Acronis Backup Advanced 11.7 User Guide Ug En
User Manual: acronis Backup Advanced 11.7 - User Guide Free User Guide for Acronis Backup Software, Manual
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Acronis Backup Advanced
Version 11.7
APPLIES TO THE FOLLOWING PRODUCTS
Advanced for Windows Server
Advanced for Linux Server
Advanced for PC
Advanced for VMware / Hyper-V / RHEV / Citrix XenServer / Oracle VM
Advanced for Exchange
Advanced for SQL
Advanced for SharePoint
Advanced for Active Directory
For Windows Server Essentials
USER GUIDE
Copyright Statement
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016. All rights reserved.
“Acronis” and “Acronis Secure Zone” are registered trademarks of Acronis International GmbH.
"Acronis Compute with Confidence", “Acronis Startup Recovery Manager”, “Acronis Active Restore”,
“Acronis Instant Restore” and the Acronis logo are trademarks of Acronis International GmbH.
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.
Windows and MS-DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
All other trademarks and copyrights referred to are the property of their respective owners.
Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is prohibited without the explicit
permission of the copyright holder.
Distribution of this work or derivative work in any standard (paper) book form for commercial
purposes is prohibited unless prior permission is obtained from the copyright holder.
DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED CONDITIONS,
REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE DISCLAIMED, EXCEPT TO THE
EXTENT THAT SUCH DISCLAIMERS ARE HELD TO BE LEGALLY INVALID.
Third party code may be provided with the Software and/or Service. The license terms for such
third-parties are detailed in the license.txt file located in the root installation directory. You can
always find the latest up-to-date list of the third party code and the associated license terms used
with the Software and/or Service at http://kb.acronis.com/content/7696
Acronis patented technologies
Technologies, used in this product, are covered and protected by one or more U.S. Patent Numbers:
7,047,380; 7,275,139; 7,281,104; 7,318,135; 7,353,355; 7,366,859; 7,475,282; 7,603,533; 7,636,824;
7,650,473; 7,721,138; 7,779,221; 7,831,789; 7,886,120; 7,895,403; 7,934,064; 7,937,612; 7,949,635;
7,953,948; 7,979,690; 8,005,797; 8,051,044; 8,069,320; 8,073,815; 8,074,035; 8,145,607; 8,180,984;
8,225,133; 8,261,035; 8,296,264; 8,312,259; 8,347,137; 8,484,427; 8,645,748; 8,732,121 and patent
pending applications.
2
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Table of contents
1
Introducing Acronis Backup ............................................................................................ 10
1.1
What's new in Acronis Backup 11.7.........................................................................................10
1.2
Acronis Backup components ...................................................................................................11
1.2.1
1.2.2
1.2.3
1.2.4
1.2.5
1.2.6
1.2.7
1.2.8
1.2.9
1.2.10
Agent for Windows ....................................................................................................................................... 12
Agent for Linux .............................................................................................................................................. 12
Agent for VMware......................................................................................................................................... 13
Agent for Hyper-V ......................................................................................................................................... 13
Agent for SQL ................................................................................................................................................. 13
Agent for Active Directory ............................................................................................................................ 13
Components for centralized management ................................................................................................. 13
Management Console................................................................................................................................... 15
Bootable Media Builder ................................................................................................................................ 15
Acronis Wake-on-LAN Proxy ........................................................................................................................ 15
1.3
About using the product in the trial mode ..............................................................................15
1.4
Supported file systems ............................................................................................................16
1.5
Technical Support ....................................................................................................................16
2
Getting started .............................................................................................................. 18
2.1
Using the management console ..............................................................................................21
2.1.1
2.1.2
2.1.3
"Navigation" pane ......................................................................................................................................... 22
Main area, views and action pages .............................................................................................................. 24
Console options ............................................................................................................................................. 26
3
Understanding Acronis Backup ....................................................................................... 29
3.1
Owners .....................................................................................................................................29
3.2
Credentials used in backup plans and tasks ............................................................................29
3.3
User privileges on a managed machine ...................................................................................31
3.4
List of Acronis services .............................................................................................................31
3.5
Full, incremental and differential backups ..............................................................................34
3.6
What does a disk or volume backup store?.............................................................................35
3.7
About dynamic and logical volumes ........................................................................................36
3.7.1
3.7.2
Backup and recovery of dynamic volumes (Windows) .............................................................................. 36
Backup and recovery of logical volumes and MD devices (Linux) ............................................................. 38
3.8
Support for Advanced Format (4K-sector) hard disks .............................................................44
3.9
Support for UEFI-based machines ...........................................................................................45
3.10 Support for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 ................................................................45
3.11 Compatibility with encryption software ..................................................................................47
3.12 Support for SNMP ....................................................................................................................48
4
Backup .......................................................................................................................... 50
4.1
Back up now.............................................................................................................................50
4.2
Creating a backup plan ............................................................................................................50
4.2.1
4.2.2
4.2.3
3
Selecting data to back up .............................................................................................................................. 52
Access credentials for source ....................................................................................................................... 54
Source files exclusion .................................................................................................................................... 55
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
4.2.4
4.2.5
4.2.6
4.2.7
4.2.8
4.2.9
4.2.10
4.2.11
4.3
Simplified naming of backup files ............................................................................................72
4.3.1
4.3.2
4.3.3
4.4
Daily schedule ................................................................................................................................................ 79
Weekly schedule ........................................................................................................................................... 81
Monthly schedule.......................................................................................................................................... 83
On Windows Event Log event ...................................................................................................................... 85
Advanced scheduling settings ...................................................................................................................... 87
Conditions ...................................................................................................................................................... 88
Replication and retention of backups......................................................................................91
4.5.1
4.5.2
4.5.3
4.5.4
4.5.5
Supported locations ...................................................................................................................................... 93
Setting up replication of backups................................................................................................................. 94
Setting up retention of backups ................................................................................................................... 94
Retention rules for the Custom scheme...................................................................................................... 95
Usage examples............................................................................................................................................. 97
4.6
How to disable backup cataloging .........................................................................................100
4.7
Default backup options..........................................................................................................100
4.7.1
4.7.2
4.7.3
4.7.4
4.7.5
4.7.6
4.7.7
4.7.8
4.7.9
4.7.10
4.7.11
4.7.12
4.7.13
4.7.14
4.7.15
4.7.16
4.7.17
4.7.18
4.7.19
4.7.20
4.7.21
4.7.22
4.7.23
4.7.24
4.7.25
4
The [DATE] variable ....................................................................................................................................... 73
Backup splitting and simplified file naming ................................................................................................. 74
Usage examples............................................................................................................................................. 74
Scheduling ................................................................................................................................77
4.4.1
4.4.2
4.4.3
4.4.4
4.4.5
4.4.6
4.5
Backup location selection ............................................................................................................................. 56
Access credentials for archive location........................................................................................................ 59
Backup schemes ............................................................................................................................................ 60
Archive validation .......................................................................................................................................... 69
Backup plan's credentials ............................................................................................................................. 70
Label (Preserving machine properties in a backup).................................................................................... 70
Sequence of operations in a backup plan ................................................................................................... 72
Why is the program asking for the password? ........................................................................................... 72
Additional settings....................................................................................................................................... 102
Archive protection....................................................................................................................................... 104
Backup cataloging ....................................................................................................................................... 104
Backup performance................................................................................................................................... 105
Backup splitting ........................................................................................................................................... 106
Compression level ....................................................................................................................................... 107
Disaster recovery plan (DRP) ...................................................................................................................... 108
E-mail notifications...................................................................................................................................... 109
Error handling .............................................................................................................................................. 110
Event tracing ................................................................................................................................................ 111
Fast incremental/differential backup ........................................................................................................ 112
File-level backup snapshot ......................................................................................................................... 112
File-level security ......................................................................................................................................... 113
LVM snapshotting ....................................................................................................................................... 114
Media components ..................................................................................................................................... 115
Mount points ............................................................................................................................................... 115
Multi-volume snapshot............................................................................................................................... 116
Pre/Post commands.................................................................................................................................... 116
Pre/Post data capture commands ............................................................................................................. 118
Replication/cleanup inactivity time ........................................................................................................... 120
Sector-by-sector backup ............................................................................................................................. 120
Tape management ...................................................................................................................................... 121
Task failure handling ................................................................................................................................... 122
Task start conditions ................................................................................................................................... 123
Volume Shadow Copy Service .................................................................................................................... 124
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
5
Recovery ..................................................................................................................... 127
5.1
Creating a recovery task ........................................................................................................127
5.1.1
5.1.2
5.1.3
5.1.4
5.1.5
5.1.6
5.2
Recovering BIOS-based systems to UEFI-based and vice versa .............................................143
5.2.1
5.2.2
Recovering volumes .................................................................................................................................... 144
Recovering disks .......................................................................................................................................... 145
5.3
Acronis Active Restore ...........................................................................................................147
5.4
Bootability troubleshooting ...................................................................................................148
5.4.1
5.4.2
How to reactivate GRUB and change its configuration ............................................................................ 150
About Windows loaders ............................................................................................................................. 151
5.5
Reverting a Windows system to its factory settings..............................................................151
5.6
Default recovery options .......................................................................................................152
5.6.1
5.6.2
5.6.3
5.6.4
5.6.5
5.6.6
5.6.7
5.6.8
5.6.9
Additional settings....................................................................................................................................... 153
E-mail notifications...................................................................................................................................... 154
Error handling .............................................................................................................................................. 156
Event tracing ................................................................................................................................................ 156
File-level security ......................................................................................................................................... 157
Mount points ............................................................................................................................................... 158
Pre/Post commands.................................................................................................................................... 158
Recovery priority ......................................................................................................................................... 159
Tape management ...................................................................................................................................... 160
6
Conversion to a virtual machine ................................................................................... 161
6.1
Conversion methods ..............................................................................................................161
6.2
Conversion to an automatically created virtual machine ......................................................161
6.2.1
6.2.2
6.2.3
6.3
Considerations before conversion ............................................................................................................. 162
Setting up regular conversion to a virtual machine .................................................................................. 163
Recovery to the ''New virtual machine'' destination ................................................................................ 166
Recovery to a manually created virtual machine ..................................................................169
6.3.1
6.3.2
Considerations before conversion ............................................................................................................. 169
Steps to perform ......................................................................................................................................... 170
7
Storing the backed up data........................................................................................... 171
7.1
Vaults .....................................................................................................................................171
7.1.1
7.1.2
7.1.3
7.1.4
7.2
Working with vaults .................................................................................................................................... 172
Centralized vaults ........................................................................................................................................ 173
Personal vaults ............................................................................................................................................ 182
Changing the default cache folder for catalog files .................................................................................. 184
Acronis Secure Zone ..............................................................................................................185
7.2.1
7.2.2
Creating Acronis Secure Zone .................................................................................................................... 186
Managing Acronis Secure Zone .................................................................................................................. 188
7.3
Removable devices ................................................................................................................189
7.4
Tape devices ..........................................................................................................................190
7.4.1
7.4.2
7.4.3
5
What to recover .......................................................................................................................................... 129
Access credentials for location ................................................................................................................... 133
Access credentials for destination ............................................................................................................. 134
Where to recover ........................................................................................................................................ 134
When to recover ......................................................................................................................................... 142
Task credentials ........................................................................................................................................... 142
What is a tape device? ................................................................................................................................ 190
Overview of tape support ........................................................................................................................... 190
Getting started with a tape device............................................................................................................. 196
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
7.4.4
7.4.5
7.4.6
7.5
Storage nodes ........................................................................................................................212
7.5.1
7.5.2
7.5.3
7.5.4
7.5.5
7.5.6
7.5.7
What is a storage node? ............................................................................................................................. 212
Supported types of storage ........................................................................................................................ 212
Operations performed by storage nodes .................................................................................................. 212
Getting started with a storage node .......................................................................................................... 213
User privileges on a storage node.............................................................................................................. 214
Operations with storage nodes .................................................................................................................. 215
Deduplication .............................................................................................................................................. 225
8
Operations with archives and backups.......................................................................... 232
8.1
Validating archives and backups ............................................................................................232
8.1.1
8.1.2
8.1.3
8.1.4
8.1.5
8.1.6
8.2
8.3
Archive selection ......................................................................................................................................... 238
Backup selection.......................................................................................................................................... 238
Access credentials for source ..................................................................................................................... 239
Destination selection .................................................................................................................................. 239
Access credentials for destination ............................................................................................................. 240
Mounting an image................................................................................................................241
8.3.1
8.3.2
8.3.3
8.3.4
8.3.5
8.4
Archive selection ......................................................................................................................................... 233
Backup selection.......................................................................................................................................... 233
Vault selection ............................................................................................................................................. 233
Access credentials for source ..................................................................................................................... 234
When to validate ......................................................................................................................................... 235
Task credentials ........................................................................................................................................... 235
Exporting archives and backups ............................................................................................236
8.2.1
8.2.2
8.2.3
8.2.4
8.2.5
Archive selection ......................................................................................................................................... 242
Backup selection.......................................................................................................................................... 242
Access credentials ....................................................................................................................................... 242
Volume selection ......................................................................................................................................... 243
Managing mounted images........................................................................................................................ 243
Operations available in vaults................................................................................................244
8.4.1
8.4.2
8.4.3
8.4.4
Operations with archives ............................................................................................................................ 244
Operations with backups ............................................................................................................................ 245
Converting a backup to full......................................................................................................................... 246
Deleting archives and backups ................................................................................................................... 246
9
Bootable media ........................................................................................................... 248
9.1
How to create bootable media ..............................................................................................249
9.1.1
9.1.2
Linux-based bootable media ...................................................................................................................... 249
WinPE-based bootable media .................................................................................................................... 253
9.2
Connecting to a machine booted from media .......................................................................255
9.3
Working under bootable media.............................................................................................256
9.3.1
9.3.2
Setting up a display mode .......................................................................................................................... 257
Configuring iSCSI and NDAS devices .......................................................................................................... 257
9.4
List of commands and utilities available in Linux-based bootable media .............................258
9.5
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager .......................................................................................259
9.6
Acronis PXE Server .................................................................................................................260
9.6.1
9.6.2
9.6.3
6
Tape management ...................................................................................................................................... 200
Vaults on tapes ............................................................................................................................................ 208
Usage examples........................................................................................................................................... 208
Acronis PXE Server Installation................................................................................................................... 260
Setting up a machine to boot from PXE .................................................................................................... 261
Work across subnets ................................................................................................................................... 261
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
10
Disk management .................................................................................................. 262
10.1 Supported file systems ..........................................................................................................262
10.2 Basic precautions ...................................................................................................................262
10.3 Running Acronis Disk Director Lite ........................................................................................263
10.4 Choosing the operating system for disk management ..........................................................263
10.5 "Disk management" view ......................................................................................................264
10.6 Disk operations ......................................................................................................................264
10.6.1
10.6.2
10.6.3
10.6.4
10.6.5
10.6.6
10.6.7
Disk initialization.......................................................................................................................................... 265
Basic disk cloning ......................................................................................................................................... 265
Disk conversion: MBR to GPT ..................................................................................................................... 267
Disk conversion: GPT to MBR ..................................................................................................................... 268
Disk conversion: basic to dynamic ............................................................................................................. 268
Disk conversion: dynamic to basic ............................................................................................................. 269
Changing disk status.................................................................................................................................... 270
10.7 Volume operations ................................................................................................................270
10.7.1
10.7.2
10.7.3
10.7.4
10.7.5
10.7.6
Creating a volume ....................................................................................................................................... 270
Delete volume ............................................................................................................................................. 274
Set active volume ........................................................................................................................................ 275
Change volume letter ................................................................................................................................. 275
Change volume label................................................................................................................................... 275
Format volume ............................................................................................................................................ 276
10.8 Pending operations ................................................................................................................277
11
Protecting applications with disk-level backup ........................................................ 278
11.1 Backing up an application server ...........................................................................................278
11.1.1
11.1.2
11.1.3
Locating database files................................................................................................................................ 280
Truncating transaction logs ........................................................................................................................ 283
Best practices when backing up application servers ................................................................................ 286
11.2 Recovering SQL Server data ...................................................................................................287
11.2.1
11.2.2
11.2.3
Recovering SQL Server databases from a disk backup ............................................................................. 288
Accessing SQL Server databases from a disk backup ............................................................................... 288
Attaching SQL Server databases ................................................................................................................ 289
11.3 Recovering Exchange Server data..........................................................................................289
11.3.1
11.3.2
11.3.3
Recovering Exchange Server database files from a disk backup ............................................................. 290
Mounting Exchange Server databases ...................................................................................................... 290
Granular recovery of mailboxes ................................................................................................................. 291
11.4 Recovering Active Directory data ..........................................................................................291
11.4.1
11.4.2
11.4.3
11.4.4
11.4.5
Recovering a domain controller (other DCs are available) ...................................................................... 291
Recovering a domain controller (no other DCs are available) ................................................................. 292
Restoring the Active Directory database ................................................................................................... 293
Restoring accidentally deleted information .............................................................................................. 294
Avoiding a USN rollback .............................................................................................................................. 294
11.5 Recovering SharePoint data ..................................................................................................296
11.5.1
11.5.2
11.5.3
Recovering a content database.................................................................................................................. 296
Recovering configuration and service databases ..................................................................................... 298
Recovering individual items........................................................................................................................ 299
12
Protecting Microsoft SQL Server with single-pass backup ........................................ 301
12.1 General information ..............................................................................................................301
12.1.1
12.1.2
7
Agent for SQL ............................................................................................................................................... 301
Supported operating systems .................................................................................................................... 302
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
12.1.3
12.1.4
12.1.5
Supported Microsoft SQL Server versions................................................................................................. 302
Permissions for SQL Server backup and recovery .................................................................................... 302
What else you need to know about single-pass backup .......................................................................... 303
12.2 Installation of Agent for SQL ..................................................................................................304
12.3 Backing up Microsoft SQL server ...........................................................................................304
12.3.1
Single-pass backup settings ........................................................................................................................ 305
12.4 Recovering Microsoft SQL Server data ..................................................................................306
12.4.1
12.4.2
Recovering SQL databases to instances .................................................................................................... 306
Extracting the database files to folders ..................................................................................................... 308
12.5 Mounting SQL Server databases from a single-pass backup .................................................309
12.5.1
Unmounting mounted SQL Server databases........................................................................................... 309
12.6 Protecting clustered SQL Server instances and AAG .............................................................310
13
Protecting Microsoft Active Directory with single-pass backup ................................ 312
13.1 Agent for Active Directory .....................................................................................................312
13.2 Supported operating systems ................................................................................................312
13.3 Installation of Agent for Active Directory ..............................................................................312
13.4 Backing up Microsoft Active Directory ..................................................................................313
13.5 Recovering Microsoft Active Directory ..................................................................................313
13.5.1
13.5.2
Re-promoting the domain controller ........................................................................................................ 314
Recovering the Active Directory data from a single-pass backup ........................................................... 314
14
Administering a managed machine ......................................................................... 316
14.1 Backup plans and tasks ..........................................................................................................316
14.1.1
14.1.2
14.1.3
14.1.4
14.1.5
14.1.6
Actions on backup plans and tasks ............................................................................................................ 316
States and statuses of backup plans and tasks ......................................................................................... 318
Export and import of backup plans............................................................................................................ 320
Deploying backup plans as files.................................................................................................................. 324
Backup plan details ..................................................................................................................................... 325
Task/activity details..................................................................................................................................... 326
14.2 Log..........................................................................................................................................326
14.2.1
14.2.2
Actions on log entries.................................................................................................................................. 327
Log entry details .......................................................................................................................................... 327
14.3 Alerts ......................................................................................................................................328
14.4 Changing a license .................................................................................................................329
14.5 Collecting system information ...............................................................................................330
14.6 Adjusting machine options ....................................................................................................330
14.6.1
14.6.2
14.6.3
14.6.4
14.6.5
14.6.6
14.6.7
14.6.8
Additional settings....................................................................................................................................... 330
Acronis Customer Experience Program ..................................................................................................... 331
Alerts ............................................................................................................................................................ 331
E-mail settings ............................................................................................................................................. 332
Event tracing ................................................................................................................................................ 333
Log cleanup rules......................................................................................................................................... 335
Machine management................................................................................................................................ 336
Cloud backup proxy..................................................................................................................................... 336
15
Centralized management ....................................................................................... 338
15.1 Understanding centralized management ..............................................................................338
15.1.1
15.1.2
8
Basic concepts ............................................................................................................................................. 338
Privileges for centralized management ..................................................................................................... 339
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
15.1.3
Communication between Acronis Backup components .......................................................................... 343
15.2 Back up now...........................................................................................................................347
15.3 Creating a centralized backup plan........................................................................................348
15.3.1
15.3.2
15.3.3
15.3.4
15.3.5
15.3.6
Selecting data to back up ............................................................................................................................ 348
Selection rules for files and folders ............................................................................................................ 350
Selection rules for volumes ........................................................................................................................ 352
Backup location selection ........................................................................................................................... 355
Centralized backup plan's credentials ....................................................................................................... 356
What if a machine does not have data meeting the selection rules ....................................................... 357
15.4 Administering Acronis Backup Management Server .............................................................357
15.4.1
15.4.2
15.4.3
15.4.4
15.4.5
15.4.6
15.4.7
15.4.8
15.4.9
15.4.10
Dashboard.................................................................................................................................................... 357
Machines with agents ................................................................................................................................. 359
Virtual machines.......................................................................................................................................... 371
Backup plans and tasks ............................................................................................................................... 372
Storage nodes .............................................................................................................................................. 375
Licenses ........................................................................................................................................................ 375
Alerts ............................................................................................................................................................ 377
Reporting ..................................................................................................................................................... 378
Log ................................................................................................................................................................ 383
Management server options ...................................................................................................................... 385
15.5 Configuring Acronis Backup components ..............................................................................391
15.5.1
15.5.2
Parameters set by using Acronis Administrative Template ..................................................................... 391
Parameters set by using Windows registry ............................................................................................... 406
16
Cloud backup ......................................................................................................... 407
16.1 Introduction to Acronis Cloud Backup ...................................................................................407
16.1.1
16.1.2
16.1.3
16.1.4
16.1.5
16.1.6
16.1.7
16.1.8
16.1.9
16.1.10
What is Acronis Cloud Backup? .................................................................................................................. 407
What data can I back up and recover? ...................................................................................................... 407
How long will my backups be kept in the cloud storage? ........................................................................ 407
How do I secure my data? .......................................................................................................................... 408
How do I back up virtual machines to the cloud storage? ....................................................................... 408
Supported operating systems and virtualization products ...................................................................... 409
Backup and recovery FAQ .......................................................................................................................... 410
Initial Seeding FAQ ...................................................................................................................................... 411
Large Scale Recovery FAQ .......................................................................................................................... 417
Subscription lifecycle FAQ .......................................................................................................................... 418
16.2 Where do I start? ...................................................................................................................421
16.3 Choosing a subscription .........................................................................................................421
16.4 Configuring proxy settings .....................................................................................................422
16.5 Checking the firewall settings ................................................................................................422
16.6 Activating cloud backup subscriptions ..................................................................................423
16.6.1
16.6.2
Activating subscriptions in Acronis Backup Advanced ............................................................................. 423
Reassigning an activated subscription ....................................................................................................... 423
16.7 Retrieving files from the cloud storage by using a web browser ..........................................425
16.8 Limitations of the cloud storage ............................................................................................426
16.9 Terminology reference ..........................................................................................................426
17
9
Glossary ................................................................................................................. 429
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
1 Introducing Acronis Backup
1.1
What's new in Acronis Backup 11.7
Installation
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 can be used to store the databases of Acronis Backup Management
Server.
Licensing
Support for the subscription licensing model. For more information, please refer to the Acronis
Backup Licensing FAQ.
Deduplication
128 MB of RAM per 1 TB of unique data are required, instead of 3 GB.
Recovery from a deduplicated backup is now 40 percent faster.
No need to allocate the deduplication database on expensive SSD disks. Regular HDD disks can be
used without performance degradation.
The backup speed does not reduce as the deduplication database size increases.
The Storage Node startup time on large data sets is reduced to 1-3 minutes.
Validating deduplicated backups and compacting the data store are now 2.5 times faster.
These improvements are effective when v11.7 agents back up to deduplicating vaults created on
v11.7 storage nodes. When a new agent backs up to an old vault or an old agent backs up to a new
vault, the old deduplication algorithm is used. To apply the new deduplication algorithm to old
backups, you need to import the backups into a newly created vault.
