Parameters set through Windows registry The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node that can be set only by editing the registry. Parameter related to deduplication CompactingTriggerThreshold Description: Specifies the percentage of used items in the data stores below which compacting occurs.
Registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\ASN\Configuration\StorageNode\DatabasePath TapesDatabasePath Description: Specifies the folder where Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node stores its tape vaults database. This database contains a list of tape vaults that are managed by the storage node. Its size depends on the number of archives stored in the tape libraries, and approximately equals 10 MB per hundred archives.
Exclusions (p. 377) [Optional] Set up exclusions for the specific types of files you do not wish to back up. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. Where to back up Archive (p. 378) Specify the path to the location, where the backup archive will be stored, and the archive name. It is advisable that the archive name be unique within the location. The location must be available at the time when the management server starts to deploy the policy. Access credentials (p.
By setting up regular conversion, you obtain a copy of your server or workstation on a virtual machine which can be readily powered on in case the original machine fails. The conversion can be performed by any machine that is registered on the management server and has Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent with the corresponding functionality. The archive has to be stored in a shared location, such as a network folder or a managed vault, so that the selected machine can access the archive. When to convert (p.
2. Click OK. To learn more about Acronis service credentials, see the Rights for Acronis services (p. 85) section. To learn more about operations available depending on the user privileges, see the User privileges on a managed machine (p. 32) section. 7.3.2 Items to back up Specify selection rules for backing up items, selected in the Source type field of the General section. Volumes to back up selection rules (p. 372) Files to back up selection rules (p. 375) 7.3.2.
Boot volume Type or select: [BOOT] Refers to the registered machine's boot volume. The boot volume contains the Windows folder and the supporting files for the Windows operating system (typically located in the Windows\System32 folder). It may or may not be the same as the system volume. If multiple operating systems are installed on the computer, this is the boot volume of the operating system in which the agent is working. For more details, see "Note on Windows machines" below.
Linux A volume backup stores all files and folders of the selected volume independent of their attributes, a boot record and the file system super block. A disk backup stores all disk volumes as well as the zero track with the master boot record. Volumes with unsupported file systems will be backed up sector-by-sector.
In general, the standard name for a Linux partition consists of three components: Disk type; hd for IDE drives, sd for SCSI drives, md for software RAID drives (for example, dynamic volumes); Disk number; a for the first disk, b for the second disk, etc.; Partition number on the disk; 1 for the first partition, 2 for the second partition, etc.
Windows Full path Point to the folders and files to be backed up. If you specified a path to a file or folder explicitly, the policy will back up this item on each machine where this exact path will be found. To include In the Files and folders column, type or select: File Text.doc in folder D:\Work D:\Work\Text.doc Folder C:\Windows C:\Windows Environment variables Some environment variables point to Windows folders.
Linux To include In the Files and folders column, type or select: Text file file.txt on the volume /dev/hda3 mounted on /home/usr/docs /dev/hda3/file.txt Home directory of the common users /home The root user's home directory /root Directory for all userrelated programs /usr Directory for system configuration files /etc 7.3.3 or /home/usr/docs/file.txt Access credentials for source Specify credentials required for access to the data you are going to back up. To specify credentials 1.
Exclude all system files and folders This option is effective only for file systems that are supported by Windows. Select this check box to skip files and folders with the System attribute. If a folder is System, all of its contents — including files that are not System — will be excluded. You can view file or folder attributes in the file/folder properties or by using the attrib command. For more information, refer to the Help and Support Center in Windows.
1. Selecting the archives destination Choose where to store machines' archives: Store all machines' archives in a single location To back up data to Acronis Online Backup Storage, click Log in and specify the credentials to log in to the online storage. Then, expand the Online backup storage group and select the account. Prior to backing up to the online storage, you need to buy a subscription (p. 403) to the online backup service and activate (p.
FINDEPT2_SYSTEM_BACKUP_Archive1 FINDEPT3_SYSTEM_BACKUP_Archive1 2. Click OK. The name looks like ArchiveN, where N is a sequence number. If the program finds that the archive Archive1 is already stored in the location, it will automatically suggest the name Archive2. 7.3.6 Access credentials for location Specify credentials required for access to the location where the backup archive will be stored. The user name of these credentials will be considered as the archive owner. To specify credentials 1.
backup levels, you automatically obtain the rollback period – the guaranteed number of sessions that you can go back at any time. The automatic cleanup mechanism maintains the required rollback period by deleting the expired backups and keeping the most recent backups of each level.