Tape support
Configurable block size (p. 192) for reading and writing to tapes. The default value is taken from
the tape device driver.
Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) and Hardware Compatibility Tool are introduced. Hardware
Compatibility List contains tape devices with confirmed support by Acronis Backup. To learn if
your specific device is supported, use the Hardware Compatibility Tool.
Full support for the LTO-7 technology. See the HCL for the exact names of the tested devices.
Centralized management
It is possible to specify a custom backup location (p. 355) for each machine that is included in a
centralized backup plan.
In addition to exporting licenses from the management server to an .xml file, you can export
them to a .txt file (p. 376).
Microsoft Exchange Server support
Agent for Exchange can back up and recover Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 databases. Backup
and recovery of Exchange 2016 mailboxes (including mailbox recovery from database backups)
are not supported.
Supported operating systems
10
Support for Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4.
Support for Linux kernel version 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2, Oracle Linux 7.2, ClearOS, Debian 8.2, Ubuntu 15.10,
and Fedora 23.
Support for Windows 2000 in Acronis Backup Advanced is limited. Components of v11.7 cannot
be installed in this operating system. To back up machines that run Windows 2000, use the
agents of v11.5. The v11.5 agents are compatible with the management components of v11.7.
Acronis Backup for Windows Server and Acronis Backup for PC cannot be installed in Windows
2000. To back up machines that run this operating system, use v11.5.
Acronis Backup v11.5 supports Windows 2000 SP4.
Other
It is possible to use compression in combination with third-party hardware or software
deduplication (for disk-level backups only). This effectively reduces the storage space occupied
by the backups.
More functionality is available via the command-line interface:
Generating management server reports
Deploying Agent for VMware (Virtual Appliance)
Agent for VMware does not back up independent disks and Raw Device Mapping (RDM) disks in
physical compatibility mode, regardless of the state of a virtual machine. This limitation is
introduced for better predictability of the product behavior.
32-bit Linux-based bootable media was optimized in size by removing the rarely used acrocmd
utility.
When a disk backup is mounted in the read/write mode, the respective incremental backup is
not created immediately, but after the disk backup is unmounted, instead. While the backup is
mounted, the changes are saved in the %Temp% folder.
1.2
Acronis Backup components
Acronis Backup 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. Agents require a license to perform operations on each managed
machine.
Components for centralized management
These components, included in Acronis Backup Advanced, provide centralized management
capability. Usage of these components is not licensed.
Console
The console provides Graphical User Interface to other Acronis Backup components. Usage of the
console is not licensed.
Bootable media builder
With bootable media builder, you can create bootable media in order to use the agents and other
rescue utilities in a rescue environment.
Bootable Media Builder does not require a license if installed together with an agent. To use a media
builder on a machine without an agent, you need to enter the license key or have at least one license
on the license server. The license may be either available or assigned.
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1.2.1
Agent for Windows
This agent enables disk-level and file-level data protection under Windows.
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 the 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.
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.
Conversion to a virtual machine
Agent for Windows performs the conversion by recovering a disk backup to a new virtual machine of
any of the following types: VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Citrix XenServer Open Virtual
Appliance (OVA) or Red Hat Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM). Files of the fully configured and
operational machine will be placed in the folder you select. You can start the machine using the
respective virtualization software or prepare the machine files for further usage.
Disk management
Agent for Windows includes Acronis Disk Director Lite - a handy disk management utility. Disk
management operations, such as cloning disks; converting disks; creating, formatting and deleting
volumes; changing a disk partitioning style between MBR and GPT or changing a disk label, can be
performed either in the operating system or using bootable media.
1.2.2
Agent for Linux
This agent enables disk-level and file-level data protection under Linux.
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.
File backup
File-level data protection is based on backing up files and directories residing on the machine where
the agent is installed or on a network share accessed using the smb or nfs protocol. Files can be
recovered to their original location or to another place. It is possible to recover all files and
directories that were backed up or select which of them to recover.
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Conversion to a virtual machine
Agent for Linux performs the conversion by recovering a disk backup to a new virtual machine of any
of the following types: VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Citrix XenServer Open Virtual
Appliance (OVA) or Red Hat Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM). Files of the fully configured and
operational machine will be placed in the directory you select. You can start the machine using the
respective virtualization software or prepare the machine files for further usage.
1.2.3
Agent for VMware
Acronis Backup Agent for VMware enables backup and recovery of ESX(i) virtual machines without
installing agents into the guest systems. This backup method is known as agent-less backup or
backup at a hypervisor level. The agent can be imported or deployed to a VMware ESX(i) host as a
virtual appliance.
1.2.4
Agent for Hyper-V
Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V protects virtual machines residing on a Hyper-V virtualization
server. The agent allows for backing up virtual machines from the host without having to install
agents on each virtual machine.
1.2.5
Agent for SQL
Acronis Backup Agent for SQL enables you to create single-pass disk and application backups and to
recover Microsoft SQL databases from them. The databases can be recovered directly to a running
SQL Server instance or extracted to a folder on a file system.
The agent uses Microsoft VSS to ensure the consistency of the backed-up databases. After a
successful backup, the agent can truncate the SQL Server transaction log.
The agent is included in the setup program of Acronis Backup Advanced.
The agent is installed with Agent for Windows (p. 12) or on a machine where Agent for Windows is
already installed.
1.2.6
Agent for Active Directory
Acronis Backup Agent for Active Directory enables you to create single-pass disk and application
backups and to extract Microsoft Active Directory data from them to a folder on a file system.
The agent uses Microsoft VSS to ensure the consistency of the backed-up data.
The agent is included in the setup program of Acronis Backup Advanced.
The agent is installed with Agent for Windows (p. 12) or on a machine where Agent for Windows is
already installed.
1.2.7
Components for centralized management
This section lists the components that are included in Acronis Backup Advanced and provide the
centralized management capability. Besides these components, Acronis Backup Agents have to be
installed on all machines that need data protection.
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1.2.7.1
Management Server
Acronis Backup Management Server is the central server that drives data protection within the
enterprise network. The management server provides the administrator with:
a single entry point to the Acronis Backup infrastructure
integration with VMware vCenter to discover virtual machines for protection
an easy way to protect data on numerous machines (p. 438) using centralized backup plans and
grouping
enterprise-wide monitoring and reporting functionality
built-in license management
the ability to create centralized vaults (p. 432) for storing enterprise backup archives (p. 430)
the ability to manage storage nodes (p. 440)
the centralized catalog (p. 433) of all data stored on the storage nodes.
If there are multiple management servers on the network, they operate independently, manage
different machines and use different centralized vaults for storing archives.
1.2.7.2
Storage Node
Acronis Backup Storage Node is a server designed to optimize the usage of various resources (such as
the corporate storage capacity, the network bandwidth, or the managed machines' CPU load) which
are required to protect the enterprise data. This goal is achieved by organizing and managing the
locations that serve as dedicated storages of the enterprise backup archives (managed vaults).
The most important function of a storage node is deduplication (p. 225) of backups stored in its
vaults. This means that identical data will be backed up to this vault only once. This minimizes the
network usage during backup and storage space taken by the archives.
The storage nodes enable creating highly scalable and flexible, in terms of the hardware support,
storage infrastructure. Up to 50 storage nodes can be set up, each being able to manage up to 20
vaults.
The administrator controls the storage nodes centrally from the Acronis Backup Management Server
(p. 14). Direct console connection to a storage node is not possible.
1.2.7.3
Components for Remote Installation
These are Acronis component installation packages used by the management console (p. 15) for
installation on remote machines.
Components for Remote Installation need to be installed on the machine with the console or with
the management server (p. 14). During installation, the setup program saves the components in the
default location and saves this location path in the registry. As a result, the components are readily
available in the Remote Installation Wizard as "registered components".
1.2.7.4
PXE Server
Acronis PXE Server allows for booting machines into Acronis bootable components through the
network.
The network booting:
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Eliminates the need to have a technician onsite to install the bootable media (p. 431) into the
system that has to be booted
During group operations, reduces the time required for booting multiple machines as compared
to using physical bootable media.
1.2.7.5
License Server
The server enables you to manage licenses of Acronis products and install the components that
require licenses.
You can install a license server as a separate component or use the one integrated into the
management server. The functionality of the license server (p. 375) is similar for both types of
installation.
1.2.8
Management Console
Acronis Backup Management Console is an administrative tool for access to Acronis Backup agents
and, in Acronis Backup Advanced, to Acronis Backup Management Server.
The console has two distributions: for installation on Windows and installation on Linux. While both
distributions enable connection to any Acronis Backup agent and Acronis Backup Management
Server, we recommend that you use the console for Windows if you have a choice between the two.
The console that installs on Linux has limited functionality:
Remote installation of Acronis Backup components is not available.
The Active Directory-related features, such as browsing the AD, are not available.
1.2.9
Bootable Media Builder
Acronis Bootable Media Builder is a dedicated tool for creating bootable media (p. 431). There are
two media builder distributions: for installation in Windows and installation in Linux.
The media builder that installs on Windows can create bootable media based on either Windows
Preinstallation Environment, or Linux kernel. The media builder that installs on Linux creates
bootable media based on Linux kernel.
1.2.10 Acronis Wake-on-LAN Proxy
Acronis Wake-on-LAN Proxy enables Acronis Backup Management Server to wake up for backup
machines located in another subnet. Acronis Wake-on-LAN Proxy installs on any server in the subnet
where the machines to be backed up are located.
1.3
About using the product in the trial mode
Before buying an Acronis Backup license, you may want to try the software. This can be done without
a license key.
To install the product in the trial mode, run the setup program locally or use the remote installation
functionality. Unattended installation and other ways of installation are not supported.
Limitations of the trial mode
When working under bootable media:
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The disk management functionality is not available. You can try the user interface, but there is no
option to commit the changes.
The recovery functionality is available, but the backup functionality is not. To try the backup
functionality, install the software in the operating system.
Upgrading to the full mode
After the trial period expires, the product GUI displays a notification requesting you to specify or
obtain a license key.
To specify a license key, click Help > Change License (p. 329). Specifying the key by running the setup
program is not possible.
If you have activated a trial or purchased a subscription for the cloud backup service (p. 407), cloud
backup will be available until the subscription period expires, regardless of whether you specify a
license key.
1.4
Supported file systems
Acronis Backup can back up and recover the following file systems with the following limitations:
FAT16/32
Ext2/Ext3/Ext4
ReiserFS4 - volume recovery without the volume resize capability; particular files cannot be
recovered from disk backups located on Acronis Backup Storage Node
XFS - volume recovery without the volume resize capability; particular files cannot be recovered
from disk backups located on Acronis Backup Storage Node
JFS - particular files cannot be recovered from disk backups located on Acronis Backup Storage
Node
Linux SWAP
NTFS
ReFS - volume recovery without the volume resize capability. Supported in Windows Server
2012/2012 R2 and Windows Server 2016 (p. 45) only.
ReiserFS3 - particular files cannot be recovered from disk backups located on Acronis Backup
Storage Node
Acronis Backup can back up and recover corrupted or non-supported file systems using the
sector-by-sector approach.
1.5
Technical Support
Maintenance and Support Program
If you need assistance with your Acronis product, please go to
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/
Product Updates
You can download the latest updates for all your registered Acronis software products from our
website at any time after logging into your Account (http://www.acronis.com/en-us/my) and
registering the product. See Registering Acronis Products at the Website
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(http://kb.acronis.com/content/4834) and Acronis Website User Guide
(http://kb.acronis.com/content/8128).
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2 Getting started
Step 1. Installation
These brief installation instructions enable you to start using the product quickly. For the
complete description of installation methods and procedures, please refer to the Installation
documentation.
Before installation, make sure that:
Your hardware meets the system requirements.
You have license keys for the product of your choice.
You have the setup program. You can download it from the Acronis website.
Procedure
When following the instructions below, you can select more than one machine role.
1. Install the management server to be able to manage multiple machines.
a. Run the setup program and click Install Acronis Backup.
b. After accepting the terms of the license agreement, select the Centrally monitor and
configure the backing up of physical and virtual machines check box.
c. Type your license keys or import them from a text file.
d. Follow the on-screen instructions.
Details. The console will also be installed so that you can control the management server locally.
2. Install an agent on each machine you want to back up.
a. Run the setup program and click Install Acronis Backup.
b. After accepting the terms of the license agreement, select the Back up this machine's data
check box.
c. Select I purchased a license or a subscription.
d. Select the Use the following license server check box, and then enter the name or IP address
of the previously installed management server.
e. When prompted, register the machine on the management server.
f. Follow the on-screen instructions.
Details. The console will also be installed on each machine.
3. [Optional] Install the storage node on the machine that will serve as a storage for backups of
other machines.
a. Run the setup program and click Install Acronis Backup.
b. After accepting the terms of the license agreement, select the Store the backups of other
machines on this machine check box.
c. When prompted, register the storage node on the management server.
d. Follow the on-screen instructions.
4. [Optional] Install the console on a machine from which you prefer to operate, if this machine is
not the management server and does not have an agent.
a. Run the setup program and click Install Acronis Backup.
b. After accepting the terms of the license agreement, select the Connect to remote machines
check box.
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c.
Follow the on-screen instructions.
Step 2. Running
Run Acronis Backup Management Console.
In Windows
Start the console by selecting
In Linux
Log in as root or log in as an ordinary user and then switch user as
required. Start the console with the command
Acronis Backup from the Start menu.
/usr/sbin/acronis_console
For understanding of the GUI elements see "Using the management console" (p. 21).
Step 3. Bootable media
To be able to recover an operating system that fails to start, or deploy it on bare metal, create
bootable media.
1. Select
Tools >
Create bootable media in the menu.
2. Click Next in the welcome screen. Keep clicking Next until the list of components appears.
3. Proceed as described in "Linux-based bootable media" (p. 249).
Step 4. Connection
Connect the console to the managed machine, or to the management server.
On the first page of the console, click one of the following:
Manage this machine
If the agent is installed on the same machine as the console.
Manage a remote machine
If the agent is installed on a remote machine.
Connect to a management server
To manage multiple physical and virtual machines.
Step 5. Backup
Back up now (p. 50)
Click Back up now to do a one-time backup in a few simple steps. The backup process will
start immediately after you perform the required steps.
To save your machine to a file:
Under Where to back up, click Location, and select the location where the backup will be
saved. Click OK to confirm your selection. Click OK at the bottom of the window to start the
backup.
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Tip. Using the bootable media, you can do off-line ("cold") backups in the same way as in the
operating system.
Create backup plan (p. 50)
Create a backup plan if you need a long-term backup strategy including backup schemes,
schedules and conditions, timely deleting of backups, or moving them to different locations.
Notes for users of Acronis Backup Advanced: When creating a backup plan on the
management server, you can:
- Select entire machines or groups of machines.
- Select different data items on each machine.
- Use selection rules to select the same data items on different machines.
This way, you will create a centralized backup plan to be deployed to the selected machines.
For more information, please refer to "Creating a centralized backup plan" (p. 348).
Step 6. Recovery
Recover (p. 127)
To recover data, you need to select the backed-up data and the destination the data will be
recovered to. As a result, a recovery task will be created.
Recovery of a disk or volume over a volume locked by the operating system requires a reboot.
After the recovery is completed, the recovered operating system goes online automatically.
If the machine fails to boot or if you need to recover a system to bare metal, boot the
machine using the bootable media and configure the recovery operation in the same way as
the recovery task.
Notes for users of Acronis Backup Advanced: You cannot control operations under bootable
media by using the management server. But you can disconnect the console from the server
and connect it to the machine booted from the media.
Step 7. Management
The Navigation pane (at the left part of the console) enables you to navigate across the product
views that are used for different administering purposes.
Use the
Backup plans and tasks view to manage backup plans and tasks: run, edit, stop and
delete plans and tasks, view their states and progress.
Use the
Alerts view to rapidly identify and solve the problems.
Use the
Log view to browse the operations log.
The location where you store backup archives is called a vault (p. 441). Navigate to the
Vaults (p. 171) view to obtain information about your vaults. Navigate further to the specific
vault to view backups and their contents. You can also select the data to recover and perform
manual operations with backups (mounting, validating, deleting).
Administering the management server
Use the
Machines with agents view to manage machines registered on the management
server. To effectively work with a large number of machines, organize them into groups (p. 359).
Use the
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Virtual machines (p. 371) view to manage supported virtualization environments.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
If you opt for storing all backup archives in a single or a few networked locations, create
centralized vaults in these locations. After a vault is created, you can view and administer its
content by selecting
Vaults >
Centralized >
'Vault name' in the Navigation pane.
The shortcut to the vault will be deployed to all the registered machines. The vault can be
specified as a backup destination in any backup plan created by you or by the registered
machines' users.
Create centralized managed vaults on the storage node (p. 213) to be able to:
Search the
Data catalog (p. 131) for the required version of backed up data in all of the
managed vaults.
Back up multiple machines to tape devices (p. 190) attached to the storage node.
2.1
Use deduplication (p. 225) to minimize storage space taken by the data and reduce network
load during backup.
Using the management console
As soon as the console connects to a managed machine (p. 438) or to a management server (p. 439),
the respective items appear across the console's workspace (in the menu, in the main area with the
Welcome screen, or in the Navigation pane) enabling you to perform agent-specific or server-specific
operations.
Acronis Backup Management Console - Welcome screen
Key elements of the console workspace
21
Name
Description
Navigation pane
Contains the Navigation tree and the Shortcuts bar. Lets you navigate to the
different views. For details, see Navigation pane (p. 22).
Main area
Here you configure and monitor backup, recovery and other operations. The
main area displays views and action pages (p. 24) depending on the items
selected in the menu or Navigation tree.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Menu bar
2.1.1
Appears across the top of the program window. Lets you perform most of
operations available in Acronis Backup. The menu items change dynamically
depending on the item selected in the Navigation tree and the main area.
"Navigation" pane
The navigation pane includes the Navigation tree and the Shortcuts bar.
Navigation tree
The Navigation tree enables you to navigate across the program views. Views depend on whether
the console is connected to a managed machine or to the management server. In both cases, you can
choose between the Full list or the Short list of views. The Short list contains the most frequently
used views from the Full list.
Views for a managed machine
When the console is connected to a managed machine, the following views are available in the
navigation tree.
The Short list displays
[Machine name]. This is the root of the tree also called a Welcome screen. It displays the
name of the machine the console is currently connected to. Use this view for quick access to the
main operations, available on the managed machine.
Backup plans and tasks. Use this view to manage backup plans and tasks on the
managed machine: run, edit, stop and delete plans and tasks, view their progress.
Vaults. Use this view to manage personal vaults and archives stored in there, add new
vaults, rename and delete the existing ones, validate vaults, explore backup content, perform
operations on archives and backups, etc. If the machine is registered on the management
server, you can browse the centralized vaults and perform operations on the archives for
which you have the appropriate permissions.
Alerts. Use this view to examine warning messages for the managed machine.
The Full list additionally displays
Tape management. Use this view to perform operations with tapes.
Disk management. Use this view to perform operations on the machine's hard disk
drives.
Log. Use this view to examine information on operations performed by the program on
the managed machine.
Mounted images. This node is displayed if at least one volume is mounted. Use this view
to manage mounted images.
Views for a management server
When the console is connected to a management server, the following views are available in the
navigation tree.
The Short list displays
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[Management server name]. This is the root of the tree also called a Welcome screen.
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.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Dashboard. Use this view to estimate at a glance whether the data is successfully
protected on the machines registered on the management server.
Machines with agents. Use this view to manage machines registered on the
management server.
Backup plans and tasks. Use this view to manage centralized backup plans and tasks on
the management server.
Vaults. Use this view to manage centralized vaults and archives stored in there: create
new centralized vaults, rename and delete the existing ones, assign vault users and
administrators, perform operations on archives and backups.
Alerts. Use this view to examine warning messages for the management server and all
the registered machines.
The Full list additionally displays
Data catalog. Use this view for quick search of the required version of backed up data in
the centralized managed vaults.
Virtual machines. Use this view to manage supported virtualization environments.
Storage nodes. Use this view to manage storage nodes. Add a storage node to be able to
create centralized vaults that will be managed by the node.
Tape management. Use this view to perform operations with tapes.
Licenses. Use this view manage licenses.
Reports. Use this view to generate reports.
Log. Use this view to examine the history of centralized management operations, as well
as the history of operations logged in the local logs of the registered machines and the
storage nodes.
Shortcuts bar
The Shortcuts bar appears under the navigation tree. It offers you an easy and convenient way of
connection to the machines in demand by adding them as shortcuts.
To add a shortcut to a machine
1. Connect the console to a managed machine.
2. In the navigation tree, right-click the machine's name (a root element of the navigation tree), and
then select Create shortcut.
If the console and agent are installed on the same machine, the shortcut to this machine will be
added to the shortcuts bar automatically as Local machine [Machine name].
Operations with pane
How to expand/minimize panes
By default, the Navigation pane appears expanded. You might need to minimize the pane in order to
free some additional workspace. To do this, click the chevron ( ). The pane will be minimized and
the chevron changes its direction ( ). Click the chevron once again to expand the pane.
How to change the panes' borders
1. Point to the pane's border.
2. When the pointer becomes a double-headed arrow, drag the pointer to move the border.
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2.1.2
Main area, views and action pages
The main area is a basic place where you work with the console. Here you create, edit and manage
backup plans, recovery tasks and perform other operations. The main area displays different views
and action pages according the items you select in the menu, or Navigation tree.
2.1.2.1
Views
A view appears on the main area when clicking any item in the Navigation tree in the Navigation
pane (p. 22).
"Log" 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 (p. 24) capabilities to search the table for the item in question.
Perform actions on the selected item. There are several ways of performing the same action on
selected items:
In the table, select the desired item.
In the information panel (collapsed by default), view the item's details. To expand the panel, click
the arrow mark ( ).
By clicking the buttons on the table toolbar.
By selecting the items in the Actions menu.
By right-clicking the item and selecting the operation in the context menu.
Sorting, filtering and configuring table items
The following is a guideline to sort, filter and configure table items in any view.
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To
Do the following
Sort items by any column
Click a column's header to sort items in ascending order.
Click it once again to sort items in descending order.
Filter items by predefined
column value
In a field below the corresponding column's header, select the required value
from the drop-down list.
Filter items by entered value
In a field below the corresponding column's header, type a value.
As a result you will see the list of values, fully or just partly coincide with the
entered value.
Filter items by predefined
parameters
Click the appropriate buttons above the table.
Show or hide table columns
By default, any table has a fixed number of columns that are shown, others
are hidden. If required, you can hide the shown columns and show the hidden
ones.
For example, in the Log view, you can filter the log entries by event type
(Error, Warning, Information) or by the period when the event occurred (For
last 24 hours, For last week, For last three months, or For custom period).
To show or hide columns
1. Right-click any column header to open the context menu.
2. Click the items you want to be displayed/hidden.
2.1.2.2
Action pages
An action page appears in the main area when clicking any action item in the Actions menu. It
contains steps you need to perform in order to create and launch any task or a backup plan.
Action page - Create backup plan
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Using controls and specifying settings
Use active controls to specify a backup plan or recovery task settings and parameters. By default,
such fields as credentials, options, comments, and some others are hidden. Most settings are
configured by clicking the respective Show… links. Others are selected from the drop-down list, or
typed manually in the page's fields.
Action page - Controls
Acronis Backup remembers the changes you made on the action pages. For example, if you started to
create a backup plan, and then for any reason switched to another view without accomplishing the
plan creation, you can click the Back navigation button on the menu. Or, if you have passed several
steps forward, click the Down arrow and select the page where you started the plan creation from
the list. Thus, you can perform the remaining steps and accomplish the backup plan creation.
Navigation buttons
2.1.3
Console options
The console options define the way information is represented in the Graphical User Interface of
Acronis Backup.
To access the console options, select Options > Console options from the top menu.
2.1.3.1
Alert display options
The option specifies which alerts to show and which to hide in the Alerts view.
The preset is: All alerts.
To show (hide) alerts, select (clear) the check boxes next to the respective alert types.
2.1.3.2
Credentials cache
The option specifies whether to store the credentials entered while using the management console.
The preset is: Enabled.
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If the option is enabled, the credentials for various locations that you enter during a console session
are saved for use during later sessions. In Windows, the credentials are stored in the Windows
Credential Manager. In Linux, the credentials are stored in a special encrypted file.
If the option is disabled, the credentials are stored only until the console is closed.
To clear the credentials cache for the current user account, click the Clear credentials cache button.
2.1.3.3
Fonts
The option defines the fonts to be used in the Graphical User Interface of Acronis Backup. The Menu
font setting affects the drop-down and context menus. The Application font setting affects all 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 Browse to the right.
2.1.3.4
Pop-up messages
These options are effective when the console is connected to a managed machine or to the
management server.
The “Interaction Required” dialog
This option defines whether to display a pop-up window when one or more activities require user
interaction. This window enables you to specify your decision, such as to confirm reboot or to retry
after freeing-up the disk space, on all the activities in the same place. Until at least one activity
requires interaction, you can open this window at any time from the managed machine's welcome
screen. Alternatively, you can review the task execution states in the Backup plans and tasks view
and specify your decision on each task in the information panel.
The preset is: Enabled.
To make a selection, select or clear the The “Interaction Required” dialog check box.
The “Feedback Confirmation” dialog
This option defines whether to display a pop-up window with the information about your system
after an error occurs. You can send this information to Acronis technical support.
The preset is: Enabled.
To make a selection, select or clear the The “Feedback Confirmation” dialog check box.
Notify if bootable media is not created
This option defines whether to display a pop-up window when the management console is launched
on a machine and no bootable media has been created on that machine.
The preset is: Enabled.
To make a selection, select or clear the Notify if bootable media is not created check box.
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Notify when the management console is connected to a component of a different
version
This option defines whether to display a pop-up window when a console is connected to an
agent/management server and their versions differ.
The preset is: Enabled.
To make a selection, select or clear the Notify when the management console is connected to a
component of a different version check box.
Request description when ejecting a tape
This option defines whether to display a prompt for you to describe a tape when you eject (p. 204) it
from a tape device by using Acronis Backup. For example, you may describe the physical location
where the tape will be kept (recommended). If a tape is ejected automatically according to the Eject
tapes after successful backups option (p. 121), no such prompt is displayed.
The preset is: Enabled.
To make a selection, select or clear the Request description when ejecting a tape check box.
Note Tape devices can only be used with Acronis Backup Advanced.
About the task execution results
This option is effective only when the console is connected to a managed machine.
The option defines whether to display the pop-up messages about task run results: successful
completion, failure or success with warnings. When the displaying of pop-up messages is disabled,
you can review the task execution states and results in the Backup plans and tasks view.
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.
2.1.3.5
Startup page
This option defines whether to show the Welcome screen or the Dashboard view on the console
connection to the management server.
The preset is: the Welcome screen.
To make a selection, select or clear the check box for Show the "Dashboard" view.
This option can also be set on the Welcome screen. If you select the check box for At startup, show
the Dashboard instead of the current view on the Welcome screen, the setting mentioned above
will be updated accordingly.
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3 Understanding Acronis Backup
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.
3.1
Owners
This section explains the concept of a backup plan (task) owner and an archive owner.
Plan (task) owner
A local backup plan owner is the user who created or last modified the plan.
A centralized backup plan owner is the management server administrator who created or last
modified the centralized backup plan.
Tasks, belonging to a backup plan, either local or centralized, are owned by the backup plan owner.
Tasks that do not belong to a backup plan, such as the recovery task, are owned by the user who has
created or last modified the task.
Managing a plan (task) owned by another user
Having Administrator privileges on the machine, a user can modify local backup plans and tasks
owned by any user registered in the operating system.
When a user opens a plan or task for editing, which is owned by another user, all passwords set in
the task are cleared. This prevents the "modify settings, leave passwords" trick. The program displays
a warning each time you are trying to edit a plan (task) last modified by another user. On seeing the
warning, you have two options:
Click Cancel and create your own plan or task. The original task will remain intact.
Continue editing. You will have to enter all credentials required for the plan or task execution.
Archive owner
An archive owner is the user who saved the archive to the destination. To be more precise, this is the
user whose account was specified when creating the backup plan in the Where to back up step. By
default, the plan's credentials are used.
3.2
Credentials used in backup plans and tasks
This section explains the concept of access credentials, backup plan's credentials and task
credentials.
Access credentials
When browsing backup locations, setting up backups, or creating recovery tasks, you may need to
provide credentials for accessing various resources, such as the data you are going to back up or the
location where the backups are (or will be) stored.
If the Credentials cache (p. 26) option is enabled (it is enabled by default), the credentials which you
provide during a console session are saved for use during the later sessions. Thus, there is no need to
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enter the credentials next time. The credentials are cached independently for each user who uses the
console on the machine.
Backup plan's credentials
Any backup plan running on a machine runs on behalf of a user.
In Windows
By default, the plan runs under the agent service account, if created by a user having administrative
privileges on the machine. If created by a regular user, such as a member of the Users group, the
plan runs under this user's account.
When creating a backup plan, you are only asked for credentials in specific cases. For example:
You are scheduling backups as a regular user and did not enter credentials when connecting the
console to the machine. This may be the case when the console is installed on the same machine
that you are backing up.
You are backing up a Microsoft Exchange cluster to a storage node.
Specifying the credentials explicitly
You have the option to explicitly specify a user account under which the backup plan will run. To do
this, on the backup plan creation page:
1. In the Plan parameters section, click Show plan's credentials, comments, label.
2. Click Plan's credentials.
3. Enter the credentials under which the plan will run. When entering the name of an Active
Directory user account, be sure to also specify the domain name (DOMAIN\Username or
Username@domain).
In Linux
You do not need to specify backup plan's credentials. In Linux, backup plans always run under the
root user account.
Task credentials
Like a backup plan, any task runs on behalf of a user.
In Windows
When creating a task, you have the option to explicitly specify an account under which the task will
run. Your choice depends on whether the task is intended for manual start or for executing on
schedule.
Manual start
Every time you manually 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.
Scheduled or postponed start
The task credentials are mandatory. You cannot complete the task creation until you specify the
task credentials. Task credentials are specified on the task creation page in a similar manner as
the plan’s credentials are specified.
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In Linux
You do not need to specify task credentials. In Linux, tasks always run under the root user account.
3.3
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.
Regular users
A regular user, such as a member of the Users group, has the following management rights:
Perform file-level backup and recovery of the files that the user has permissions to access—but
without using a file-level backup snapshot (p. 112).
Create backup plans and tasks and manage them.
View—but not manage—backup plans and tasks created by other users.
View the local event log.
Backup operators
A user who is a member of the Backup Operators group, also has the following management right:
Back up and recover the entire machine or any data on the machine, with or without using a disk
snapshot. Using a hardware snapshot provider may still require administrative privileges.
Administrators
A user who is a member of the Administrators group, also has the following management right:
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
agent operations and log files on the machine.
Manage local backup plans and tasks owned by any user registered in the operating system.
To avoid routine logging on to the system as root, the root user can log on with the ordinary user
credentials and then switch user as required.
3.4
List of Acronis services
During installation, Acronis Backup creates several services.
Main services present the main components of Acronis Backup: the agent, the management
server, the storage node.
Auxiliary services enable certain functionalities of the main components.
Common services assist multiple Acronis Backup components and other Acronis products.
Services of Acronis Backup components
A main service can run under a dedicated account or under an account you specify during installation.
Either account is given privileges that are needed for the service to work. The privileges include a set
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of user rights, membership in security groups, and the Full Control permissions on respective registry
keys in the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis. There are no permissions
granted on other registry keys.
The following table lists the services of Acronis Backup components and the privileges for their
accounts.
Service name
Purpose
Account used
by the service
Privileges added to the account
User rights
Group
membership
Permissions on registry
keys
Services for Acronis Backup agents
Acronis
Backing up and
Managed
recovering data
Machine Service on the machine
(Main service)
Acronis Agent
User (new
account) or
user-specified
account
Log on as a
service
Adjust memory
quotas for a
process
Replace a
process level
token
Backup
BackupAndRecovery
Operators
Encryption
(for any account)
Global
Administrators
(for new account MMS
only)
Modify
firmware
environment
values
Acronis VSS
Provider
(Auxiliary
service; created
only for Agent
for Windows in a
Windows Server
operating
system)
Acronis
Removable
Storage
Management
Service
(Auxiliary
service)
Local System
No additional privileges
Managing locally Local System
attached tape
devices. Can be
also used by the
Storage Node
Service.
No additional privileges
Using a Volume
Shadow Copy
(VSS) provider
(p. 124) that
comes with
Acronis Backup
Services for Acronis Backup Management Server
Acronis
Management
Server Service
(Main service)
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Centrally
managing
backup
operations on
multiple
machines
AMS User
Log on as a
(new account) service
or
user-specified
account
Acronis
Centralized
Admins
AMS
BackupAndRecovery
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Service name
Purpose
Account used
by the service
Privileges added to the account
User rights
Running a
Local System
Microsoft SQL
Server that is
(Auxiliary
optionally
service; created
installed with
only if a new SQL
the management
server is
server
installed)
(Auxiliary
service)
Permissions on registry
keys
No additional privileges
SQL Server
(ACRONIS)
Acronis Web
Server Service
Group
membership
Same as for Acronis Management Server Service
Hosting the
management
server Web page
Services for Acronis Backup Storage Node
Acronis Storage
Node Service
(Main service)
Acronis
Removable
Storage
Management
Service
(Auxiliary
service)
Managing and
deduplicating
backup archives,
maintaining the
centralized data
catalog
ASN User (new Log on as a
account) or
service
user-specified
account
Managing locally Local System
attached tape
devices. Can also
be used by the
Managed
Machine Service.
Backup
ASN
Operators
BackupAndRecovery
(for any account)
Encryption
Administrators
(for new account
only)
No additional privileges
Common services
The following services can be used by multiple components of Acronis Backup and by other Acronis
products. These services always run under a system account. No additional privileges are given to the
account.
Service name
Purpose
Account used by the service
Services for Acronis PXE Server
Acronis PXE
Server Service
Booting machines into Acronis bootable components over
the network
Local System
Acronis File
Server Service
Providing bootable components for Acronis PXE Server
Local System
Remote-access and scheduling services
Acronis Remote
Agent Service
Providing connectivity among Acronis components
Local System
(Windows Vista and later)
or
NetworkService
(earlier than Windows Vista)
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Acronis
Scheduler2
Service
Providing scheduling for tasks performed by Acronis
components
Local System
Dependencies on other services
The main services depend on Acronis Scheduler2 Service and on the following standard Windows
services: Remote Procedure Call (RPC) and Protected Storage. Acronis Managed Machine Service
and Acronis Storage Node Service also depend on the Windows Management Instrumentation
standard service.
To view the list of dependencies for a service, do the following:
1. In the Services snap-in, double-click the name of the service.
2. On the Dependencies tab, examine the This service depends… field.
3.5
Full, incremental and differential backups
Acronis Backup provides the capability to use popular backup schemes, such as
Grandfather-Father-Son and Tower of Hanoi, as well as to create custom backup schemes. All backup
schemes are based on full, incremental and differential backup methods. The term "scheme" in fact
denotes the algorithm of applying these methods plus the algorithm of the archive cleanup.
Comparing backup methods with each other does not make much sense because the methods work
as a team in a backup scheme. Each method should play its specific role according to its advantages.
A competent backup scheme will benefit from the advantages of all backup methods and lessen the
influence of all the methods’ shortcomings. For example, weekly differential backup facilitates
archive cleanup because it can be easily deleted along with the weekly set of daily incremental
backups depending on it.
Backing up with the full, incremental or differential backup method results in a backup (p. 430) of the
corresponding type.
Full backup
A full backup stores all data selected for backup. A full backup underlies any archive and forms the
base for incremental and differential backups. An archive can contain multiple full backups or consist
of only full backups. A full backup is self-sufficient - you do not need access to any other backup to
recover data from a full backup.
It is widely accepted that a full backup is the slowest to do but the fastest to restore. With Acronis
technologies, recovery from an incremental backup may be not slower than recovery from a full one.
A full backup is most useful when:
you need to roll back the system to its initial state
this initial state does not change often, so there is no need for regular backup.
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). The backup time is not crucial in this case and the recovery time will be
minimal when recovering the systems from the full backup. The administrator can have several
copies of the full backup for additional reliability.
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Incremental backup
An incremental backup stores changes to the data against the latest backup. You need access to
other backups from the same archive to recover data from an incremental backup.
An incremental backup is most useful when:
you need the possibility to roll back to any one of multiple saved states
the data changes tend to be small as compared to the total data size.
It is widely accepted that incremental backups are less reliable than full ones because if one backup
in the "chain" is corrupted, the next ones can no longer be used. However, storing multiple full
backups is not an option when you need multiple prior versions of your data, because reliability of an
oversized archive is even more questionable.
Example: Backing up a database transaction log.
Differential backup
A differential backup stores changes to the data against the latest full backup. You need access to
the corresponding full backup to recover the data from a differential backup. A differential backup is
most useful when:
you are interested in saving only the most recent data state
the data changes tend to be small as compared to the total data size.
The typical conclusion is: "differential backups take longer to do and are faster to restore, while
incremental ones are quicker to do and take longer to restore." In fact, there is no physical difference
between an incremental backup appended to a full backup and a differential backup appended to
the same full backup at the same point of time. The above mentioned difference implies creating a
differential backup after (or instead of) creating multiple incremental backups.
An incremental or differential backup created after disk defragmentation might be considerably larger than
usual because defragmentation changes file locations on the disk and the backup reflects these changes. It is
recommended that you re-create a full backup after disk defragmentation.
The following table summarizes the advantages and shortcomings of each backup type as they
appear based on common knowledge. In real life, these parameters depend on numerous factors
such as the amount, speed and pattern of data changes; the nature of the data, the physical
specifications of the devices, the backup/recovery options you set, to name a few. Practice is the
best guide to selecting the optimal backup scheme.
Parameter
Full backup
Differential backup
Incremental backup
Storage space
Maximal
Medium
Minimal
Creation time
Maximal
Medium
Minimal
Recovery time
Minimal
Medium
Maximal
3.6
What does a disk or volume backup store?
A disk or volume backup stores a disk or a volume file system as a whole and includes all of the
information necessary for the operating system to boot. It is possible to recover disks or volumes as a
whole from such backups as well as individual folders or files.
Windows
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A volume backup stores all 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).
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.
The following items are not included in a disk or volume backup (as well as in a file-level backup):
The swap file (pagefile.sys) and the file that keeps the RAM content when the machine goes
into hibernation (hiberfil.sys). After recovery, the files will be re-created in the appropriate
place with the zero size.
Windows shadow storage. The path to it is determined in the registry value VSS Default
Provider which can be found in the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToBa
ckup. This means that in operating systems starting with Windows Vista, Windows Restore
Points are not backed up.
Linux
A volume backup stores all files and directories 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.
With the sector-by-sector (raw mode) option enabled, a disk backup stores all the disk sectors. The
sector-by-sector backup can be used for backing up disks with unrecognized or unsupported file
systems and other proprietary data formats.
3.7
About dynamic and logical volumes
3.7.1
Backup and recovery of dynamic volumes (Windows)
This section explains in brief how to back up and recover dynamic volumes (p. 436) using Acronis
Backup.
A dynamic volume is a volume located on dynamic disks (p. 435), or more exactly, on a disk group (p.
435). Acronis Backup supports the following dynamic volume types/RAID levels:
simple/spanned
striped (RAID 0)
mirrored (RAID 1)
a mirror of stripes (RAID 0+1)
RAID-5.
Backing up dynamic volumes
Dynamic volumes are backed up in the same way as basic 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 volumes with the DYN prefix.
Command line examples
acrocmd backup disk --volume=DYN1,DYN2 --loc=\\srv1\backups
--credentials=netuser1,pass1 --arc=dyn1_2_arc
This will back up volumes DYN1 and DYN2 to a network shared folder.
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acrocmd backup disk --volume=DYN --loc=\\srv1\backups --credentials=netuser1,pass1
--arc=alldyn_arc
This will back up all dynamic volumes of the local machine to a network shared folder.
Recovering dynamic volumes
A dynamic volume can be recovered:
Over any type of existing volume.
To unallocated space of a disk group.
To unallocated space of a basic disk.
To a disk which has not been initialized.
Recovery over an existing volume
When a dynamic volume is recovered over an existing volume, either basic or dynamic, the
target volume’s data is overwritten with the backup content. The type of target volume (basic,
simple/spanned, striped, mirrored, RAID 0+1, RAID-5) will not change. The target volume size has
to be enough to accommodate the backup content.
Recovery to disk group unallocated space
When recovering a dynamic volume to disk group unallocated space, the software preserves the
volume's original type and size. If the disk group configuration does not allow for the original
volume type, the volume will be recovered as a simple or spanned volume. If this volume does
not fit the unallocated space, the volume will be resized by decreasing its free space.
Examples of when the disk group configuration does not allow the original type of the volume
Example 1. The group contains fewer disks than is required for the dynamic volume. Assume you
are going to recover an 80 GB RAID-5 volume that had resided on three disks, to a disk group
consisting of two disks. The total size of unallocated space is 100 GB: 40 GB on the first disk and
60 GB on the second. The RAID-5 volume will be recovered as a spanned volume across two
disks.
Example 2. Unallocated space distribution does not allow recovery of certain types of dynamic
volumes. Assume you are going to recover a 30 GB striped volume to a disk group consisting of
two disks. The total size of unallocated space is 50 GB: 10 GB on the first disk and 40 GB on the
second. The striped volume will be recovered to the second disk as simple.
Recovery to a disk that has not been initialized
In this case, the target disk will be automatically initialized to the MBR partitioning style. The
dynamic volumes will be recovered as basic ones. If the volumes cannot fit into unallocated
space, they will be proportionally resized (by decreasing their free space).
The table below demonstrates the resulting volume types depending on the backed-up source and
the recovery target.
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Backup (source):
Recovered to:
Dynamic volume
Basic volume
Dynamic volume
Dynamic volume
Type as of the target
Dynamic volume
Type as of the target
Unallocated space (disk group)
Dynamic volume
Type as of the source
Basic volume
Dynamic volume
Simple
Basic volume
Basic volume or unallocated space on
a basic disk
Moving and resizing volumes during recovery
You can manually resize the resulting basic volume during recovery, or change the volume's
location on the disk. A resulting dynamic volume cannot be moved or resized manually.
Preparing disk groups and volumes
Before recovering dynamic volumes to bare metal you should create a disk group on the target
hardware.
You also might need to create or increase unallocated space on an existing disk group. This can be
done by deleting volumes or converting basic disks to dynamic.
You might want to change the target volume type (basic, simple/spanned, striped, mirrored, RAID
0+1, RAID 5). This can be done by deleting the target volume and creating a new volume on the
resulting unallocated space.
Acronis Backup includes a handy disk management utility which enables you to perform the above
operations both under the operating system and on bare metal. To find out more about Acronis Disk
Director Lite, see the Disk management (p. 262) section.
3.7.2
Backup and recovery of logical volumes and MD devices
(Linux)
This section explains how you would back up and recover volumes managed by Linux Logical Volume
Manager (LVM), called logical volumes; and multiple-disk (MD) devices, called Linux Software RAID.
To learn more about LVM please visit http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/ or
http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/5.1/Deployment_Guide/ch-lvm.html.
3.7.2.1
Backing up logical volumes
Acronis Backup Agent for Linux can access, back up, and recover logical volumes when running in
Linux starting with 2.6.x kernel or under Linux-based bootable media.
Backup
In Acronis Backup GUI, logical volumes appear under Dynamic volumes at the end of the list of
volumes available for backup. If you select logical volumes for backup, the logical volume structure
will be saved to the backup along with the volume contents. This structure can be automatically
recreated when you recover these volumes under a Linux-based bootable media.
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.
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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. Normally this is not
required.
Recovery
When recovering logical volumes, you have two options:
Recovering volume contents only. The type or other properties of the target volume will not
change.
This option is available both in the operating system and under bootable media.
This option is useful in the following cases:
When some data on the volume was lost, but no hard disks were replaced.
When recovering a logical volume over a basic disk or volume. You can resize the resulting
volume in this case.
A system, recovered from a logical volume backup to a basic disk, cannot boot because its kernel tries
to mount the root file system at the logical volume. To boot the system, change the loader
configuration and /etc/fstab so that LVM is not used and reactivate your boot loader (p. 150).
When recovering a basic or logical volume to an existing logical volume.
If the boot partition (/boot) was located on a basic volume, we recommend recovering it to a basic
volume, even if your boot loader supports booting from logical volumes.
Recovering both the structure of logical volumes and their contents.
Such is the case when recovering on bare metal or on a machine with different volume structure.
The structure of logical volumes can be automatically created at the time of recovery (p. 41).
This option is available only under bootable media.
For detailed instructions on how to recover logical volumes, see Recovering MD devices and logical
volumes (p. 40).
3.7.2.2
Backing up MD devices
MD devices, known as Linux Software RAID, combine several volumes and make solid block devices
(/dev/md0, /dev/md1, ..., /dev/md31). The information about MD devices is stored in /etc/raidtab
or in dedicated areas of those volumes.
You can back up active (mounted) MD devices in the same way as logical volumes. The MD devices
appear at the end of the list of volumes available for backup. If you select MD devices for backup, the
structure of the MD devices will be backed up along with their contents.
Backing up volumes included in MD devices does not make sense when an MD device is mounted, as
it won’t be possible to recover them.
When recovering MD devices under bootable media, the structure of MD devices can be recreated
automatically. For detailed information about recovering MD devices under bootable media, see
Recovering MD devices and logical volumes (p. 40).
For information about assembling MD devices when performing recovery in Linux, see Assembling
MD devices for recovery (Linux) (p. 40).
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3.7.2.3
Backing up hardware RAID arrays (Linux)
Hardware RAID arrays under Linux combine several physical drives to create a single partitionable
disk. The special file related to a hardware RAID array is usually located in /dev/ataraid. You can back
up hardware RAID arrays in the same way as ordinary hard disks.
Physical drives that are part of hardware RAID arrays may be listed alongside other disks as if they
had a bad partition table or no partition table at all. Backing up such disks does not make sense as it
won’t be possible to recover them.
3.7.2.4
Assembling MD devices for recovery (Linux)
In Linux, when performing recovery from a disk backup to an existing MD device (also called Linux
Software RAID), make sure that this device is assembled at the time of recovery.
If the device is not assembled, assemble it by using the mdadm utility. Here are two examples:
Example 1. The following command assembles the device /dev/md0 combined from the volumes
/dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdc1:
mdadm --assemble /dev/md0 -ayes /dev/sdb1 /sdc1
Example 2. The following command assembles the device /dev/md0 combined from the disks
/dev/sdb and /dev/sdc:
mdadm --assemble /dev/md0 -ayes /dev/sdb /dev/sdc
If the recovery requires the machine to be rebooted (usually, when the volumes to recover include
the boot partition), follow these guidelines:
If all parts of the MD device are volumes (a typical case, such as in the first example), make sure
that each volume type—called partition type or system ID—is Linux raid automount; the
hexadecimal code of this partition type is 0xFD. This will guarantee that the device will be
automatically assembled following the reboot. To view or change the partition type, use a disk
partitioning utility such as fdisk.
Otherwise (such as in the second example), perform the recovery from bootable media. No
reboot will be required in that case. In bootable media, you may need to create the MD device
manually or automatically, as described in Recovering MD devices and logical volumes (p. 40).
3.7.2.5
Recovering MD devices and logical volumes
Recovering MD devices and/or volumes created by Logical Volume Manager (logical volumes)
assumes that the corresponding volume structure will be recreated.
In Linux-based bootable media, you can choose to recreate the volume structure automatically (p.
41).
This functionality is intended primarily for bare-metal recovery of an entire machine. The software
backs up and recreates the entire logical volume structure, even if not all MD devices or logical
volumes are being backed up or recovered. Therefore, you need at least as many disks as the original
volume structure used.
Do not try to recreate the volume structure automatically in any of the following cases:
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The machine has data that must be preserved. The software will destroy all data on the disks
that it chooses to recreate the volume structure on.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
The machine has fewer physical disks than the original volume structure used. The software will
fail to recreate the volume structure even if the capacity of the physical disks is enough to fit all
the data being recovered.
The backup does not contain the volume structure information. This information might be
absent in backups created by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, because saving it was optional.
In these cases, create the volume structure manually (p. 41) prior to recovery. You can do this by
using the mdadm and lvm utilities, either in Linux-based bootable media or in Linux.
Creating the volume structure automatically
Use the following procedure to automatically recreate the logical volume structure on a machine.
Caution As a result of the following procedure, the current volume structure on the machine will be replaced
with the one stored in the backup. This will destroy the data that is currently stored on some or all of the
machine's hard disks.