Custom retention periods for backups of each type Description Let us suppose that we want to set up a backup plan that will regularly produce a series of daily (D), weekly (W), and monthly (M) backups. Here is a natural way to do this: the following table shows a sample two-month period for such a plan.
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. The default values for each backup type are as follows.
Limited storage If you do not want to arrange a vast amount of space to store a huge archive, you may set up a GFS scheme so as to make your backups more short-lived, at the same time ensuring that your information can be recovered in case of an accidental data loss.
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.
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. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 4 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 4 1 2 1 3 1 Backups of different levels have different types: Last-level (in this case, level 4) backups are full; Backups of intermediate levels (2, 3) are differential; First-level (1) backups are incremental.
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. The following day, however, a new third-level differential backup is created, and the old full backup is deleted.
The archive will be cleaned up only during backup and only if there is not enough space to create 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. 42). Monthly full, weekly differential, and daily incremental backups plus cleanup This example demonstrates the use of all options available in the Custom scheme.
In the first of the previous examples, we set up a schedule only for full backups. However, the scheme will still result in three backup tasks, enabling you to manually start a backup of any type: Full backup, runs every Friday at 10:00 PM Incremental backup, runs manually Differential backup, runs manually You can run any of these backup tasks by selecting it from the list of tasks in the Backup plans and tasks section in the left pane.
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.
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. 392)" 8.1.3 How long will my backups be kept in the online storage? Your backups remain in the online storage until you delete them or until the subscription expires. Recovering data from the online storage is possible for 30 days following the subscription expiration date.
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.
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. 8.1.6.5 What happens if I run out of space? When a machine's backups are about to exceed the storage space allowed by its subscription, you receive an e-mail notification with an alert. In addition, you can see this alert on the account management web page near the machine.
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. 8.1.7.3 Is Initial Seeding a paid service? Yes, you need to buy one Initial Seeding license per machine. 8.1.7.
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. In Backup scheme, select Back up now, Back up later for manual backups or Simple for scheduled backups. For Simple, specify the schedule and (optionally) the retention rule. In What to back up, select disks, volumes or files/folders you want to back up. In Backup scheme, select Initial seeding.
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. 102) 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. 120) 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. 416) 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. 419), 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. 411), 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. 412). 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. 423) where to store the backup archive (p.
4. On each machine, the agent (p. 411) 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. 412) using other rules specified by the policy. Such backup plan is called a centralized plan (p. 414). 6. On each machine, the agent installed on the machine creates a set of centralized tasks (p. 414) 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. 412) can be applied to a built-in group. C Centralized backup plan A backup plan (p. 412) that appears on the managed machine (p.
Cleanup Deleting backups (p. 411) from a backup archive (p. 411) 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. 412) 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. 419) using the direct console (p. 415)-agent (p. 411) connection (as opposed to centralized management (p. 414) when the operations are configured on the management server (p. 420) 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. 417), or more precisely, on a disk group (p. 416). Dynamic volumes can span multiple disks.
F Full backup A self-sufficient backup (p. 411) 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. 413) aimed to maintain the optimal balance between a backup archive (p. 411) size and the number of recovery points (p. 421) available from the archive.
Managed vault A centralized vault (p. 414) managed by a storage node (p. 421). Archives (p. 411) 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. 422) and storage node-side validation (p. 422) for each archive stored in the managed vault.
Plan See Backup plan (p. 412). Policy See Backup policy (p. 412). R Recovery point Date and time to which the backed up data can be reverted to. Registered machine A machine (p. 419) managed by a management server (p. 420). A machine can be registered on only one management server at a time. A machine becomes registered as a result of the registration (p. 421) procedure. Registration A procedure that adds a managed machine (p. 419) to a management server (p. 420).
prevent access to the backup archives, even in case the storage medium is stolen or accessed by a malefactor, by using encrypted vaults (p. 418). Storage node-side cleanup Cleanup (p. 414) performed by a storage node (p. 421) according to the backup plans (p. 412) that produce the archives (p. 411) stored in a managed vault (p. 419). Being an alternative to the agentside cleanup (p. 411), 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. 419) is considered virtual if it can be backed up from the virtualization host without installing an agent (p. 411) 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.