If disk configuration has changed. An MD device or a logical volume resides on one or more disks. If
you replaced any of these disks between backup and recovery (or if you are recovering the volumes
to a different machine), ensure that the new disk configuration includes at least the same number of
disks as the original volume structure did. The capacity of the disks must be enough to fit all the data
being recovered.
To create the volume structure automatically
1. Boot the machine from a Linux-based bootable media.
2. Click Acronis Bootable Agent. Then, click Run management console.
3. In the management console, click Recover.
Under the archive contents, Acronis Backup will display a message saying that it detected
information about the volume structure.
4. Click Details in the area with that message.
5. Review the volume structure, and then click Apply RAID/LVM to create it.
Creating the volume structure manually
The following is a general procedure for recovering MD devices and logical volumes by using a
Linux-based bootable media, and an example of such recovery. You can use a similar procedure in
Linux.
To create the volume structure manually
1. Boot the machine from a Linux-based bootable media.
2. Click Acronis Backup. Then, click Run management console.
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
acrocmd utility. Also, you can use this utility to mount one or more of these volumes as if they
were regular volumes (see "Mounting backup volumes" later in this topic).
5. Create the volume structure according to that in the archive, by using the mdadm utility (for MD
devices), the lvm utility (for logical volumes), or both.
Note: Logical Volume Manager utilities such as pvcreate and vgcreate, which are normally available in
Linux, are not included in the bootable media environment, so you need to use the lvm utility with a
corresponding command. For example: lvm pvcreate, lvm vgcreate, and lvm lvcreate.
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6. If you previously mounted the backup by using the acrocmd utility, use this utility again to
unmount the backup (see "Mounting backup volumes" later in this topic).
7. Return to the management console by pressing ALT+F1.
(Do not reboot the machine at this point. Otherwise, you will have to create the volume
structure again.)
8. Click Recover, then specify the path to the archive and any other required parameters, and then
click OK.
Note: This procedure will not work if you connect to Acronis Backup Bootable Agent remotely, because the
command shell is not available in this case.
Example
Suppose that you previously performed a disk-level backup of a machine with the following disk
configuration:
The machine has two 1-gigabyte and two 2-gigabyte SCSI hard disks, mounted on /dev/sda,
/dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, and /dev/sdd, respectively.
The first and second pairs of hard disks are configured as two MD devices; both are in the RAID-1
configuration, and are mounted on /dev/md0 and /dev/md1, respectively.
A logical volume is based on the two MD devices and is mounted on
/dev/my_volgroup/my_logvol.
The following picture illustrates this configuration.
Do the following to recover data from this archive.
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.
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lvm pvcreate /dev/md0 /dev/md1
lvm vgcreate my_volgroup /dev/md0 /dev/md1
lvm vgdisplay
The output of the lvm vgdisplay command will contain lines similar to the following:
--- Volume group --VG Name
my_volgroup
...
VG Access
read/write
VG Status
resizable
...
VG Size
1.99 GB
...
VG UUID
0qoQ4l-Vk7W-yDG3-uF1l-Q2AL-C0z0-vMeACu
5. Run the following command to create the logical volume; in the -L parameter, specify the size
given by VG Size:
lvm lvcreate -L1.99G --name my_logvol my_volgroup
6. Activate the volume group by running the following command:
lvm vgchange -a y my_volgroup
7. Press ALT+F1 to return to the management console.
Step 2: Starting the recovery
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
In the management console, click Recover.
In Archive, click Change and then specify the name of the archive.
In Backup, click Change and then select the backup from which you want to recover data.
In Data type, select Volumes.
In Items to recover, select the check box next to my_volgroup-my_logvol.
Under Where to recover, click Change, and then select the logical volume that you created in
Step 1. Click the chevron buttons to expand the list of disks.
7. Click OK to start the recovery.
For a complete list of commands and utilities that you can use in the bootable media environment,
see List of commands and utilities available in Linux-based bootable media (p. 258). For detailed
descriptions of the acrocmd utility, see the Acronis Backup command-line reference.
Mounting backup volumes
You may want to mount a volume stored in a disk backup, for example, to view some files in it before
starting the recovery.
To mount a backup volume
1. Use the acrocmd list content command to list the disks and volumes that are stored in the
backup. For example, the following command lists the content of the latest backup of the
linux_machine archive:
acrocmd list content --loc=\\server\backups --credentials=user,MyPassWd
--arc=linux_machine
The output will contain lines similar to the following:
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type: disk
Num
----------Dyn1
Dyn2
Disk 1
1-1
1-2
1-3
Disk 2
2-1
2-2
Disk 3
Disk 4
4-1
4-2
Partition
-------------------my_volgroup-my_lo...
md0
sda
sda1
sda2
sda3
sdb
sdb1
sdb2
sdc
sdd
sdd1
sdd2
Flags
----------
Act,Pri
Pri
Pri
Pri
Pri
Pri
Pri
Size
----------
Type
-------------
4 GB
2.007
16 GB
203.9
11.72
1.004
8 GB
2.007
2.007
1 GB
8 GB
2.007
2.007
Ext 3
Ext 2
DT_FIXED
Ext 2
Reiser
Linux swap
DT_FIXED
Ext 2
None
DT_FIXED
DT_FIXED
Ext 2
None
GB
MB
GB
GB
GB
GB
GB
GB
GUID
------
2. Use the acrocmd mount command, specifying the volume's name in the --volume parameter.
For example:
acrocmd mount --loc=\\server\backups --arc=linux_machine --mount_point=/mnt
--volume=DYN1
This command mounts the logical volume DYN1 on the mount point /mnt.
To unmount a backup volume
Use the acrocmd umount command, specifying the volume's mount point as a parameter. For
example:
acrocmd umount --mount_point=/mnt
3.8
Support for Advanced Format (4K-sector) hard disks
Acronis Backup can back up hard disks with a sector size of 4 KB (known as Advanced Format disks),
as well as traditional hard disks that have 512-byte sectors.
Acronis Backup can recover data from one disk to another as long as both disks have the same logical
sector size. (This is the sector size presented to the operating system.) Acronis Backup automatically
aligns the disk’s volumes (p. 140) if necessary. This way, the start of a cluster in the file system always
matches the start of a physical sector on the disk.
The disk management (p. 262) functionality of Acronis Backup is not available for disks with a 4-KB
logical sector size.
Determining the logical sector size
By disk specification
Development of the Advanced Format technology is coordinated by the International Disk Drive
Equipment and Materials Association (IDEMA). For more details, see
http://www.idema.org/?page_id=2.
In terms of the logical sector size, IDEMA specifies two types of Advanced Format disks:
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512 Byte emulation (512e) disks have a 512-byte logical sector size. These disks are supported in
Windows starting with Windows Vista, and in modern Linux distributions. Microsoft and Western
Digital use the term “Advanced Format” exclusively for this type of disk.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
4K native (4Kn) disks have a 4-KB logical sector size. Modern operating systems can store data on
these disks, but they generally cannot boot from these disks. These disks are commonly external
drives with USB connection.
By running the appropriate command
To find out the logical sector size of a disk, do the following.
In Windows:
1. Make sure that the disk contains an NTFS volume.
2. Run the following command as an administrator, specifying the drive letter of the NTFS
volume:
fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo D:
3. Examine the value in the Bytes Per Sector line. For example, the output may be the
following:
Bytes Per Sector : 512
In Linux:
1. Determine the device name of the disk, such as /dev/sdb.
2. Run the following command as the root user, specifying the device name:
parted /dev/sdb print
3. Examine the first value in the Sector size (logical/physical) line. For example, the output may
be the following:
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
3.9
Support for UEFI-based machines
Acronis Backup can back up and recover machines that use 64-bit Unified Extensible Firmware
Interface (UEFI) in the same way as it does for machines that use BIOS for booting.
This applies to both physical and virtual machines, no matter if the virtual machines are backed up at
a hypervisor level or from inside a guest OS.
Backup and recovery of devices that use 32-bit UEFI are not supported.
Limitations
WinPE-based bootable media of versions earlier than 4.0 and Acronis PXE Server do not support
UEFI booting.
Acronis Active Restore (p. 429) is not available on UEFI machines.
A machine running Linux cannot be transferred between UEFI and BIOS. For details about
transferring Windows machines, see "Recovering BIOS-based systems to UEFI-based or vice
versa" (p. 143).
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (ASRM) (p. 429) is not supported on UEFI machines running
Linux. On UEFI machines running Windows, activate ASRM in Windows rather than under
bootable media.
3.10 Support for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012
This section describes how Acronis Backup supports features that are introduced in the Windows 8
and Windows Server 2012 operating systems.
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The information in this section also applies to Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 10,
and Windows Server 2016.
Limitations
Acronis Disk Director Lite (p. 262) is not available under Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.
The Windows To Go feature of Windows 8 is not supported.
Disk management operations under bootable media may work incorrectly if storage spaces are
configured on the machine.
WinPE 4.0 and WinPE 5.0
Acronis Media Builder can create bootable media based on these versions of Windows Preinstallation
Environment (WinPE).
These bootable media support new features of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 (see later in
this section). They can boot on machines that use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).
To create bootable media based on these versions of WinPE, you need Windows Assessment and
Deployment Kit (ADK). For more details, see the “WinPE-based bootable media” (p. 253) section.
UEFI Secure Boot
On a machine that runs Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 and uses UEFI, the Secure Boot feature
of UEFI may be turned on. Secure Boot ensures that only trusted boot loaders can boot the machine.
By using Acronis Media Builder, you can create a bootable media that has a trusted boot loader. To
do this, choose to create a 64-bit Linux-based media or a 64-bit media based on WinPE 4 or later.
Resilient file system (ReFS)
In Windows Server 2012, you can format a volume by using the ReFS file system. This file system
provides a more reliable way of storing data on the volume as compared with the NTFS file system.
In Windows Server 2012 and under a bootable media based on WinPE 4 or later, you can back up
and recover a ReFS volume. Resizing a ReFS volume during recovery is not supported.
Linux-based bootable media and bootable media based on WinPE version earlier than 4.0 cannot
write files to a ReFS volume. Therefore, you cannot recover files to a ReFS volume by using these
media; and you cannot select a ReFS volume as a backup destination.
Storage spaces
In Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, you can combine several physical disks into a storage pool.
In this storage pool, you can create one or more logical disks, called storage spaces. As with ordinary
disks, storage spaces can have volumes.
In Windows 8, in Windows Server 2012, and under a bootable media based on WinPE 4 or later,
you can back up and recover storage spaces. In Windows Server 2012 and under a bootable media
based on WinPE 4 or later, you also can recover a storage space to an ordinary disk or vice versa.
Linux-based bootable media does not recognize storage spaces. It backs up the underlying disks
sector-by-sector. The same applies to Agent for VMware and Agent for Hyper-V. If you recover all of
the underlying disks to the original disks, the storage spaces will be recreated.
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Data Deduplication
In Windows Server 2012, you can enable the Data Deduplication feature for an NTFS volume. Data
Deduplication reduces the used space on the volume by storing duplicate fragments of the volume's
files only once.
You can back up and recover a data deduplication–enabled volume at a disk level, without limitations.
File-level backup is supported, except when using Acronis VSS Provider. To recover files from a disk
backup, mount the backup (p. 241) on a machine running Windows Server 2012, and then copy the
files from the mounted volume.
The Data Deduplication feature of Windows Server 2012 is unrelated to the Acronis Backup
Deduplication feature.
3.11 Compatibility with encryption software
Acronis Backup fully retains its functionality when interacting with file-level encryption software.
Disk-level encryption software encrypts data on the fly. This is why data contained in the backup is
not encrypted. Disk-level encryption software often modifies system areas: boot records, or partition
tables, or file system tables. These factors affect disk-level backup and recovery, the ability of the
recovered system to boot and access to Acronis Secure Zone.
Under some conditions, Acronis Backup is compatible with the following disk-level encryption
software:
Microsoft BitLocker Drive Encryption
McAfee Endpoint Encryption
PGP Whole Disk Encryption.
To ensure reliable disk-level recovery, follow the common rules and software-specific
recommendations.
Common installation rule
The strong recommendation is to install the encryption software before installing Acronis Backup.
The way of using Acronis Secure Zone
Acronis Secure Zone must not be encrypted with disk-level encryption. This is the only way to use
Acronis Secure Zone:
1. Install encryption software; then, install Acronis Backup.
2. Create Acronis Secure Zone.
3. Exclude Acronis Secure Zone when encrypting the disk or its volumes.
Common backup rule
You can do a disk-level backup in the operating system. Do not try to back up using bootable media
or Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.
Software-specific recovery procedures
Microsoft BitLocker Drive Encryption
To recover a system that was encrypted by BitLocker:
1. Boot from the bootable media.
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2. Recover the system. The recovered data will be unencrypted.
3. Reboot the recovered system.
4. Turn on BitLocker.
If you only need to recover one partition of a multi-partitioned disk, do so under the operating
system. Recovery under bootable media may make the recovered partition undetectable for
Windows.
McAfee Endpoint Encryption and PGP Whole Disk Encryption
You can recover an encrypted system partition by using bootable media only.
If the recovered system fails to boot, rebuild Master Boot Record as described in the following
Acronis knowledge base article: http://kb.acronis.com/content/1507 and reboot.
3.12 Support for SNMP
SNMP objects
Acronis Backup provides the following Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) objects to
SNMP management applications:
Type of event
Object identifier (OID): 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.1.0
Syntax: OctetString
The value may be "Information", "Warning", 'Error" and "Unknown". "Unknown" is sent only in
the test message.
Text description of the event
Object identifier (OID): 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.0
Syntax: OctetString
The value contains the text description of the event (it looks identical to messages published by
Acronis Backup in its log).
Example of varbind values:
1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.1.0:Information
1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.0:I0064000B
Supported operations
Acronis Backup supports only TRAP operations. It is not possible to manage Acronis Backup using
GET- and SET- requests. This means that you need to use an SNMP Trap receiver to receive
TRAP-messages.
About the management information base (MIB)
The MIB file acronis-abr.mib is located in the Acronis Backup 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.
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About the test message
When configuring SNMP notifications, you can send a test message to check if your settings are
correct.
The parameters of the test message are as follows:
Type of event
OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.1.0
Value: "Unknown"
Text description of the event
OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.0
Value: "?00000000"
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Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
4 Backup
4.1
Back up now
Use the Back up now feature to configure and run a one-time backup in a few simple steps. The
backup process will start immediately after you perform the required steps and click OK.
For a long-time backup strategy that includes schedules and conditions, timely deleting of backups or
moving them to different locations, consider creating a backup plan.
Configuring immediate backup is similar to creating a backup plan (p. 50) except for the following:
There are no options to schedule backups and to set up retention rules.
Conversion of a disk-level backup to a virtual machine is not available as a part of the backup
operation. You can convert the resulting backup afterwards.
Simplified naming of backup files (p. 72) is used, if the backup destination supports it. Otherwise,
the standard backup naming is used.
The following locations do not support simplified file naming: managed vaults, tape, Acronis
Secure Zone or Acronis Cloud Storage.
Due to simplified file naming, an RDX drive or USB flash drive can only be used in the removable
media (p. 189) mode.
4.2
Creating a backup plan
Before creating your first backup plan (p. 430), please familiarize yourself with the basic concepts
used in Acronis Backup.
To create a backup plan, perform the following steps.
What to back up
Items to back up (p. 52)
Select the type of data to back up and specify the data items. The type of data depends on
the agents installed on the machine.
Access credentials, exclusions
To access these settings, click Show access credentials, exclusions.
Access credentials (p. 54)
Provide credentials for the source data if the plan's account does not have access
permissions to the data.
Exclusions (p. 55)
Set up exclusions for the specific types of files you do not wish to back up.
Where to back up
Location (p. 56)
Specify a path to the location where the backup archive will be stored and the archive name.
The archive name has to be unique within the location. Otherwise, backups of the newly
created backup plan will be placed to the existing archive that belongs to another backup
plan. The default archive name is Archive(N) where N is the sequence number of the archive
in the location you have selected.
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Select the mode the removable device will be used in (p. 189)
If the specified location is an RDX drive or USB flash drive, select the device mode:
Removable media or Fixed drive.
Backup file naming, access credentials, archive comments
To access these settings, click Show backup file naming, access credentials, archive comments.
File naming (p. 72)
[Optional] Select the Name backup files using the archive name, as in Acronis True Image
Echo, rather than auto-generated names check box if you want to use simplified file naming
for the archive’s backups.
Not available when backing up to a managed vault, tape, Acronis Secure Zone, or Acronis
Cloud Storage. When backing up to an RDX drive or USB flash drive, the file naming scheme is
determined by the removable device mode (p. 189).
Access credentials (p. 59)
[Optional] Provide credentials for the location if the plan account does not have access
permissions to the location.
Archive comments
[Optional] Enter comments on the archive.
Single-pass disk and application backup (p. 305)
Applies only to machines that have a license for single-pass backup
Specify settings related to single-pass disk and application backup.
How to back up
Backup scheme (p. 60)
Specify when and how often to back up your data; define for how long to keep the created
backup archives in the selected location; set up schedule for the archive cleanup procedure
(see “Replication and retention settings” below).
Replication and retention settings (p. 91)
Not available for removable media or when simplified naming of backup files (p. 72) is
chosen.
Define whether to copy (replicate) the backups to another location, and whether to move or
delete them according to retention rules. The available settings depend on the backup
scheme.
2nd location
[Optional] To set up replication of backups, select the Replicate newly created backup to
another location check box. For more information about backup replication, see Setting up
replication of backups (p. 94).
Validation, convert to virtual machine
To access these settings, click Show validation, convert to virtual machine.
When to validate (p. 69)
[Optional] Depending on the selected backup scheme, define when and how often to
perform validation and whether to validate the entire archive or the latest backup in the
archive.
Convert to virtual machine (p. 163)
[Optional] Applies to: disk or volume backup, backup of entire virtual machines or volumes of
a virtual machine.
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Set up a regular conversion of a disk or volume backup to a virtual machine.
Plan parameters
Plan name
[Optional] Enter a unique name for the backup plan. A conscious name lets you identify the
plan among others.
Backup options
[Optional] Configure parameters of the backup operation, such as pre/post backup
commands, maximum network bandwidth allocated for the backup stream or the backup
archive compression level. If you do nothing in this section, the default values (p. 100) will be
used.
After any of the settings is changed against the default value, a new line that displays the
newly set value appears. The setting status changes from Default to Reset to default. Should
you modify the setting again, the line will display the new value unless the new value is the
default one. When the default value is set, the line disappears. Therefore, in this section you
always see only the settings that differ from the default values.
To reset all the settings to the default values, click Reset to default.
Plan's credentials, comments, label
To access these settings, click Show plan's credentials, comments, label.
Plan's credentials (p. 70)
[Optional] Specify the credentials under which the plan will run.
Comments
[Optional] Type a description of the backup plan.
Label (p. 70)
[Optional] Type a text label for the machine you are going to back up. The label can be used
to identify the machine in various scenarios.
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. 72).
The plan you have created will be accessible for examination and managing in the Backup plans and
tasks (p. 316) view.
4.2.1
Selecting data to back up
To select the data to back up
1. In Data to back up section, select the type of data you want to be backed up. The list of available
data types depends on the agents running on the machine and the types of licenses:
Disks/volumes
To be able to back up this data, you must have Administrator or Backup operator privileges.
Select this option to back up:
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Entire physical machines or their individual disks or volumes, if Acronis Backup Agent for
Windows or Acronis Backup Agent for Linux is installed.
A disk-level backup enables you to recover the entire system in case of severe data
damage or hardware failure. Also, you can individually recover files and folders. The
backup procedure is faster than copying files, and may significantly speed up the backup
process when backing up large volumes of data.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Microsoft SQL databases by means of single-pass disk and application backup, if Acronis
Backup Agent for SQL is installed.
Agent for SQL enables you to create application-aware disk backups and to recover
Microsoft SQL databases from such backups. For more information, see the "Protecting
Microsoft SQL Server..." (p. 301) section.
Microsoft Active Directory data by means of single-pass disk and application backup, if
Acronis Backup Agent for Active Directory is installed.
Agent for Active Directory enables you to create application-aware disk backups and to
recover Microsoft Active Directory data from such backups. For more information, see
the "Protecting Microsoft Active Directory ..." (p. 312) section.
Folders/files
Available if Acronis Backup Agent for Windows or Acronis Backup Agent for Linux is installed.
Select this option to back up specific files and folders.
A file-level backup is not sufficient for recovery of the operating system. Choose file backup if
you plan to keep safe only certain data (the current project, for example). This will reduce
the archive size, thus saving storage space.
In order to recover your operating system along with all the settings and applications, you
have to perform a disk backup.
Virtual machines
Available if Acronis Backup Agent for VMware or Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V is
installed.
Select this option to back up entire virtual machines residing on a virtualization server or
their disks or volumes.
Backing up an entire virtual machine, its disks, or volumes yields a standard disk backup (p.
434). In addition, this backup stores the virtual machine configuration. This configuration will
be suggested by default when recovering the backup content to a new virtual machine. For
more information about backing up virtual machines see "Backing up virtual machines".
Microsoft Exchange information store
Available if Acronis Backup Agent for Exchange is installed.
Select this option to back up information store, individual storage groups or databases of
Microsoft Exchange servers. In case of disaster, you will be able to recover lost or corrupted
databases or storage groups. Also, you can individually recover mailboxes, public
folders, single emails, contacts, calendar events, and other items.
To be able to back up Exchange data, a domain user account that has administrative
privileges on the Exchange server is required. In a cluster, the account must have
administrative privileges on each of the cluster’s nodes.
For more information about backing up Microsoft Exchange data see "Backing up Microsoft
Exchange Server data".
Microsoft Exchange mailboxes
Available if Acronis Backup Agent for Exchange is installed.
Select this option to back up individual mailboxes and public folders without backing up the
entire Microsoft Exchange database. By using the exclusion filters, you can specify items to
be skipped during mailbox backups.
To be able to back up Exchange data, a domain user account that has administrative
privileges on the Exchange server is required. In a cluster, the account must have
administrative privileges on each of the cluster’s nodes.
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For more information about backing up Microsoft Exchange data see "Backing up Microsoft
Exchange Server data".
2. In the tree below Data to back up section, select the items to back up.
To back up all items of the selected data type present on a machine, select the check box next to
the machine. To back up individual data items, expand the machine and select check boxes next
to the required items.
Notes for Disks/volumes
If your operating system and its loader reside on different volumes, always include both
volumes in the backup. The volumes must also be recovered together; otherwise there is a
high risk that the operating system will not start.
Note for Linux users: Logical volumes and MD devices are shown under Dynamic volumes.
For more information about backing up such volumes and devices, see "Backup and recovery
of logical volumes and MD devices (Linux)" (p. 38).
Note for Linux users: We recommend that you unmount any volumes that contain
non-journaling file systems—such as the ext2 file system—before backing them up.
Otherwise, these volumes might contain corrupted files upon recovery; recovery of these
volumes with resize might fail.
Notes for Virtual machines
Backing up entire virtual machines 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.
Backing up individual disks or volumes within a virtual machine comes in handy when the
operating system and applications, such as a database server, run on a virtual disk, but the
data, such as a database, is stored on a large capacity physical disk added to the same
machine. You will be able to use different backup strategies for the virtual disk and the
physical storage.
3. Having specified the data to back up, click OK.
4.2.2
Access credentials for source
Specify the credentials required for access to the data you are going to back up.
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 Plan parameters section.
Use the following credentials
The program will access the source data using the credentials you specify.
Use this option if the plan's account does not have access permissions to the data.
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.
Confirm password. Re-enter the password.
2. Click OK.
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4.2.3
Source files exclusion
This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media.
This option is effective for disk-level backup of NTFS, FAT, Ext3, and Ext4 file systems only. This option
is effective for file-level backup of all supported file systems.
The option defines which files and folders to skip during the backup process and thus exclude from
the list of backed-up items.
Note: Exclusions override selection of data items to back up. For example, if you select to back up file
MyFile.tmp and to exclude all .tmp files, file MyFile.tmp will not be backed up.
To specify which files and folders to exclude, set up any of the following parameters.
Exclude all hidden files and folders
Select this check box to skip files and folders that have the Hidden attribute (for file systems that are
supported by Windows) or that start with a period (.) (for file systems in Linux such as Ext2 and Ext3).
If a folder is hidden, all of its contents (including files that are not hidden) will be excluded.
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 has the System attribute, all of its contents
(including files that do not have the System attribute) will be excluded.
Tip: 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.
Exclude files matching the following criteria
Select this check box to skip files and folders matching any of the criteria. Use the Add, Edit, Remove
and Remove All buttons to create the list of criteria.
The criteria are not case-sensitive in Windows and Linux. For example, if you choose to exclude
all .tmp files and the C:\Temp folder, also excluded will be all .Tmp files, all .TMP files, and the
C:\TEMP folder.
Criteria: full path
Specify the full path to the file or folder, starting with the drive letter (when backing up Windows) or
the root directory (when backing up Linux).
Both in Windows and Linux, you can use a forward slash in the file or folder path (as in C:/Temp and
C:/Temp/File.tmp). In Windows, you can also use the traditional backslash (as in C:\Temp and
C:\Temp\File.tmp).
Under a Windows-style bootable media, a volume might have a different drive letter than in
Windows. For more information, see "Working under bootable media" (p. 256).
Criteria: name
Specify the name of the file or folder, such as Document.txt. All files and folders with that name will
be excluded.
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Wildcard characters
You can use one or more wildcard characters * and ? in the criterion. These characters can be used
both within the full path and in the file or folder name.
The asterisk (*) substitutes for zero or more characters in a file name. For example, the criterion
Doc*.txt covers files such as Doc.txt and Document.txt
The question mark (?) substitutes for exactly one character in a file name. For example, the criterion
Doc?.txt covers files such as Doc1.txt and Docs.txt, but not the files Doc.txt or Doc11.txt
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.log" located in the folder
C:\Finance
By folder path
C:\Finance\F
or
C:\Finance\F\
Excludes the folder C:\Finance\F
(be sure to specify the full path starting from the drive
letter)
Linux
By file path
/home/user/Finance/F.log
Excludes the file named "F.log" located in the folder
(directory) /home/user/Finance
By folder path
/home/user/Finance
or
/home/user/Finance/
Excludes the folder (directory) /home/user/Finance
4.2.4
Backup location selection
Specify where the archive will be stored.
1. Selecting the destination
In the Path field, enter the full path to the destination, or select the desired destination in the
location tree as described in "Selecting backup destinations" (p. 57).
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
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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. Naming the new archive
Once you select the archive destination, the program generates a name for the new archive and
displays it in the Name field. The name commonly looks like Archive(N), where N is a sequence
number. The generated name is unique within the selected location. If you are satisfied with the
automatically generated name, click OK. Otherwise enter another unique name.
If the automatically generated name looks like [Machine Name]_Archive(N), this means that the
name contain variables. Such might be the case when you have selected virtual machines to back up.
The [Machine Name] stands for the virtual machine name. You can add suffixes to the name but
never delete the variables, since each virtual machine has to back up to a separate archive with the
unique name.
Backing up to an existing archive
You can configure the backup plan to back up to an existing archive. To do so, select the archive in
the archives table or type the archive name in the Name field. If the archive is protected with a
password, the program will ask for it in the pop-up window.
By selecting the existing archive, you are meddling in the area of another backup plan that uses the
archive. This is not an issue if the other plan is discontinued. However, you should generally follow
the rule: "one backup plan - one archive". Doing the opposite will not prevent the program from
functioning but is not practical or efficient, except for some specific cases.
Why two or more plans should not back up to the same archive
1. Backing up different sources to the same archive makes it difficult to use archive. When it comes
to recovery, every second counts, and you might be "lost" in the archive content.
Backup plans that operate with the same archive should back up the same data items (say, both
plans back up volume C.)
2. Applying multiple retention rules to an archive makes the archive content unpredictable. Since
each of the rules will be applied to the entire archive, the backups belonging to one backup plan
can be easily deleted along with the backups belonging to the other. You should not expect the
classic behavior of the GFS and Tower of Hanoi backup schemes.
Normally, each complex backup plan should back up to its own archive.
4.2.4.1
Selecting backup destinations
Acronis Backup lets you back up data to various physical storages.
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Destination
Cloud storage
Details
To back up data to Acronis Cloud Storage, click Log in and specify the credentials to log in
to the cloud storage. Then, expand the Cloud storage group and select the account.
Prior to backing up to the cloud storage, you need to buy a subscription (p. 421) to the
cloud backup service and activate (p. 423) the subscription on the machine(s) you want to
back up.
Cloud backup is not available under bootable media.
Cloud backup of Microsoft Exchange Server data by using Agent for Exchange is not
possible.
Note Acronis Cloud Backup might be unavailable in your region. To find more information,
click here: http://www.acronis.com/en-us/my/cloud-backup/corporate
Personal
To back up data to a personal vault, expand the Vaults group and click the vault.
Acronis Secure Zone is considered as a personal vault available to all users that can log on
to the system.
Centralized
To back up data to a centralized vault, expand the Vaults group and click the vault.
Machine
Local machine
Local folders
To back up data to a local folder of the machine, expand the group and
select the required folder.
CD, DVD, BD
To back up data to optical media such as CD, DVD, or Blu-ray Discs (BD), expand the
group, then select the required drive.
RDX, USB
To back up data to an RDX drive or USB flash drive, expand the group,
then select the required drive. For information about using these drives, see the
"Removable devices" (p. 189) section.
Tape device
To back up data to a locally attached tape device, expand the group,
then click the required device.
Note Tape devices can only be used with Acronis Backup Advanced.
For information about using tapes, see the "Tape devices" (p. 190) section.
Network folders
To back up data to a network folder, expand the Network folders group, select the
required networked machine, and then click the shared folder.
If the network share requires access credentials, the program will ask for them.
Note for Linux users: To specify a Common Internet File System (CIFS) network share
which is mounted on a mount point such as /mnt/share, select this mount point instead of
the network share itself.
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Destination
Details
FTP, SFTP
To back up data to FTP or SFTP, type the server name or address in the Path field as
follows:
ftp://ftp_server:port _number or sftp://sftp_server:port number
To establish an active mode FTP connection, use the following notation:
aftp://ftp_server:port _number
If the port number is not specified, port 21 is used for FTP and port 22 is used for SFTP.
After entering access credentials, the folders on the server become available. Click the
appropriate folder on the server.
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.
Note: 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.
Storage nodes
When you need to back up data to a storage node that is not registered on the
management server, or when operating on a machine booted with bootable media:
To access a managed vault, type the following string in the Path field:
bsp://node_address/vault_name/
To access an unmanaged centralized vault, type the full path to the vault's folder.
NFS folders
To back up data to an NFS share, expand the NFS folders group and click the folder.
Available only in Linux and under Linux-based bootable media.
4.2.5
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 Plan parameters section.
Use the following credentials
The program will access the source data using the credentials you specify.
Use this option if the plan account does not have access permissions to the location. You
might need to provide special credentials for a network share or a storage node vault.
Specify:
User name. 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.
Confirm password. Re-enter the password.
2. Click OK.
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Warning: 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.
4.2.6
Backup schemes
Choose one of the available backup schemes:
Simple – to schedule when and how often to backup data and specify retention rules.
Tower of Hanoi – to use the Tower of Hanoi backup scheme. This scheme allows you to schedule
when and how often to back up (sessions) and select the number of backup levels (up to 16). The
data can be backed up more than once a day. By setting up the backup schedule and selecting
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 – to create a custom scheme, where you are free to set up a backup strategy in the way
your enterprise needs it most: specify multiple schedules for different backup types, add
conditions and specify the retention rules.
Manual start – to create a backup task for manual start.
Grandfather-Father-Son – to use the Grandfather-Father-Son backup scheme. The scheme does
not allow data to be backed up more than once a day. You set the days of week when the daily
backup will be performed and select from these days the day of weekly/monthly backup. Then
you set the retention periods for the daily (referred to as "sons"), weekly (referred to as
"fathers") and monthly (referred to as "grandfathers") backups. The expired backups will be
deleted automatically.
Initial seeding – to save locally a full backup whose final destination is Acronis Cloud Storage.
Note for Microsoft Exchange users: For information about backup schemes used when backing up Exchange
databases, storage groups or mailboxes, refer to the "Backup schemes" section of the "Backing up Microsoft
Exchange Server data" documentation.
4.2.6.1
Simple scheme
With the simple backup scheme, you just schedule when and how often to back up data. Other steps
are optional.
To set up the simple backup scheme, specify the appropriate settings as follows.
Schedule
Set up when and how often to back up the data. To learn more about setting up the schedule,
see the Scheduling (p. 77) section.
Retention rules
Specify how long to store backups in the location and whether to move or delete them afterward.
The retention rules are applied after creating a backup. The Keep backups indefinitely is set by
default, which means that no backups will be deleted automatically. For more information about
retention rules, see Setting up retention of backups (p. 94).
Backup type
To access this setting, click Show backup type, validation, convert to virtual machine.
Select the backup type.
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Full - selected by default for all backup locations (except for Acronis Cloud Storage).
Incremental. At the first time a full backup will be created. The next backups will be
incremental. Selected as the one and only backup type for Acronis Cloud Storage.
Note: When the Incremental backup type is selected along with retention rules, the archive will be
cleaned up using consolidation (p. 433), which is a more time-consuming and resource-intensive
operation.
4.2.6.2
Grandfather-Father-Son scheme
At a glance
Daily ("Son"), weekly ("Father"), and monthly ("Grandfather") backups
Custom day for weekly and monthly backups
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.
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.
Monthly backups run on the last Friday of each month, and weekly backups run on all other Fridays.
As a result, you will normally obtain 12 monthly backups over a full year.
Parameters
You can set up the following parameters of a Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) scheme.
Start backup at
Specifies when to start a backup. The default value is 12:00 PM.
Back up on
Specifies the days of the week when a backup will be performed. The default value is
Workdays.
Weekly/Monthly
Specifies which day of the week (out of the days selected in the Back up on field) you
want to reserve for weekly and monthly backups.
The default value is Friday. With this value, a monthly backup will run on the last
Friday of each month. Weekly backups will run on all other Fridays. If you choose a
different day of week, these rules will apply to the day chosen.
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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.
Daily: 5 days (recommended minimum)
Weekly: 7 weeks
Monthly: indefinitely
The retention period for weekly backups must exceed that for daily backups; the
monthly backups' retention period must be greater than the weekly backups'
retention period.
We recommend setting a retention period of at least one week for daily backups.
Backup type
Specifies the types of daily, weekly and monthly backups
Always full - all the daily, weekly and monthly backups will always be full. This is
the default selection for cases when a tape drive is selected as a backup location.
Full/Differential/Incremental - daily backups are incremental, weekly backups
are differential, and monthly backups are full.
The first backup is always full. However, this does not mean that it is a monthly
backup. It will be kept as a daily, weekly or monthly backup, depending on the
day of week it is created.
Advanced settings
Available only in Acronis Backup Advanced when creating a centralized backup plan.
See the "Advanced scheduling settings" (p. 87) section for details.
A backup is not deleted until all backups that directly depend on it become subject to deletion as well. This is
why you might see a backup, marked with the
icon, for a few days past its expected expiration date.
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.
Start backup at: 11:00 PM
Back up on: All days
Weekly/monthly: Saturday (for example)
Keep backups:
Daily: 1 week
Weekly: 1 month
Monthly: indefinitely
As a result, an archive of daily, weekly, and monthly backups will be created. Daily backups will be
available for seven days since creation. For instance, a daily backup of Sunday, January 1, will be
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available through next Sunday, January 8; the first weekly backup, the one of Saturday, January 7,
will be stored on the system until February 7. Monthly backups will never be deleted.
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.
Suppose that you need to:
Perform backups at the end of each working day
Have access to a weekly backup for 10 days after it was created
Be able to recover an accidentally deleted or inadvertently modified file if this has been
discovered relatively quickly
Keep monthly backups for half a year.
Backup scheme parameters can then be set up as follows.
Start backup at: 6:00 PM
Back up on: Workdays
Weekly/monthly: Friday
Keep backups:
Daily: 1 week
Weekly: 10 days
Monthly: 6 months
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. To back up this data, you may want to:
Track changes to the financial statements, spreadsheets, etc. performed on Tuesdays and
Thursdays (daily incremental backup).
Have a weekly summary of file changes since last month (Friday weekly differential backup).
Have a monthly full backup of your files.
Moreover, assume that you want to retain access to all backups, including the daily ones, for at least
six months.
The following GFS scheme suits such purposes:
Start backup at: 11:30 PM
Back up on: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday
Weekly/monthly: Friday
Keep backups:
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Monthly: 5 years
Here, daily incremental backups will be created on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with weekly and
monthly backups performed on Fridays. Note that, in order to choose Friday in the Weekly/monthly
field, you need to first select it in the Back up on field.
Such an archive would allow you to compare your financial documents as of the first and the last day
of work, and have a five-year history of all documents, etc.
No daily backups
Consider a more exotic GFS scheme:
Start backup at: 12:00 PM
Back up on: Friday
Weekly/monthly: Friday
Keep backups:
Daily: 1 week
Weekly: 1 month
Monthly: indefinitely
Backup is thus performed only on Fridays. This makes Friday the only choice for weekly and monthly
backups, leaving no other date for daily backups. The resulting “Grandfather-Father” archive will
hence consist only of weekly differential and monthly full backups.
Even though it is possible to use GFS to create such an archive, the Custom scheme is more flexible in
this situation.
4.2.6.3
Custom backup scheme
At a glance
Custom schedule and conditions for backups of each type
Custom schedule and retention rules
Parameters
Parameter
Meaning
Full backup schedule
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 backup
schedule
Specifies on what schedule and under which conditions to perform an
incremental backup.
If the archive contains no backups at the time of the task run, a full backup is
created instead of the incremental backup.
Differential backup schedule Specifies on what schedule and under which conditions to perform a differential
backup.
If the archive contains no full backups at the time of the task run, a full backup is
created instead of the differential backup.
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Parameter
Meaning
Clean up archive
Specifies how to get rid of old backups: either to apply retention rules (p. 95)
regularly or clean up the archive during a backup when the destination location
runs out of space.
By default, the retention rules are not specified, which means older backups will
not be deleted automatically.
Using retention rules
Specify the retention rules and when to apply them.
This setting is recommended for backup destinations such as shared folders or
centralized vaults.
When there is insufficient space while backing up
The archive will be cleaned up only during backup and only if there is not enough
space to create a new backup. In this case, the software will act as follows:
Delete the oldest full backup with all dependent incremental/differential
backups
If there is only one full backup left and a full backup is in progress, then
delete the last full backup with all dependent incremental/differential
backups
If there is only one full backup left, and an incremental or differential backup
is in progress, an error occurs saying there is a lack of available space
This setting is recommended when backing up to a USB drive or Acronis Secure
Zone. This setting is not applicable to managed vaults, FTP and SFTP servers.
This setting enables deletion of the last backup in the archive, in case your
storage device cannot accommodate more than one backup. However, you
might end up with no backups if the program is not able to create the new
backup for some reason.
Apply retention rules
Specifies when to apply the retention rules (p. 95).
(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.
This option is available only if you selected On schedule in Apply retention rules.
2nd location, 3rd location,
and so on
Specifies where to copy or move (p. 91) the backups from the current location.
This option is available only if you selected either the Replicate newly created
backup to another location check box under How to back up, or Move the
oldest backups to another location in the Retention rules window.
Examples
Weekly full backup
The following scheme yields a full backup performed every Friday night.
Full backup: Schedule: Weekly, every Friday, at 10:00 PM
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Here, all parameters except Schedule in Full backup are left empty. All backups in the archive are
kept indefinitely (no archive cleanup is performed).
Full and incremental backup plus cleanup
With the following scheme, the archive will consist of weekly full backups and daily incremental
backups. We further require that a full backup begin only after all users have logged off.
Full backup: Schedule: Weekly, every Friday, at 10:00 PM
Full backup: Conditions: User is logged off
Incremental: Schedule: Weekly, every workday, at 9:00 PM
Also, let all backups older than one year be deleted from the archive, and let the cleanup be
performed upon creating a new backup.
Retention rules: Delete backups older than 12 months
Apply the rules: After backing up
By default, a one-year-old full backup will not be deleted until all incremental backups that depend
on it become subject to deletion too. For more information, see Retention rules (p. 95).
Monthly full, weekly differential, and daily incremental backups plus cleanup
This example demonstrates the use of all options available in the Custom scheme.
Suppose that we need a scheme that will produce monthly full backups, weekly differential backups,
and daily incremental backups. Then the backup schedule can look as follows.
Full backup: Schedule: Monthly, every Last Sunday of the month, at 9:00 PM
Incremental: Schedule: Weekly, every workday, at 7:00 PM
Differential: Schedule: Weekly, every Saturday, at 8:00 PM
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. Likewise, backup tasks for incremental and differential backups
will wait until all users are logged off and users are idle, respectively.
Finally, we create retention rules for the archive: let us retain only backups that are no older than six
months, and let the cleanup be performed after each backup task and also on the last day of every
month.
Retention rules: Delete backups older than 6 months
Apply the rules: After backing up, On schedule
Cleanup schedule: Monthly, on the Last day of All months, at 10:00 PM
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By default, a backup is not deleted as long as it has dependent backups that must be kept. For
example, if a full backup has become subject to deletion, but there are incremental or differential
backups that depend on it, the deletion is postponed until all the dependent backups can be deleted
as well.
For more information, see Retention rules (p. 95).
4.2.6.4
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. 79), weekly (p. 81), or monthly (p. 83) schedule. Setting up schedule
parameters allows for the creation of simple schedules (example of a simple daily
schedule: a backup task will be run every 1 day at 10 AM) as well as more complex
schedules (example of a complex daily schedule: a task will be run every 3 days, starting
from January 15. During the specified days the task will be repeated every 2 hours from
10 AM to 10 PM). Thus, complex schedules specify the sessions on which the scheme
should run. In the discussion below, "days" can be replaced with "scheduled sessions".
Number of levels
Select from 2 to 16 backup levels. See the example stated below for details.
Roll-back period
The guaranteed number of sessions that one can go back in the archive at any time.
Calculated automatically, depending on the schedule parameters and the numbers of
levels you select. See the example below for details.
Backup type
Specifies what backup types the backup levels will have
Always full - all levels of backups will be full. This is the default selection for cases
when a tape drive is selected as a backup location.
Full/Differential/Incremental - backups of different levels will have different types:
- Last-level backups are full
- Backups of intermediate levels are differential
- First-level backups are incremental
Example
Schedule parameters are set as follows
Recur: Every 1 day
Frequency: Once at 6 PM
Number of levels: 4
Backup type: Full/Differential/Incremental
This is how the first 14 days (or 14 sessions) of this scheme's schedule look. Shaded numbers denote
backup levels.
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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 cleanup mechanism ensures that only the most recent backups of each level are kept. Here is how
the archive looks on day 8, a day before creating a new full backup.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
4
1
2
1
3
1
2
1
The scheme allows for efficient data storage: more backups accumulate toward the current time.
Having four backups, we could recover data as of today, yesterday, half a week, or a week ago.
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.
Number of
levels
Full backup
every
On different
days, can go
back
Roll-back
period
2
2 days
1 to 2 days
1 day
3
4 days
2 to 5 days
2 days
4
8 days
4 to 11 days
4 days
5
16 days
8 to 23 days
8 days
6
32 days
16 to 47 days
16 days
Adding a level doubles the full backup and roll-back periods.
To see why the number of recovery days varies, let us return to the previous example.
Here are the backups we have on day 12 (numbers in gray denote deleted backups).
1
4
2
1
3
2
4
1
5
3
6
1
7
2
8
1
9
4
10
1
11
2
12
1
A new level 3 differential backup has not yet been created, so the backup of day five is still stored.
Since it depends on the full backup of day one, that backup is available as well. This enables us to go
as far back as 11 days, which is the best-case scenario.
The following day, however, a new third-level differential backup is created, and the old full backup is
deleted.
1
4
2
1
3
2
4
1
5
3
6
1
7
2
8
1
9
4
10
1
11
2
12
1
13
3
This gives us only a four day recovery interval, which turns out to be the worst-case scenario.
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On day 14, the interval is five days. It increases on subsequent days before decreasing again, and so
on.
1
4
2
1
3
2
4
1
5
3
6
1
7
2
8
1
9
4
10
1
11
2
12
1
13
3
14
1
The roll-back period shows how many days we are guaranteed to have even in the worst case. For a
four-level scheme, it is four days.
4.2.6.5
Manual start
With the Manual start scheme, you do not have to specify the backup schedule. You can run the
backup plan from the Plans and Tasks view manually at any time afterwards.
Specify the appropriate settings as follows.
Backup type
Select the type of backup
Full - selected by default for all backup locations (except for Acronis Cloud Storage).
Differential. At the first time a full backup will be created. The next backups will be
differential.
Incremental. At the first time a full backup will be created. The next backups will be
incremental. Selected as the one and only backup type for Acronis Cloud Storage.
4.2.6.6
Initial seeding
This backup scheme is available when Acronis Cloud Storage is selected as the backup destination. A
backup is only successful if you have an Initial Seeding license.
The Initial Seeding service might be unavailable in your region. To find more information, click here:
http://kb.acronis.com/content/15118.
Initial seeding enables you to transfer the first backup, which is full and usually the largest, to the
cloud 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 cloud storage.
If you back up 500 GB of data or more, initial seeding ensures faster delivery of the backed-up data
and lower traffic costs.
Please refer to the "Initial Seeding FAQ (p. 411)" section for more details.
4.2.7
Archive validation
Set up the validation task to check if the backed-up data is recoverable. If the backup could not pass
the validation successfully, the validation task fails and the backup plan gets the Error status.
Validation of a file backup imitates recovery of all files from the backup to a dummy destination.
Validation of a volume backup calculates a checksum for every data block saved in the backup.
To set up validation, specify the following parameters
1. When to validate – select when to perform the validation. As the validation is a
resource-intensive operation, it makes sense to schedule the validation to the managed
machine's off-peak period. On the other hand, if the validation is a major part of your data
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protection strategy and you prefer to be immediately informed whether the backed-up data is
not corrupted and can be successfully recovered, think of starting the validation right after
backup creation.
2. What to validate – select either to validate the entire archive or the latest backup in the archive.
Validation of the archive will validate all the archive’s backups and may take a long time and a lot
of system resources.
Validation of the latest backup may also take time, even if this backup is incremental or
differential, and small in size. This is because the operation validates not only the data physically
contained in the backup, but all of the data recoverable by selecting the backup. This requires
access to previously created backups.
3. Validation schedule (appears only if you have selected On schedule in step 1) - set the schedule
of validation. For more information see the Scheduling (p. 77) section.
4.2.8
Backup plan's credentials
Provide the credentials for the account under which the plan will run. By default, the plan runs under
the agent service account, if created by a user having administrative privileges on the machine. If
created by a regular user, such as a member of the Users group, the plan runs under this user's
account.
To specify credentials explicitly
1. If you have administrative privileges on the machine, select Use the following credentials.
Otherwise skip this step.
2. 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.
Confirm password. Re-enter the password.
3. Click OK.
To learn more about operations available depending on the user privileges, see the Users' privileges
on a managed machine (p. 31) section.
4.2.9
Label (Preserving machine properties in a backup)
Any time data on a machine is backed up, information about the machine name, operating system,
Windows service pack and security identifier (SID) is added to the backup, along with the
user-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. 127) the machine to a VMware ESX(i) using Agent for VMware, or convert (p. 163)
the backup to a ESX(i) 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. You can select, sort and group the virtual machines with the
help of these custom parameters. This can be useful in various scenarios.
Example:
Let's assume you migrate your office or datacenter to a virtual environment. By using third-party
software that can access configuration parameters through VMware API, you can automatically apply
security policies to each machine even before powering it on.
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To add a text label to a backup:
1. On the Create backup plan (p. 50) page, click Show plan's credentials, comments, label.
2. In Label, enter the text label or select it from the drop-down menu.
Parameters specification
Parameter
Value
Description
acronisTag.label
A user-defined label.
The label can be set by a user when creating a backup
plan.
acronisTag.hostname
Host name (FQDN)
acronisTag.os.type
Operating system
acronisTag.os.servicepack
0, 1, 2...
The version of the Service Pack installed in the system.
For Windows OS only.
acronisTag.os.sid
Machine's SID.
For example:
S-1-5-21-874133492-782267321-3928949834.
For Windows OS only.
Values of the "acronisTag.os.type" parameter
Windows XP All Editions
winXPProGuest
Windows XP All Editions (64 bit)
winXPPro64Guest
Windows Server 2003, All Editions
winNetStandardGuest
Windows Server 2003, All Editions (64 bit)
winNetStandard64Guest
Windows 2008
winLonghornGuest
Windows 2008 (64 bit)
winLonghorn64Guest
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.servicepack = “1”
acronisTag.os.sid = “S-1-5-21-874133492-782267321-3928949834”
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4.2.10 Sequence of operations in a backup plan
If a backup plan contains multiple operations, Acronis Backup performs them in the following order:
1. Cleanup (if configured Before backup) and validation (if cleanup has been performed and
validation is configured to run After the retention rules are applied).
If a backup was moved to a different location during the cleanup, all the operations configured
for the subsequent locations are performed before continuing to the following steps in the
primary location.
2. Pre-backup command execution.
3. Backup:
a. Pre-data capture command execution
b. Snapshot creation
c. Post-data capture command execution
d. Backup process
4. Start of backup cataloging.
Backup cataloging can be a time-consuming process. It is performed in parallel with the following
steps.
5. Post-backup command execution.
6. Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) creation.
7. Conversion to a virtual machine.
8. Backup replication.
9. Cleanup.
If the replication took place, or a backup was moved to a different location during the cleanup, all
the operations configured for the subsequent locations are performed before continuing to the
following steps in the primary location.
10. Validation.
11. Tape media ejection.
12. Sending e-mail notification.
4.2.11 Why is the program asking for the password?
A scheduled or postponed task has to run regardless of users being logged on. In case you have not
explicitly specified the credentials, under which the task(s) will run, the program proposes using your
account. Enter your password, specify another account or change the scheduled start to manual.
4.3
Simplified naming of backup files
To use simplified naming of backup files, do either of the following:
In the welcome screen, click Create backup plan (p. 50), expand Show backup file naming,
archive comments, and then select the Name backup files using the archive name… check box.
When you back up to a locally attached RDX drive or USB flash drive, the Name backup files
using the archive name... check box does not appear. Instead, the removable device mode (p.
189) determines whether the standard or simplified naming scheme will be used. In Linux, the
check box appears after you manually mount the device.
In the welcome screen, click Back up now (p. 50). Simplified naming will be used whenever the
backup destination supports it (see “Restrictions” below).
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When you use simplified file naming
The file name of the first (full) backup in the archive will consist of the archive name; for
example: MyData.tib. The file names of subsequent (incremental or differential) backups will
have an index. For example: MyData2.tib, MyData3.tib, and so on.
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. 75) or all backups created during a week (p. 76). But you might end up with no
backups if a full backup to your only drive fails.
This behavior can be suppressed by adding the [Date] variable (p. 73) to the archive name.
When you use standard file naming
Each backup will have a unique file name with the exact time stamp and the backup type. For
example: MyData_2010_03_26_17_01_38_960D.tib. This standard file naming allows for a wider
range of backup destinations and backup schemes.
Restrictions
Simplified file naming is not available in the following cases:
Using a centralized backup plan.
Backing up to a managed vault, tape, Acronis Secure Zone, or Acronis Cloud Storage.
Backing up virtual machines by using Agent for VMware or Agent for Hyper-V.
Backing up Microsoft Exchange Server data by using Agent for Exchange.
When using simplified file naming, the following functionality is not available:
Setting up full, incremental and differential backups within a single backup plan. You need to
create separate backup plans for each type of backup.
Setting up replication of backups.
Setting up retention rules.
Setting up regular conversion of backups to a virtual machine.
Converting an incremental or differential backup into a full one.
Restrictions on archive names
The archive name cannot end with a number.
The FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS file systems do not allow the following characters in the file name:
backslash (\), slash (/), colon (:), asterisk (*), question mark (?), quotation mark ("), less than
sign (<), greater than sign (>), and pipe (|).
4.3.1
The [DATE] variable
If you specify the [DATE] variable in the archive name, the file name of each backup will include that
backup’s creation date.
When using this variable, the first backup of a new day will be a full backup. Before creating the next
full backup, the software deletes all backups taken earlier that day. Backups taken before that day
are kept. This means you can store multiple full backups with or without incremental ones, but no
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more than one full backup per day. You can sort the backups by date. You can also use a script to
copy, move, or delete the older backups.
The value of this variable is the current date surrounded by brackets ([]). The date format depends on
the regional options on the machine. For example, if the date format is year-month-day, the value for
January 31, 2012, is [2012-01-31]. Characters that are not supported in a file name, such as slashes
(/), are replaced with underscores (_).
You can place this variable anywhere in the archive name. You can use both lowercase and
uppercase letters in this variable.
Examples
Example 1. Suppose that you perform incremental backups twice a day (at midnight and noon) for
two days, starting on January 31, 2012. The archive name is MyArchive-[DATE], the date format is
year-month-day. Here is the list of backup files after day two:
MyArchive-[2012-01-31].tib (full, created on January 31 at midnight)
MyArchive-[2012-01-31]2.tib (incremental, created on January 31 at noon)
MyArchive-[2012-02-01].tib (full, created on February 1 at midnight)
MyArchive-[2012-02-01]2.tib (incremental, created on February 1 at noon)
Example 2. Suppose that you perform full backups, with the same schedule, archive name, and date
format as in the previous example. Then, the list of backup files after day two is the following:
MyArchive-[2012-01-31].tib (full, created on January 31 at noon)
MyArchive-[2012-02-01].tib (full, created on February 1 at noon)
This is because the full backups created at midnight were replaced by new full backups of the same
day.
4.3.2
Backup splitting and simplified file naming
When a backup is split according to backup splitting (p. 106) settings, the same indexing is used to
also name parts of the backup. The file name for the next backup will have the next available index.
For example, suppose that the first backup of the archive MyData has been split in two parts. Then,
the file names for this backup are MyData1.tib and MyData2.tib. The second backup (supposing that
it is not split) will be named MyData3.tib.
4.3.3
Usage examples
This section provides examples of how you can use simplified file naming.
4.3.3.1
Example 1. Daily backup replacing the old one
Consider the following scenario:
You want to perform a daily full backup of your machine.
You want to store the backup on a locally attached USB hard drive in the file MyMachine.tib.
You want each new backup to replace the old one.
In this scenario, create a backup plan with a daily schedule. When creating the backup plan, specify
the USB hard drive as the archive location, specify MyMachine as the archive name, select the Name
backup files using the archive name... check box, and select Full as the backup type.
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Result. The archive consists of a single file: MyMachine.tib. This file is deleted before creating a new
backup.
If you choose to back up to a locally attached RDX drive or USB flash drive, you will not see the Name
backup files using the archive name... check box. Instead, make sure that the removable device
mode (p. 189) is set to Removable media.
4.3.3.2
Example 2. Daily full backups with a date stamp
Consider the following scenario:
You want to perform a daily full backup of your machine.
You want to move older backups to a remote location by using a script.
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, 2012, January 2, 2012, and so on, are stored respectively as
MyMachine-[2012-01-01].tib, MyMachine-[2012-01-02].tib, and so on.
Your script can move older backups based on the date stamp.
See also “The [Date] variable” (p. 73).
4.3.3.3
Example 3. Hourly backups within a day
Consider the following scenario:
You want to perform hourly backups of your server's critical files every day.
You want to keep older backups in the archive.
You want the first backup of each day to be full and to run at midnight; and the subsequent
backups of the day to be differential and to run at 01:00, 02:00, and so on.
In this scenario, create a backup plan with a daily schedule. When creating the backup plan, specify
ServerFiles[Date] as the archive name, select the Name backup files using the archive name… check
box, specify Differential as the backup type, and schedule the backups to run every hour from
midnight.
Result:
The 24 backups of January 1, 2012, will be stored as ServerFiles[2012-01-01].tib,
ServerFiles[2012-01-01]2.tib, and so on up to ServerFiles[2012-01-01]24.tib.
The following day, the backups will start with the full backup ServerFiles[2012-01-02].tib.
See also "The [Date] variable" (p. 73).
4.3.3.4
Example 4. Daily full backups with daily drive swaps
Consider the following scenario:
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You want to perform a daily full backup of your machine.
You want to store the backup on a locally attached USB hard drive in the file MyMachine.tib.
You have two such drives. You want to swap them before each backup so that one drive contains
today’s backup and the other drive yesterday’s backup.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
You want each new backup to replace the backup on the currently attached drive.
In this scenario, create a backup plan with a daily schedule. When creating the backup plan:
Specify MyMachine as the archive name.
Select the Name backup files using the archive name... check box.
In Windows, specify D:\ as the archive location, where D is the letter each of the drives has in the
operating system when attached to the machine.
In Linux, create a directory such as /mnt/backup and specify it as the archive location. Each time
you attach a drive, make sure to mount it to the mount point /mnt/backup.
Select Full as the backup type.
Result. Each hard disk drive will contain one full backup. While one drive is attached to the machine,
you can keep the other drive off-site for extra data protection.
In Windows, if you choose to back up to locally attached RDX drives or USB flash drives, the Name
backup files using the archive name... check box does not appear. Instead, make sure that the
removable device mode (p. 189) is set to Removable media.
4.3.3.5
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 store the backups on a locally attached USB hard drive in the archive MyMachine.
You have two such drives. You want to swap them each Monday so that one drive contains
backups of the current week (Monday through Sunday), and the other drive those of the
previous week.
In this scenario, you need to create two backup plans as follows:
a) When creating the first backup plan:
Specify MyMachine as the archive name.
Select the Name backup files using the archive name... check box.
In Windows, specify D:\ as the archive location, where D is the letter either of the drives has
in the operating system when attached to the machine.
In Linux, create a directory such as /mnt/backup and specify it as the archive location. Each
time you attach a drive, make sure to mount it to the mount point /mnt/backup.
Select Full as the backup type.
Schedule the backups to run every week on Monday.
b) When creating the second backup plan, specify the same settings as in the first backup plan, but
select Incremental as the backup type and schedule the backups to run every week on Tuesday
through Sunday.
Result:
Before creating a Monday backup (by the first backup plan), all backups will be deleted from the
currently attached drive.
While one drive is attached to the machine, you can keep the other drive off-site for extra data
protection.
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In Windows, if you choose to back up to locally attached RDX drives or USB flash drives, the Name
backup files using the archive name... check box does not appear. Instead, make sure that the
removable device mode (p. 189) is set to Removable media.
4.3.3.6
Example 6. Backups within working hours
Consider the following scenario:
You want to back up your server’s critical files every day.
You want to include a creation date in the name of each backup file.
You want the first backup of each day to be full and to run at 01:00 AM.
You want the backups during working hours to be differential and to run every hour from
8:00 AM through 5:00 PM.
In this scenario, you need to create two backup plans as follows:
a) When creating the first backup plan, specify ServerFiles[DATE] as the archive name, select the
Name backup files using the archive name… check box, select Full as the backup type, and
schedule the backups to run every day at 01:00:00 AM.
b) When creating the second backup plan, specify the same settings as in the first backup plan, but
select Differential as the backup type and schedule the backups as follows:
Run the task: Daily
Every: 1 Hour(s)
From: 08:00:00 AM
Until: 05:01:00 PM
Result:
The full backup of January 31, 2012, will be stored as ServerFiles[2012-01-31].tib.
The following day, February 1, the backups will start with the full backup
ServerFiles[2012-02-01].tib. The differential backups will start with ServerFiles[2012-02-01]2.tib.
The 10 differential backups of January 31, 2012, will be stored as ServerFiles[2012-01-31]2.tib,
ServerFiles[2012-01-31]3.tib, and so on up to ServerFiles[2012-01-31]11.tib.
See also “The [Date] variable” (p. 73).
4.4
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 scheduling is available when creating a backup plan (p. 50) with any of the following backup
schemes: Simple, Custom or Tower of Hanoi. The schedule also can be set for validation tasks (p.
232).
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 task
will be launched as soon as any of the events occurs. The table below lists the events available under
Windows and Linux operating systems.
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Event
Windows
Linux
Time: Daily, Weekly, Monthly
+
+
Time since completion of the last successful backup within the same backup plan
+
+
+
-
+
-
System startup
+
+
System shutdown
+
-
An event in Windows Event Log
+
-
(specify the length of time)
User logon
(any user, current user, specify the user’s account)
User logoff*
(any user, current user, specify the user’s account)
*Shutting down is not the same as logging off. The task will not run at a system
shutdown.
(specify the parameters of the event)
Condition
For backup operations only, you can specify a condition or multiple conditions in addition to the
events. Once any of the events occurs, the scheduler checks the condition and runs the task if the
condition is met. With multiple conditions, all of them must be met simultaneously to enable task
execution. The table below lists the conditions available under Windows and Linux operating
systems.
Condition: run the task only if
Windows
Linux
User is idle (a screen saver is running or the machine is locked)
+
-
Location's host is available
+
+
The task run time is within the specified time interval
+
+
All users are logged off
+
-
The specified period of time has passed since the completion of the last successful
backup within the same backup plan
+
+
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. 123) 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.
What if an event occurs while the scheduler is waiting for the condition required by the
previous event?
The event will be ignored.
What if the condition is not met for a very long time?
If delaying a backup is getting risky, you can force the condition (tell the users to log off) or run
the task manually. To automatically handle this situation, you can set the time interval after
which the task will run regardless of the condition.
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4.4.1
Daily schedule
Daily schedule is effective in Windows and Linux operating systems.
To specify a daily schedule
In the Schedule area, select the appropriate parameter as follows:
Every: <...> day(s)
Set up the certain number of days you want the task to be run. For example, if
you set Every 2 day(s), the task will be started on every other day.
In the During the day execute the task... area, select one of the following:
Once at: <...>
Set up the time at which the task will be run once.
Every: <...>
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 13 times from 10 AM to 10 PM
during one day.
From: <...> Until: <...>
In the Effective... area, set the following settings:
From: <...>
Set up a date when this schedule will be enabled (an effective date). If this
check box is cleared, the task will be started on the nearest day and time you
have specified above.
To: <...>
Set up a date when this schedule will be disabled. If this check box is cleared,
the task will be run for an indefinite number of days.
If one or more task launches were missed while the machine was powered off, the software tries to
create a backup at the machine startup. If you do not need this extra backup, clear the If the
machine is turned off, run missed tasks at the machine startup check box.
Advanced scheduling settings (p. 87) are available only for machines registered on Acronis Backup
Management Server. To specify these settings, click Change in the Advanced settings area.
All the settings you made are displayed in the Result field at the bottom of the window.
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.
"Three-hour time interval lasting for three months" schedule
Run the task every three hours. The task starts on a certain date (say, September 15, 2009), and ends
after three months.
The schedule's parameters are thus set up as follows.
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1. Every: 1 day(s).
2. Every: 3 hours
From: 12:00:00 AM (midnight) Until: 09:00:00 PM - thus, the task will be performed 8 times a
day with a 3 hour time interval. After the last daily recurrence at 9 PM, the next day comes and
the task starts over again from midnight.
3. Effective:
From: 09/15/2009. If September 15, 2009 is the current date of the task's creation and, say,
01:15 PM is the task's creation time, the task will be started when the nearest time interval
comes: at 03:00 PM in our example.
To: 12/15/2009. On this date the task will be performed for the last time, but the task itself is still
available in the Tasks view.
Several daily schedules for one task
There are some cases when you might need the task to be run several times a day, or even several
times a day with different time intervals. For such cases, consider adding several schedules to a single
task.
For example, suppose that the task has to be run every 3rd day, starting from 09/20/2009, five times
a day:
first at 8 AM
second at 12 PM (noon)
third at 3 PM
fourth at 5 PM
fifth at 7 PM
The obvious way is to add five simple schedules. If you spend one minute for examination, you can
think out a more optimal way. As you can see, the time interval between the first and the second
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.
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4.4.2
Weekly schedule
Weekly schedule is effective in Windows and Linux operating systems.
To specify a weekly schedule
In the Schedule area, select the appropriate parameter as follows:
Every: <...> week(s) on: <...>
Specify a certain number of weeks and the days of the week you want the
task to be run. For example, with the Every 2 week(s) on Mon setting, the task
will be performed on Monday of every other week.
In the During the day execute the task... area, select one of the following:
Once at: <...>
Set up the time at which the task will be run once.
Every: <...>
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 13 times from 10 AM to 10 PM
during one day.
From: <...> Until: <...>
In the Effective... area, set the following settings:
From: <...>
Set up a date when this schedule will be enabled (an effective date). If this
check box is cleared, the task will be started on the nearest day and time you
have specified above.
To: <...>
Set up a date when this schedule will be disabled. If this check box is cleared,
the task will be run for an indefinite number of weeks.
If one or more task launches were missed while the machine was powered off, the software tries to
create a backup at the machine startup. If you do not need this extra backup, clear the If the
machine is turned off, run missed tasks at the machine startup check box.
Advanced scheduling settings (p. 87) are available only for machines registered on Acronis Backup
Management Server. To specify these settings, click Change in the Advanced settings area.
All the settings you made are displayed in the Result field at the bottom of the window.
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. (If this date were not a Friday, the task would
be last performed on the last Friday preceding this date.)
This schedule is widely used when creating a custom backup scheme. The "One day in the week"-like
schedule is added to the full backups, while the incremental backups are scheduled to be performed
on workdays. For more details, see the Full and incremental backups plus cleanup example in the
Custom backup scheme (p. 64) section.
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"Workdays" schedule
Run the task every week on workdays: from Monday through Friday. During a workday, the task
starts only once at 9 PM.
The schedule's parameters are thus set up as follows.
1. Every: 1 week(s) on: - selecting the check box automatically selects the
corresponding check boxes (Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, and Fri), and leaves the remaining ones
unchanged.
2. Once at: 09:00:00 PM.
3. Effective:
From: empty. If you have created the task, say on Monday at 11:30 AM, the task will be started
on the same day at 9 PM. If the task was created, say on Friday after 9 PM, then it will be started
for the first time on the nearest workday (Monday in our example) at 9 PM.
End date: empty. The task will be restarted for an indefinite number of weeks.
This schedule is widely used when creating a custom backup scheme. The "Workdays"-like schedule
is added to the incremental backups, while the full backup is scheduled to be performed one day in
the week. For more details, see the Full and incremental backups plus cleanup example in the
Custom backup scheme (p. 64) section.
Several weekly schedules for one task
In the case when the task needs to be run on different days of the weeks with different time intervals,
consider adding a dedicated schedule to every desired day of the week, or to several days.
For example, you need the task to be run with the following schedule:
Monday: twice at 12 PM (noon) and 9 PM
Tuesday: every 3 hours from 9 AM until 9 PM
Wednesday: every 3 hours from 9 AM until 9 PM
Thursday: every 3 hours from 9 AM until 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.
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3. Effective:
From: not set.
To: not set.
Third schedule
1. Every: 1 week(s) on: Sat, Sun.
2. Once at: 09:00:00 PM.
3. Effective:
From: not set.
To: not set.
4.4.3
Monthly schedule
Monthly schedule is effective in Windows and Linux operating systems.
To specify a monthly schedule
In the Schedule area, select the appropriate parameter as follows:
Months: <...>
Select a certain month(s) you want to run the task in.
Days: <...>
Select specific days of the month to run the task on. You can also select the
last day of the month, irrespective of its actual date.
On: <...> <...>
Select specific days of the weeks to run the task on.
In the During the day execute the task... area, select one of the following:
Once at: <...>
Set up the time at which the task will be run once.
Every: <...>
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 13 times from 10 AM to 10 PM
during one day.
From: <...> Until: <...>
In the Effective... area, set the following settings:
From: <...>
Set up a date when this schedule will be enabled (an effective date). If this
check box is cleared, the task will be started on the nearest day and time you
have specified above.
To: <...>
Set up a date when this schedule will be disabled. If this check box is cleared,
the task will be run for an indefinite number of months.
If one or more task launches were missed while the machine was powered off, the software tries to
create a backup at the machine startup. If you do not need this extra backup, clear the If the
machine is turned off, run missed tasks at the machine startup check box.
Advanced scheduling settings (p. 87) are available only for machines registered on Acronis Backup
Management Server. To specify these settings, click Change in the Advanced settings area.
All the settings you made are displayed in the Result field at the bottom of the window.
Examples
"Last day of every month" schedule
Run the task once at 10 PM on the last day of every month.
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The schedule's parameters are set up as follows.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Months: .
Days: Last. The task will run on the last day of every month despite its actual date.
Once at: 10:00:00 PM.
Effective:
From: empty.
To: empty.
This schedule is widely used when creating a custom backup scheme. The "Last day of every month"
schedule is added to the full backups, while the differential backups are scheduled to be performed
once a week and incremental on workdays. For more details, see the Monthly full, weekly differential,
and daily incremental backups plus cleanup example in the Custom backup scheme (p. 64) section.
"Season" schedule
Run the task on all workdays during the northern autumn seasons of 2009 and 2010. During a
workday, the task is performed every 6 hours from 12 AM (midnight) until 6 PM.
The schedule's parameters are set up as follows.
1. Months: September, October, November.
2. On: .
3. Every: 6 hours.
From: 12:00:00 AM Until: 06:00:00 PM.
4. Effective:
From: 08/30/2009. Actually the task will be started on the first workday of September. By setting
up this date we just define that the task must be started in 2009.
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.
During northern winter, the task runs once at 10PM on every workday.
During northern spring and autumn, the task runs every 12 hours on all workdays.
During northern summer, the task runs every first and fifteenth of every month at 10 PM.
Thus, the following three schedules are added to the task.
First schedule
1.
2.
3.
4.
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Months: December, January, February.
On:
Once at: 10:00:00 PM.
Effective:
From: 11/01/2009.
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To: not set.
Second schedule
1. Months: March, April, May, September, October, November.
2. On: .
3. Every: 12 hours
From: 12:00:00 AM Until: 12:00:00 PM.
4. Effective:
From: 11/01/2009.
To: not set.
Third schedule
1.
2.
3.
4.
Months: June, July, August.
Days: 1, 15.
Once at: 10:00:00 PM.
Effective:
From: 11/01/2009.
To: not set.
4.4.4
On Windows Event Log event
This type of schedule is effective only in Windows operating systems.
You can schedule a backup task to start when a certain Windows event has been recorded in one of
the event logs such as the Application, Security, or System log.
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. Select the name of a standard log (Application, Security, or
System) from the list, or type a log name—for example: Microsoft Office Sessions
Event source
Specifies the event source, which typically indicates the program or the system component that
caused the event—for example: disk
Event type
Specifies the event type: Error, Warning, Information, Audit success, or Audit failure.
Event ID
Specifies the event number, which typically identifies the particular kind of events among events
from the same source.
For example, an Error event with Event source disk and Event ID 7 occurs when Windows
discovers a bad block on a disk, whereas an Error event with Event source disk and Event ID 15
occurs when a disk is not ready for access yet.
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Examples
"Bad block" emergency backup
One or more bad blocks that have suddenly appeared on a hard disk usually indicate that the hard
disk drive will soon fail. Suppose that you want to create a backup plan that will back up hard disk
data as soon as such a situation occurs.
When Windows detects a bad block on a hard disk, it records an event with the event source disk
and the event number 7 into the System log; the type of this event is Error.
When creating the plan, type or select the following in the Schedule area:
Log name: System
Event source: disk
Event type: Error
Event ID: 7
Important: To ensure that such a task will complete despite the presence of bad blocks, you must make the task
ignore bad blocks. To do this, in Backup options, go to Error handling, and then select the Ignore bad sectors
check box.
Pre-update backup in Vista
Suppose that you want to create a backup plan that will automatically perform a backup of the
system—for example, by backing up the volume where Windows is installed—every time that
Windows is about to install updates.
Having downloaded one or more updates and scheduled their installation, the Microsoft Windows
Vista operating system records an event with the event source
Microsoft-Windows-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.
How to view events in Event Viewer
To open a log in Event Viewer
1. On the Desktop or in the Start menu, right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.
2. In the Computer Management console, expand System Tools, and then expand Event Viewer.
3. In Event Viewer, click the name of a log that you want to view—for example, Application.
Note: To be able to open the security log (Security), you must be a member of the Administrators group.
To view properties of an event, including the event source and event number
1. In Event Viewer, click the name of a log that you want to view—for example, Application.
Note: To be able to open the security log (Security), you must be a member of the Administrators group.
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2. In the list of events in the right pane, double-click the name of an event whose properties you
want to view.
3. In the Event Properties dialog box, view the event's properties such as the event source, shown
in the Source field; and the event number, shown in the Event ID field.
When you are finished, click OK to close the Event Properties dialog box.
4.4.5
Advanced scheduling settings
The following advanced settings are available when setting up a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule in
a centralized backup plan.
Use Wake-on-LAN
When this setting is enabled, Acronis Backup Management Server will use the Wake-on-LAN
functionality to wake up turned-off registered machines when a backup, cleanup, or validation is
scheduled to start. If you start any of these operations manually, the Wake-on-LAN functionality will
not be used.
If the backup task on each machine starts with a delay (see the next setting), the management server
will wake up the machines according to those delays.
Before using this setting, ensure that you have enabled Wake-on-LAN on the registered machines.
The machine's basic input/output system (BIOS) configuration, network adapter configuration, and
the operating system configuration must allow waking up the machine from the powered-off state,
also known as the S5 or G2 power state.
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 backup plan. This distributes the tasks' actual start times within a
time interval.
You may want to use this setting when creating a centralized backup plan for backing up multiple
machines to a network location, to avoid excessive network load.
The delay values range from zero to the specified maximum delay value, and are determined
according to the chosen distribution method. The delay value for each machine is determined when
the backup plan is deployed to the machine, and remains the same until you edit the backup plan
and change the maximum delay value.
The conditions, if any, will be checked at the task's actual start time on each machine.
The following examples illustrate this setting.
Example 1
Suppose that you are deploying a centralized backup plan with the following schedule to three
machines:
Run the task: Daily
Once at: 09:00:00 AM
Distribute start time within the time window
Maximum delay: 1 Hour(s)
Distribution method: Random
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In this case, the task's start time on each machine may be any time between 09:00:00 AM and
09:59:59 AM. For instance:
First machine: Every day at 09:30:03 AM
Second machine: Every day at 09:00:00 AM
Third machine: Every day at 09:59:59 AM
Example 2
Suppose that you are deploying a centralized backup plan with the following schedule to three
machines:
Run the task: Daily
Every: 2 Hour(s) From: 09:00:00 AM Until: 11:00:00 AM
Distribute start time within the time window
Maximum delay: 1 Hour(s)
Distribution method: Random
In this case, the time of the task's first run on each machine may be any time between
09:00:00 AM and 09:59:59 AM; the interval between the first and the second run is exactly two
hours. For instance:
First machine: Every day at 09:30:03 AM and at 11:30:03 AM
Second machine: Every day at 09:00:00 AM and at 11:00:00 AM
Third machine: Every day at 09:59:59 AM and at 11:59:59 AM
To specify advanced settings
1. Connect to the management server and then start creating a backup plan.
2. In How to back up, select the Simple, GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son), Tower of Hanoi, or Custom
backup scheme.
3. Depending on the backup scheme, do one of the following:
For the GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) backup scheme, click Advanced settings.
For the Simple, Tower of Hanoi, or Custom backup scheme:
a. Click Schedule to specify a schedule for the scheme.
b. Under Run the task, select Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.
c. In the Advanced settings area, click Change.
4. To enable the use of the Wake-on-LAN functionality, select the Use Wake-on-LAN check box.
5. To distribute the centralized backup tasks' start times, select the Distribute start time within the
time window check box and then specify the maximum delay value and the distribution method.
4.4.6
Conditions
Conditions add more flexibility to the scheduler, enabling to execute backup tasks with respect to
certain conditions. Once a specified event occurs (see the "Scheduling (p. 77)" section for the list of
available events), the scheduler checks the specified condition and executes the task if the condition
is met.
Conditions are available only when the custom backup scheme (p. 64) is used. You can set conditions for full,
incremental and differential backup separately.
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. 123) backup option. There, you can specify how
important the conditions are for the backup strategy:
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conditions are obligatory - put the backup task run on hold until all the conditions are met.
backup task start time matters - skip the backup task if the conditions are not met at the time
when the task should be started. Skipping the task run makes sense when you need to back up
data strictly at the specified time, especially if the events are relatively often.
conditions are preferable, but a backup task run has higher priority - put the task on hold for the
specified time interval. If the time interval lapses and the conditions are still not met, run the
task anyway. With this setting, the program will automatically handle the situation when the
conditions are not met for too long and further delaying the backup is undesirable.
Adding multiple conditions
If two or more conditions are specified, the backup will start only when all of them are met.
4.4.6.1
User is idle
Applies to: Windows
"User is idle" means that a screen saver is running on the managed machine or the machine is locked.
Example:
Run the backup task on the managed machine every day at 9PM, preferably when the user is idle. If
the user is still active by 11PM, run the task anyway.
Event: Daily, every 1 day(s); Once at: 09:00:00 PM.
Condition: User is idle.
Task start conditions: Wait until the conditions are met, Run the task anyway after 2 hour(s).
As a result,
(1) If the user becomes idle before 9PM, the backup task will start at 9PM.
(2) If the user becomes idle between 9PM and 11PM, the backup task will start immediately after the
user becomes idle.
(3) If the user is still active at 11PM, the backup task starts anyway.
4.4.6.2
Location's host is available
Applies to: Windows, Linux
"Location's host is available" means that the machine hosting the destination for storing archives on
a networked drive is available.
Example:
Backing up data to the networked location is performed on workdays at 9:00 PM. If the location's
host is not available at that moment (for instance, due to maintenance work), skip the backup and
wait for the next workday to start the task. It is assumed that the backup task should not be started
at all rather than failed.
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,
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(1) If 9:00 PM comes and the location's host is available, the backup task starts right on time.
(2) If 9:00 PM comes but the host is unavailable at the moment, the backup task will start on the next
workday if the location's host is available.
(3) If the location's host will never be available on workdays at 9:00 PM, the task never starts.
4.4.6.3
Fits the time interval
Applies to: Windows, Linux
Restricts a backup task's start time to a specified interval.
Example
A company uses different locations on the same network-attached storage for backing up users data
and servers. The workday starts at 8AM and ends at 5 PM. Users' data should be backed up as soon
as the users log off, but not earlier than 4:30 PM and not later than 10 PM. Every day at 11 PM the
company's servers are backed up. So, all the users' data should be preferably backed up before this
time, in order to free network bandwidth. By specifying the upper limit as 10 PM, it is supposed that
the backing up of users' data does not take more than one hour. If a user is still logged on within the
specified time interval, or logs off at any other time – do not back up the users' data, i.e. skip task
execution.
Event: When logging off, The following user: Any user.
Condition: Fits the time interval, from 04:30:00 PM until 10:00:00 PM.
Task start conditions: Skip the task execution.
As a result,
(1) if the user logs off between 04:30:00 PM and 10:00:00 PM, the backup task will start immediately
following the logging off.
(2) if the user logs off at any other time, the task will be skipped.
What if...
What if a task is scheduled to be executed at a certain time and this time is outside the specified time
interval?
For example:
Event: Daily, Every 1 day(s); Once at 03:00:00 PM.
Condition: Fits the time interval, from 06:00:00 PM until 11:59:59 PM.
In this case, whether and when the task will run depends on the task start conditions:
If the task start conditions are Skip the task execution, the task will never run.
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.
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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.
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4.4.6.4
Users logged off
Applies to: Windows
Enables to put a backup task run on hold until all users log off from Windows on the managed
machine.
Example
Run the backup task at 8 PM on the first and third Friday of every month, preferably when all users
are logged off. If one of the users is still logged on at 11 PM, run the task anyway.
Event: Monthly, Months: ; On: , ; Once at 08:00:00 PM.
Condition: Users logged off.
Task start conditions: Wait until the conditions are met, Run the task anyway after 3 hour(s).
As a result,
(1) If all users are logged off at 8PM, the backup task will start at 8PM.
(2) If the last user logs off between 8PM and 11PM, the backup task will start immediately after the
user has logged off.
(3) If any of the users is still logged on at 11PM, the backup task starts anyway.
4.4.6.5
Time since last backup
Applies to: Windows, Linux
Postpones a backup until the specified time passes since the completion of the last successful backup
within the same backup plan.
Example:
Run the backup task at system startup, but only if more than 12 hours have passed since the last
successful backup.
Event: At startup, Start the task on machine startup.
Condition: Time since last backup, Time since the last backup: 12 hour(s).
Task start conditions: Wait until the conditions are met.
As a result,
(1) if the machine is restarted before 12 hours pass since the completion of the latest successful
backup, the scheduler will wait until 12 hours pass, and then will start the task.
(2) if the machine is restarted after 12 hours have passed since the completion of the latest
successful backup, the backup task will start immediately.
(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.
4.5
Replication and retention of backups
When creating a backup plan (p. 50), you specify the primary location for the backups. In addition,
you can do the following:
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Replicate (copy) each backup to a second location immediately after creation.
Retain the backups according to the retention rules you specify, and then either move them to a
second location or delete them.
Similarly, you can copy or move backups from a second location to a third location and so on. Up to
five consecutive locations are supported (including the primary one).
Note: The replication feature replaces and enhances the Dual destination option, which was available in
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10.
Example. You back up your machine to a local folder. The backup is immediately copied to a network
folder. In the original local folder, the backup is stored for just one month.
The following picture illustrates this example.
Usage scenarios
Reliable disaster recovery (p. 97)
Store your backups both on-site (for immediate recovery) and off-site (to secure the backups
from local storage failure or a natural disaster).
Keeping only the latest recovery points (p. 97)
Delete older backups from a fast storage according to retention rules, in order to not overuse
expensive storage space.
Using Acronis Cloud Backup to protect data from a natural disaster (p. 98)
Replicate the archive to the cloud storage by transferring only the data changes outside working
hours.
Reduced costs of storing the backed-up data (p. 99)
Store your backups on a fast storage for as long as a need to access them is likely. Then, move
them to a lower-cost storage to keep them there for a longer term. This enables you to meet
legal requirements on data retention.
Backup to a slow device within a narrow backup window (p. 99)
Back up overnight to a managed vault on a fast storage, and then let Acronis Backup Storage
Node move the backups to tapes during the day.
Replication and retention in backup schemes
The following table shows availability of replication and retention rules in various backup schemes.
Backup scheme
Can copy
backups
Can move
backups
Can delete
backups
Manual start (p. 69)
Yes
No
No
Simple (p. 60)
Yes
Yes
Yes
Grandfather-Father-Son
(GFS) (p. 61)
Yes
No
Yes
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Tower of Hanoi (p. 67)
Yes
No
Yes
Custom (p. 64)
Yes
Yes
Yes
Initial seeding (p. 69)
No
No
No
Notes:
Setting up both copying and moving backups from the same location is not possible.
With simplified naming of backup files (p. 72), neither replication nor use of retention rules is
available.
4.5.1
Supported locations
You can copy or move a backup from any of these locations:
A local folder on a fixed drive
A network folder
An FTP or SFTP server
Acronis Backup Storage Node
Acronis Secure Zone
You can copy or move a backup to any of these locations:
A local folder on a fixed drive
A network folder
An FTP or SFTP server
Acronis Backup Storage Node
A tape device
Acronis Cloud Storage
A removable device (p. 189) used in the Fixed drive mode. (You select the removable device
mode when creating a backup plan.)
Backups that were copied or moved to the next location do not depend on the backups remaining in
the original location and vice versa. You can recover data from any backup without access to other
locations.
Restrictions
Copying or moving backups to and from optical discs (CD, DVD, Blu-ray discs) is not supported.
Copying or moving backups from Acronis Backup Storage Node to a local folder is not supported.
A local folder means a folder on the machine with the agent that created the backup.
A tape device and Acronis Cloud Storage can only be the final locations. Further copying or
moving backups from them is not possible.
You cannot specify the same location more than once. For example, you cannot move a backup
from one folder to another and then back to the original folder.
Copying or moving backups to and from removable devices used in the Removable media mode
is not supported.
Which machine performs the operation?
Copying, moving or deleting a backup from any location is initiated by the agent that created the
backup, and is performed:
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By that agent, if the location is not a managed vault.
By the corresponding storage node, if the location is a managed vault. However, copying or
moving the backup from the managed vault to the cloud storage is performed by the agent that
created the backup.
As follows from the above description, the operation will be performed only if the machine with the
agent is powered on. If the operation is scheduled, the schedule will use that machine's date and
time.
Copying and moving backups between managed vaults
Copying or moving a backup from one managed vault to another managed vault is performed by the
storage node.
If the target vault is a deduplicating vault (p. 434) (possibly on a different storage node), the source
storage node sends only those blocks of data that are not present in the target vault. In other words,
like an agent, the storage node performs deduplication at source (p. 226). This saves network traffic
when you replicate data between geographically separated storage nodes.
4.5.2
Setting up replication of backups
Setting up replication of backups is available when creating a backup plan (p. 50).
To set up replication from the primary location, select the Replicate newly created backup to
another location check box.
To set up replication from the second or a further location, select the Replicate backups to
another location as soon as they appear in this location check box.
Next, select the location where to replicate the backups.
If allowed by the backup scheme, you can also specify when to automatically delete the backups
from each of the locations.
A backup is replicated to the next location as soon as it appears in the previous location. If earlier
backups were not replicated (for example, the network connection was lost), the software also
replicates all of the backups that appeared after the last successful replication.
4.5.3
Setting up retention of backups
You can set retention rules for backups when creating a backup plan (p. 50). The available retention
rules depend on the chosen backup scheme.
Applying retention rules can be restricted by the Replication/cleanup inactivity time (p. 120) option.
Simple scheme
Each backup is retained until its age exceeds a limit you specify. Then, it is either deleted or moved.
To set up deleting the backups:
In Retention rules, select Delete backups older than…, and then specify the retention period.
To set up moving the backups:
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In Retention rules, select Move backups older than…, specify the retention period. Under Where
to replicate/move backups, specify the location.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
The retention rules are applied after creating a backup. For the second and next locations, creating a
backup means copying or moving a backup there from the previous location.
Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) scheme
Backups of each type (daily, weekly, and monthly) are retained for the periods you specify in Keep
backups, and then deleted.
The retention rules are applied after creating a backup. They are applied sequentially in the primary,
the second and all next locations.
Tower of Hanoi scheme
Each backup is retained based on its level (p. 67), and then deleted. You specify the number of levels
in Number of levels.
The retention rules are applied after creating a backup. They are applied sequentially in the primary,
the second and all next locations.
Custom scheme
Each backup is retained until the rules you specify are met. Then, it is either deleted or moved.
To set up deleting the backups:
In Clean up archive, select Using retention rules. In the Retention Rules window (p. 95), specify
the rules and select If the specified conditions are met: Delete the oldest backups.
In Apply retention rules, specify when to apply the rules.
To set up moving the backups:
In Clean up archive, select Using retention rules. In the Retention Rules window (p. 95), specify
the rules and select If the specified conditions are met: Move the oldest backups to another
location. Click OK and then specify the location under Where to replicate/move backups.
In Apply retention rules, specify when to apply the rules.
You can choose to apply the retention rules before creating a backup, after creating a backup, on a
schedule, or combine these options. For the second and next locations, creating a backup means
copying or moving a backup there from the previous location.
4.5.4
Retention rules for the Custom scheme
In the Retention Rules window, you can select how long to store backups in the location and
whether to move or delete them afterward.
The rules will be applied to all the backups taken on the specific machine and put in this specific
location by this specific backup plan. In Acronis Backup, such set of backups is called an archive.
To set up retention rules for backups:
1. Specify one of the following (options (a) and (b) are mutually exclusive):
a. Backups older than... and/or Archive size greater than....
A backup will be stored until the specified condition (or both of the conditions) are met.
Note: In a deduplicating vault (p. 434), almost all backed-up data is stored in a data store
outside the archive. Thus, the Archive size greater than condition is not effective and is
not displayed.
Example:
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Backups older than 5 days
Archive size greater than 100 GB
With these settings, a backup will be stored until it is older than five days and the size of
the archive containing it exceeds 100 GB.
b. Number of backups in the archive exceeds...
If the number of backups exceeds the specified value, one or more of the oldest backups
will be moved or deleted. The minimal setting is 1.
2. Select whether to delete the backups or to move them to another location if the specified
conditions are met.
You will be able to specify the location where to move the backups and set up retention rules for
that location after you click OK.
Deleting the last backup in the archive
The retention rules are effective if the archive contains more than one backup. This means that the
last backup in the archive will be kept, even if a retention rule violation is detected. Please do not try
to delete the only backup you have by applying the retention rules before backup. This will not work.
Use the alternative setting Clean up archive > When there is insufficient space while backing up (p.
64) if you accept the risk of losing the last backup.
Deleting or moving backups with dependencies
To access this setting, click Show advanced settings in the Retention Rules window.
Retention rules presume deleting or moving some backups while retaining the others. What if the
archive contains incremental and differential backups that depend on each other and on the full
backups they are based on? You cannot, say, delete an outdated full backup and keep its incremental
“children”.
When deletion or movement of a backup affects other backups, one of the following rules is applied:
Retain the backup until all dependent backups become subject to deletion (movement)
The outdated backup (marked with the
icon) 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. If
you chose moving outdated backups to the next location, the backup will be copied there
without delay. Only its deletion from the current location is postponed.
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 or
number can exceed the values you specify.
This mode is not available for Acronis Cloud Storage when you copy or move backups there. In
the cloud storage, all backups are incremental except the first backup of an archive which is
always full. This chain cannot be entirely deleted because the most recent backup must always
be kept.
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Consolidate these backups
The software will consolidate the backup that is subject to deletion or movement, with the next
dependent backup. For example, the retention rules require to delete a full backup but to retain
the next incremental one. The backups will be combined into a single full backup which will be
dated with the incremental backup date. When an incremental or differential backup from the
middle of the chain is deleted, the resulting backup type will be incremental.
This mode ensures that after each cleanup the archive size and the age or number of backups are
within the bounds you specify. The consolidation, however, may take a lot of time and system
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
resources. You still need some extra space in the vault for temporary files created during
consolidation.
This mode is not available if you selected the Archive size greater than rule for any archive
location except for Acronis Cloud Storage.
What you need to know about consolidation
Please be aware that consolidation is just a method of deletion but not an alternative to deletion.
The resulting backup will not contain data that was present in the deleted backup and was
absent from the retained incremental or differential backup.
4.5.5
Usage examples
This section provides examples of how you can replicate backups and set up retention rules for them.
4.5.5.1
Example 1. Replicating backups to a network folder
Consider the following scenario:
You want to perform a full backup of your machine manually.
You want to store the backups in Acronis Secure Zone (p. 185) on the machine.
You want to store a copy of the backups in a network folder.
In this scenario, create a backup plan with the Manual start scheme. When creating the backup plan,
specify Acronis Secure Zone in the Location field, select Full in the Backup type field, select the
Replicate newly created backup to another location check box, and then specify the network folder
in the 2nd location field.
Result:
You can recover the machine’s volumes or files from a readily available local backup, which is
stored in a dedicated area of the hard disk.
You can recover the machine from the network folder if the machine’s hard disk drive fails.
4.5.5.2
Example 2. Limiting the age and total size of stored backups
Consider the following scenario:
You want to perform a weekly full backup of your machine.
You want to keep all backups that are younger than a month.
You want to keep even older backups, as long as the total size of all backups stays below 200 GB.
In this scenario, create a backup plan with the Custom scheme. When creating the backup plan,
specify a weekly schedule for the full backup. In Clean up archive, select Using retention rules.
Click Retention rules, select the Backups older than and the Archive size greater than check boxes,
and specify respectively 1 month and 200 GB. In If the specified conditions are met, select Delete
the oldest backups.
Click OK. In Apply retention rules, select the After backup check box.
Result:
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Backups that are younger than one month are kept, regardless of their total size.
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Backups that are older than one month are kept only if the total size of all backups (older plus
younger) does not exceed 200 GB. Otherwise, the software deletes some or all of the older
backups, starting from the oldest one.
4.5.5.3
Example 3. Replicating backups to the cloud storage
This example assumes that you have activated (p. 423) a cloud backup subscription (p. 407) for the
machine that you are backing up.
The following scenario assumes that the amount of data you want to back up is relatively small. For
larger backups, see “Replicating large amounts of data to the cloud storage” later in this section.
Consider the following scenario:
You want to occasionally back up your machine to a local folder.
You want to keep a copy of the resulting archive off-site in Acronis Cloud Storage.
No matter when you start the backup, you want the replication to take place outside working
hours, when demand on the Internet connection is lower.
In this scenario, create a backup plan with the desired backup scheme. When creating the backup
plan, specify a local folder in the Location field. Select the Replicate newly created backup to
another location check box, and then specify the cloud storage in the 2nd location field.
In Backup options, go to Replication/cleanup inactivity time (p. 120), and specify the working hours
(for example, Monday through Friday from 8:00 until 17:00).
Result:
After the backup plan starts, the data is backed up to the local folder.
If the backup finishes outside the working hours, replication starts immediately. Otherwise,
replication is postponed until the end of the working hours.
Note: In the cloud storage, the second and further backups of an archive will always be incremental, no matter
what type they are in the original location. This leads to efficient use of storage space for your cloud backup
subscription.
Replicating large amounts of data to the cloud storage
If you are planning to back up 500 GB of data or more, you may want to send the first backup to the
cloud storage on a physical hard drive. This option is provided by the Initial Seeding service (p. 411)
which you can buy in addition to your cloud backup subscription.
The Initial Seeding service might be unavailable in your region. To find more information, click here:
http://kb.acronis.com/content/15118.
During the subsequent backups, only changes to the original data will be sent to the cloud storage
and will not affect network traffic as much.
In this scenario, create a backup plan with the Initial seeding scheme. When creating the backup plan,
specify a local folder in the Location field. This can be a folder on the hard drive that you are going to
send. For more details, see “How to perform initial seeding?” (p. 413).
After you have sent the hard drive and the order status becomes The data upload has been
completed, edit the backup plan. Change the backup scheme, destination, and replication settings to
those previously described in this section.
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The updated backup plan will produce backups that will be replicated to the cloud storage outside
working hours.
4.5.5.4
Example 4. Moving older backups to tapes
Consider the following scenario:
You want to perform a daily backup of your machine.
You want to store the backups locally for one week.
You want to move the backups that are older than one week to a tape device.
Such scenario is sometimes called disk staging, or D2D2T (disk-to-disk-to-tape).
In this scenario, create a backup plan with the Simple scheme and a daily schedule. (All backups will
be full by default.) When creating the backup plan, specify a local folder or Acronis Secure Zone in
the Location field. Under Retention rules, select Move backups older than 1 week. Then, specify the
tape device in the 2nd location field.
Make sure that the tape device is ready to work. The preparation steps are described in the "Backing
up a machine to a directly attached tape device" (p. 196) section.
Result:
After a backup is completed, the agent checks for backups that need to be moved.
You can eject tapes with backups and securely store them off-site. Once you select data for
recovery, Acronis Backup will prompt you which tapes to insert.
The agent moves the backups that are older than one week, by copying them to the tape device
and then deleting them from the original location.
4.5.5.5
Example 5. Backing up to tapes within a narrow backup window
This example assumes that you are using Acronis Backup Advanced.
Consider the following scenario:
You want to back up servers every workday after working hours.
You want to store the backups on a tape library.
You want to do a monthly full backup on one of the workdays, and partial (incremental or
differential) backups on the other workdays.
The backup window for the servers is narrow, so they cannot be backed up to the tapes directly.
In this scenario, install Acronis Backup Storage Node and create two managed vaults: one on a hard
disk local to the storage node, and another on the tape library locally attached to it.
Create a centralized backup plan for all of the machines with the Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS)
scheme. When creating the backup plan, specify the vault on the hard disk in the Location field.
Under Backup type, select Full/Incremental/Differential.
For the primary location, in Keep backups, choose to keep monthly backups for one month (you
need to clear the Keep indefinitely check box). This way, the vault will serve as an intermediate,
short-term storage for the backups.
Select the Replicate newly created backup to another location check box, and then specify the vault
on the tape library in the 2nd location field. For the second location, select to keep monthly backups
indefinitely.
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Result:
Agents back up their machines to the vault on the hard disk.
The lifetime of backups on the hard disk does not exceed one month. On the tape library, the
monthly backups are kept indefinitely.
The storage node copies the backups to the tape device. No CPU resource from the machines is
taken.
4.6
How to disable backup cataloging
Cataloging a backup adds the contents of the backup to the data catalog as soon as the backup is
created. This process can be time-consuming, especially in environments with a large amount of
machines. Therefore, you may want to disable cataloging in the entire environment.
To disable backup cataloging
These steps can be performed in any order.
1. Modify the Windows registry (p. 406) on the management server.
2. Modify the Windows registry (p. 223) on storage nodes.
3. [On managed machines in an Active Directory domain] Load Acronis Administrative Template (p.
391) on the domain controller and configure the Cataloging setting in the Acronis Backup Agent
for Windows (p. 396) category of the template.
4. [On managed machines not included in an Active Directory domain] Connect the console to each
machine, go to Options > Machine options, and configure the Backup cataloging option.
4.7
Default backup options
Each Acronis agent has its own default backup options. Once an agent is installed, the default options
have pre-defined values, which are referred to as presets in the documentation. When creating a
backup plan, you can either use a default option, or override the default option with the custom
value that will be specific for this plan only.
You can also customize a default option itself by changing its value against the pre-defined one. The
new value will be used by default in all backup plans you will create later on this machine.
To view and change the default backup options, connect the console to the managed machine and
then select Options > Default backup and recovery options > Default backup options from the top
menu.
Availability of the backup options
The set of available backup options depends on:
The environment the agent operates in (Windows, Linux, bootable media).
The type of the data being backed up (disk, file).
The backup destination (networked location or local disk).
The backup scheme (manual start or using the scheduler).
The following table summarizes the availability of the backup options.
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Agent for Windows
Agent for Linux
Bootable media
(Linux-based or PE-based)
Disk backup
File backup
Disk backup
File backup
Disk backup
File backup
Dest:
removable
media
Dest:
removable
media
Dest:
removable
media
Dest:
removable
media
Dest:
removable
media
Dest:
removable
media
Additional settings (p. 102):
Ask for the first media while
backing up to removable
media
Deduplicate backup only
after transferring it to the
vault
Dest: dedup. Dest: dedup. Dest: dedup. Dest: dedup. Dest: dedup. Dest: dedup.
vault
vault
vault
vault
vault
vault
Reset archive bit
-
+
-
-
-
+
Restart the machine
automatically after backup is
finished
-
-
-
-
+
+
Archive protection (p. 104)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
-
-
+
+
+
+
-
-
HDD writing speed (p. 106)
Dest: HDD
Dest: HDD
Dest: HDD
Dest: HDD
Dest: HDD
Dest: HDD
Network connection speed
(p. 106)
Dest:
network
share
+
Dest:
network
share
+
Dest:
network
share
+
Dest:
network
share
+
Dest:
network
share
+
Dest:
network
share
+
Compression level (p. 107)
+
+
+
+
+
+
Disaster recovery plan (p.
108)
+
+
+
+
-
-
E-mail notifications (p. 109)
+
+
+
+
-
-
Do not show messages and
dialogs while processing
(silent mode)
+
+
+
+
+
+
Re-attempt if an error occurs
+
+
+
+
+
+
Ignore bad sectors
+
+
+
+
+
+
Windows events log (p. 112)
+
+
-
-
-
-
SNMP (p. 111)
+
+
+
+
-
-
Fast incremental/differential
backup (p. 112)
+
-
+
-
+
-
(password + encryption)
Backup cataloging (p. 104)
Backup performance:
Backup priority (p. 105)
Backup splitting (p. 106)
Error handling (p. 110):
Event tracing:
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Agent for Windows
Agent for Linux
Bootable media
(Linux-based or PE-based)
Disk backup
File backup
Disk backup
File backup
Disk backup
File backup
-
+
-
+
-
-
Preserve files’ security
settings in archives
-
+
-
-
-
-
In archives, store encrypted
files in decrypted state
-
+
-
-
-
-
LVM snapshotting (p. 114)
-
-
+
-
-
-
Media components (p. 115)
Dest:
removable
media
-
Dest:
removable
media
+
Dest:
removable
media
-
Dest:
removable
media
-
-
-
-
-
Multi-volume snapshot (p.
116)
+
+
-
-
-
-
Pre/Post backup commands
(p. 116)
+
+
+
+
PE only
PE only
Pre/Post data capture
commands (p. 118)
+
+
+
+
-
-
Replication/cleanup
inactivity time (p. 120)
+
+
+
+
-
-
Sector-by-sector backup (p.
120)
+
-
+
-
+
-
Tape management (p. 121)
Dest: tape
Dest: tape
Dest: tape
Dest: tape
Dest: tape
Dest: tape
Task failure handling (p. 122)
+
+
+
+
-
-
Task start conditions (p. 123)
+
+
+
+
-
-
Volume Shadow Copy
Service (p. 124)
+
+
-
-
-
-
File-level backup snapshot
(p. 112)
File-level security (p. 113):
Mount points (p. 115)
4.7.1
Additional settings
Specify the additional settings for the backup operation by selecting or clearing the following check
boxes.
Ask for the first media while backing up to removable media
This option is effective only when backing up to removable media.
The option defines whether to display the Insert First Media prompt when backing up to removable
media.
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The preset is: Disabled.
When the option is enabled, backing up to removable media may be not possible if the user is away,
because the program will wait for someone to press OK in the prompt box. Hence, you should disable
the prompt when scheduling a backup to removable media. Then, if the removable media is available
(for example, a DVD is inserted), the task can run unattended.
Reset archive bit
The option is effective only for file-level backup in Windows operating systems and in bootable
media.
The preset is: Disabled.
In Windows operating systems, each file has the File is ready for archiving attribute, available by
selecting File -> Properties -> General -> Advanced -> Archive and Index attributes. This attribute,
also known as the archive bit, is set by the operating system each time the file is changed and can be
reset by backup applications each time they include the file in a backup. The archive bit value is used
by various applications such as databases.
When the Reset archive bit check box is selected, Acronis Backup will reset the archive bits of all files
being backed up. Acronis Backup itself does not use the archive bit value. When performing
incremental or differential backup, it determines whether a file has changed by the file size and the
date/time when the file was last saved.
Restart the machine automatically after backup is finished
This option is available only when operating under bootable media.
The preset is: Disabled.
When the option is enabled, Acronis Backup will restart the machine after the backup process is
completed.
For example, if the machine boots from a hard disk drive by default and you select this check box, the
machine will be restarted and the operating system will start as soon as the bootable agent has
finished creating the backup.
Deduplicate backup only after transferring it to the vault (do not deduplicate at
source)
This option is available only in Acronis Backup Advanced.
This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media, when the
backup destination is a deduplicating vault.
The preset is: Disabled.
Enabling this option turns off deduplicating backups at source, meaning that deduplication will be
performed by Acronis Backup Storage Node after the backup is saved to the vault (this is called
deduplication at target).
Turning off deduplication at source may lead to faster backup processes but greater network traffic
and heavier load of the storage node. The eventual size of the backup in the vault is independent of
whether deduplication at source is turned on.
Deduplication at source and deduplication at target are described in Deduplication overview (p. 225).
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4.7.2
Archive protection
This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media.
This option is effective for both disk-level and file-level backup.
This option defines whether the archive will be protected with a password and whether the archive’s
content will be encrypted.
This option is not available when the archive already contains backups. For example, this option may
not be available:
When you specify an already existing archive as the destination of the backup plan.
When you edit a backup plan that has already resulted in a backup.
The preset is: Disabled.
To protect the archive from unauthorized access
1.
2.
3.
4.
Select the Set password for the archive check box.
In the Enter the password field, type a password.
In the Confirm the password field, re-type the password.
Select one of the following:
Do not encrypt – the archive will be protected with the password only
AES 192 – the archive will be encrypted using the AES algorithm with a 192-bit key
AES 128 – the archive will be encrypted using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
algorithm with a 128-bit key
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.
The password itself is not stored anywhere on the disk or in the backup file; the password hash is
used for verification purposes. With this two-level security, the backup data is protected from any
unauthorized access, but recovering a lost password is not possible.
4.7.3
Backup cataloging
Cataloging a backup adds the contents of the backup to the data catalog. Using the data catalog, you
can easily find the required version of data and select it for recovery.
The Backup cataloging option specifies whether full or fast cataloging will be performed on a backup
as soon as the backup is created.
This option is effective only if backup cataloging is enabled on the backed-up machine or on the
storage node (p. 223).
The preset is: Full cataloging.
If you select Full cataloging, the backup contents are cataloged to the highest possible level of detail.
This means that the following data will be displayed in the catalog:
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For a disk-level backup - disks, volumes, files, and folders.
For an Exchange mailbox-level backup - mailboxes, folders, and e-mails.
For a file-level backup - files and folders.
For an Exchange database-level backup - databases or storage groups and mailboxes (always);
folders and e-mails (depends on the Microsoft Exchange metadata collection option).
You may want to select Fast cataloging if the full cataloging tends to affect the performance of the
managed machine or if your backup window is too narrow. The following data will be displayed in the
catalog:
For a disk-level backup - only disks and volumes.
For a file-level backup - nothing.
For an Exchange database-level backup - only databases or storage groups and mailboxes.
For an Exchange mailbox-level backup - only mailboxes.
To add the full contents of already existing backups to the catalog, you can start the full cataloging
manually when appropriate.
Note for users of Acronis Backup Advanced for virtual environments: When backing up to an unmanaged vault
(except for a locally-attached storage), Agent for VMware (Virtual Appliance) always performs fast cataloging.
You can start the full cataloging of the vault manually from the management server.
For more information about using the data catalog, see the "Data catalog" (p. 131) section.
4.7.4
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. This depends on the overall system configuration and the physical characteristics of devices
the backup is being performed from or to.
4.7.4.1
Backup priority
This option is effective for both Windows and Linux operating systems.
The priority of a process running in a system determines the amount of CPU and system resources
allocated to that process. Decreasing the backup priority will free more resources for other
applications. Increasing the backup priority might speed up the backup process by requesting the
operating system to allocate more resources like the CPU to the backup application. However, the
resulting effect will depend on the overall CPU usage and other factors like disk in/out speed or
network traffic.
The preset is: Low.
To specify the backup process priority
Select one of the following:
Low – to minimize resources taken by the backup process, leaving more resources to other
processes running on the machine
Normal – to run the backup process with normal speed, allocating resources on a par with other
processes
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High – to maximize the backup process speed by taking resources from other processes.
4.7.4.2
HDD writing speed
This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media.
This option is available when an internal (fixed) hard disk of the machine being backed up is selected
as the backup destination
Backing up to a fixed hard disk (for example, to Acronis Secure Zone) may slow performance of the
operating system and applications because of the large amounts of data that needs to be written to
the disk. You can limit the hard disk usage by the backup process to the desired level.
The preset is: Maximum.
To set the desired HDD writing speed for backup
Do any of the following:
Click Writing speed stated as a percentage of the maximum speed of the destination hard disk,
and then drag the slider or select a percentage in the box
Click Writing speed stated in kilobytes per second, and then enter the writing speed in kilobytes
per second.
4.7.4.3
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.
By default the speed is set to maximum, i.e. the software uses all the network bandwidth it can get
when transferring the backup data. Use this option to reserve a part of the network bandwidth for
other network activities.
The preset is: Maximum.
To set the network connection speed for backup
Do any of the following:
Click Transferring speed stated as a percentage of the estimated maximum speed of the
network connection, and then drag the slider or type a percentage in the box
Click Transferring speed stated in kilobytes per second, and then enter the bandwidth limit for
transferring backup data in kilobytes per second.
4.7.5
Backup splitting
This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media.
This option is not effective when the backup destination is a managed vault or Acronis Cloud Storage.
The option defines how a backup can be split.
The preset is: Automatic
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The following settings are available.
Automatic
With this setting, Acronis Backup will act as follows.
When backing up to a hard disk or a network share:
A single backup file will be created if the destination disk's file system allows the estimated file
size.
The backup will automatically be split into several files if the destination disk's file system does
not allow the estimated file size. This might be the case when the backup is placed on FAT16 and
FAT32 file systems that have a 4-GB file size limit.
If the destination disk runs out of free space while creating the backup, the task enters the Need
interaction state. You have the ability to free additional space and retry the operation. 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, Blu-Ray Discs, a stand-alone tape drive, an RDX
or USB drive used in the removable device (p. 189) mode):
The task will enter the Need interaction state and ask for a new media when the previous one is
full.
When backing up to an FTP server:
The backup will automatically be split into files no more than 2 GB in size. Splitting is needed to
allow data recovery directly from the FTP server.
When backing up to an SFTP server:
A single backup file will be created. If the destination storage runs out of free space while
creating the backup, the task will fail.
When you replicate or move a backup (p. 91) to other locations, these rules apply to each location
independently.
Example.
Suppose that the primary location for a 3-GB backup is a hard disk, the second location is an FTP
server, and the third location is a network share. In this case, the backup will be stored as a single file
in the primary location, as two files in the second location, and as a single file again in the third
location.
Fixed size
Enter the desired file size or select it from the drop-down list. The backup will then be split into
multiple files of the specified size. This comes in handy when creating a backup that you plan to burn
to multiple CDs or DVDs later on. You might also want to split a backup into 2-GB files if you are
backing up to a hard disk, but you plan to manually copy the backup to an FTP server later.
4.7.6
Compression level
This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media.
The option defines the level of compression applied to the data being backed up.
The preset is: Normal.
The optimal data compression level depends on the type of data being backed up. For example, even
maximum compression will not significantly reduce the archive size if the archive contains essentially
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compressed files, such as .jpg, .pdf or .mp3. However, formats such as .doc or .xls will be compressed
well.
To specify the compression level
Select one of the following:
None – the data will be copied as is, without any compression. The resulting backup size will be
maximal.
Normal – recommended in most cases.
High – the resulting backup size will typically be less than for the Normal level.
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.
4.7.7
Disaster recovery plan (DRP)
This option is effective for Windows and Linux but is not applicable to bootable media.
This option is not effective for file-level backups.
Disaster recovery plan (DRP) contains a list of backed up data items and detailed instructions that
guide a user through a process of recovering these items from a backup.
A DRP is created after the first successful backup is performed by the backup plan. If the Send
disaster recovery plans option is enabled, the DRP is sent by e-mail to the specified list of users. If
the Save DRP as file option is enabled, the DRP is saved as a file to the specified location. The DRP
will be created again in the following cases:
The backup plan has been edited so that the DRP parameters changed.
The backup contains new data items or does not contain items previously backed up. (This does
not apply to such data items as files or folders.)
If multiple machines are protected by a backup plan, then a separate DRP is created for each
machine. You can specify a local folder (when connected directly to a managed machine), a network
folder, an FTP or SFTP server as a location to save the DRPs.
DRP and post-backup commands
Note that the DRP will not automatically change if post-backup commands in your backup plan copy
or move the backups from the original location. The DRP points only to the locations specified in the
backup plan.
Adding information to a DRP template
You can append additional information to a DRP template if you are well familiar with XML and HTML.
The default paths to the DRP template are:
%ProgramFiles%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\drp.xsl - in 32-bit Windows
%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\drp.xsl - in 64-bit Windows
/usr/lib/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery/drp.xsl - in Linux
To set up sending DRPs:
1. Select the Send disaster recovery plans check box.
2. Enter the e-mail address in the E-mail Address field. You can enter several e-mail addresses in a
semicolon-delimited format.
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3. [Optional] Change the default value of the Subject field, if necessary.
If you back up multiple machines with one centralized backup plan and want each machine user
to receive a separate DRP e-mail about his/her machine only:
a. Use the %MachineName% variable to show the name of the certain machine in the e-mail
subject.
b. Set up your mail server or client to filter or forward e-mails using the Subject field.
4. Enter the parameters of access to the SMTP server. For more detailed information, see E-mail
notifications (p. 154).
5. [Optional] Click Send test e-mail message to check if the settings are correct.
To set up saving DRPs as files:
1. Select the Save DRP as file check box.
2. Click Browse to specify a location for the DRP files.
4.7.8
E-mail notifications
This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems.
This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
The option enables you to receive e-mail notifications about the backup task's successful completion,
failure or when user interaction is required.
The preset is: Disabled.
To configure e-mail notification
1. Select the Send e-mail notifications check box to activate notifications.
2. Under Send e-mail notifications, select the appropriate check boxes as follows:
When backup completes successfully.
%description%
For a machine running Windows, the %description% variable will be replaced by the text that
is given in the Computer description field of the machine. To specify this text, either go to
Control panel > System or run the following command as an administrator:
When backup fails.
When user interaction is required.
3. Select the Add full log to notification check box if you want the e-mail notification to include log
entries for the operation.
4. In the E-mail addresses field, type the destination e-mail address. You can enter several
addresses separated by semicolons.
5. In the Subject field, type the notification subject.
The subject can include ordinary text and one or more variables. In the received e-mail messages,
each variable will be replaced by its value at the time of task execution. The following variables
are supported:
net config server /srvcomment:
For a machine running Linux, the %description% variable will be replaced by an empty string
("").
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%subject%
The %subject% variable will be replaced by the following phrase: Task on machine .
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6. In the SMTP server field, enter the name of the outgoing mail server (SMTP).
7. In the Port field, set the port of the outgoing mail server. By default, the port is set to 25.
8. If the outgoing mail server requires authentication, enter User name and Password of the
sender's e-mail account.
If the SMTP server does not require authentication, leave the User name and Password fields
blank. If you are not sure whether the SMTP server requires authentication, contact your
network administrator or your e-mail service provider for assistance.
9. Click Additional e-mail parameters... to configure additional e-mail parameters as follows:
a. From – type the name of the sender. If you leave this field empty, the messages will contain
the sender's e-mail account in the From field.
b. Use encryption – you can opt for encrypted connection to the mail server. SSL and TLS
encryption types are available for selection.
c. 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 and Password of the incoming mail server.
d. Click OK.
10. Click Send test e-mail message to check whether e-mail notifications work correctly with the
specified settings.
4.7.9
Error handling
These options are effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media.
These options enable you to specify how to handle errors that might occur during backup.
Do not show messages and dialogs while processing (silent mode)
The preset is: Disabled.
With the silent mode enabled, the program will automatically handle situations requiring user
interaction (except for handling bad sectors, which is defined as a separate option). If an operation
cannot continue without user interaction, it will fail. Details of the operation, including errors, if any,
can be found in the operation log.
Re-attempt, if an error occurs
The preset is: Enabled. Number of attempts: 30. Interval between attempts: 30 seconds.
When a recoverable error occurs, the program re-attempts to perform the unsuccessful operation.
You can set the time interval and the number of attempts. The attempts will be stopped as soon as
the operation succeeds OR the specified number of attempts are performed, depending on which
comes first.
For example, if the backup destination on the network becomes unavailable or not reachable, the
program will attempt to reach the destination every 30 seconds, but no more than 5 times. The
attempts will be stopped as soon as the connection is resumed OR the specified number of attempts
is performed, depending on which comes first.
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If Acronis Cloud Storage is selected as the primary, the second, or a further backup location, the option value is
automatically set to Enabled. Number of attempts: 300, regardless of the default value.
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.
4.7.10 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.
4.7.10.1
SNMP notifications
This option is effective for both Windows and Linux operating systems.
This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
The option defines whether the agent(s) operating on the managed machine have to send the log
events of the backup operations to the specified Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
managers. You can choose the types of events to be sent.
For detailed information about using SNMP with Acronis Backup, please see "Support for SNMP (p.
48)".
The preset is: Use the setting set in the Machine options.
To select whether to send the backup operations events to the SNMP managers:
Choose one of the following:
Use the setting set in the Machine options – to use the setting specified for the machine. For
more information refer to Machine options.
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.
Server name/IP – type the name or IP address of the host running the SNMP management
application, the messages will be sent to.
Community – type the name of the SNMP community to which both the host running the
SNMP management application and the sending machine belong. The typical community is
"public".
Click Send test message to check if the settings are correct.
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Do not send SNMP notifications – to disable sending the log events of the backup operations to
SNMP managers.
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4.7.10.2
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 backup 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.
To select whether to log the backup operations events in the Application Event Log of
Windows:
Choose one of the following:
Use the setting set in the Machine options – to use the setting specified for the machine. For
more information refer to Machine options.
Log the following event types – to log events of the backup operations in the Application Event
Log. Specify the types of events to be logged:
All events – log all events (information, warnings and errors)
Errors and warnings
Errors only
Do not log - to disable logging events of the backup operations in the Application Event Log.
4.7.11 Fast incremental/differential backup
The option is effective in Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media.
This option is effective for incremental and differential disk-level backup.
This option defines whether a file change is detected using the file size and time stamp or by
comparing the file contents to those stored in the archive.
The preset is: Enabled.
Incremental or differential backup captures only data changes. To speed up the backup process, the
program determines whether a file has changed or not by the file size and the date/time when the
file was last modified. Disabling this feature will make the program compare the entire file contents
to those stored in the archive.
4.7.12 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:
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The snapshot enables backing up of all files including files opened for exclusive access. The files
will be backed up at the same point in time. Choose this setting only if these factors are critical,
that is, backing up files without a snapshot does not make sense. To use a snapshot, the backup
plan has to run under the account with the Administrator or Backup Operator privileges. If a
snapshot cannot be taken, the backup will fail.
Create a snapshot if it is possible
Back up files directly if taking a snapshot is not possible.
Do not create a snapshot
Always back up files directly. Administrator or Backup Operator privileges are not required.
Trying to back up files that are opened for exclusive access will result in a read error. Files in the
backup may be not time-consistent.
4.7.13 File-level security
These options are effective only for file-level backup in Windows operating systems.
In archives, store encrypted files in a decrypted state
This option defines whether to decrypt files before saving them to a backup archive.
The preset is: Disabled.
Simply ignore this option if you do not use the encryption. Enable the option if encrypted files are
included in the backup and you want them to be accessed by any user after recovery. Otherwise,
only the user who encrypted the files/folders will be able to read them. Decryption may also be
useful if you are going to recover encrypted files on a different machine.
File encryption is available in Windows using the NTFS file system with the Encrypting File System (EFS). To
access a file or folder encryption setting, select Properties > General > Advanced Attributes > Encrypt contents
to secure data.
Preserve file security settings in archives
This option defines whether to back up NTFS permissions for files along with the files.
The preset is: Enabled.
When the option is enabled, files and folders are saved in the archive with the original permissions to
read, write or execute the files for each user or user group. If you recover a secured file/folder on a
machine without the user account specified in the permissions, you may not be able to read or
modify this file.
To completely eliminate this kind of problem, disable preserving file security settings in archives. The
recovered files and folders will always inherit the permissions from the folder to which they are
recovered or from the disk, if recovered to the root.
Alternatively, you can disable recovery (p. 157) of the security settings, even if they are available in
the archive. The result will be the same - the files will inherit the permissions from the parent folder.
To access file or folder NTFS permissions, select Properties > Security.
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4.7.14 LVM snapshotting
This option is effective only for Linux operating systems. This option is effective for both disk-level
and file-level backup of volumes managed by Linux Logical Volume Manager (LVM). Such volumes are
also called logical volumes.
This option defines how a snapshot of a logical volume is taken. Acronis Backup can do this on its
own or rely on Linux Logical Volume Manager (LVM). Use of a snapshot ensures a time-consistent
backup of a volume whose data may change during the backup process.
The preset is: Acronis Backup
Select one of the following:
Acronis Backup
Acronis Backup will take the snapshot on its own. With this setting, a backup normally proceeds
faster and unallocated space on the volume group is not required. Therefore, we recommend
changing the preset only if you are experiencing problems with backing up logical volumes.
Logical volume manager
Acronis Backup will use the snapshot taken by LVM. This snapshot is stored on unallocated space of
the volume group. If the unallocated space is missing, Acronis Backup will take the snapshot on its
own.
A detailed explanation of LVM snapshotting
Once a volume snapshot is taken, and the data starts changing, the old data has to be kept
somewhere until it is saved to the backup.
Acronis keeps the old data mostly in the RAM. (During a file-level backup, the software may
create a temporary file in /tmp if the old data size significantly grows.)
LVM needs a temporary logical volume (a snapshot logical volume) for keeping the old data (see
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/snapshots_backup.html). Writing this data onto the
volume causes a large number of disk I/O operations. This is why the backup is usually slower
when a snapshot is taken by LVM.
If you choose to use LVM, Acronis Backup creates a snapshot logical volume on its own. The software
proceeds as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Checks the backed-up volume size (not data size, but volume size).
Calculates 10 percent of that size—say, 10 GB.
Checks if there is at least 10 GB of unallocated space on the corresponding volume group.
If there is, creates a 10-GB snapshot logical volume (using the lvcreate -s command) and
starts backing up. Otherwise, the software backs up using the Acronis snapshot.
5. Deletes the snapshot volume as soon as it is no longer needed.
Multiple logical volumes are backed up one by one. For each of them, the software creates a
separate snapshot volume of the corresponding size. Only one snapshot volume is stored at a time.
If the data changes extremely fast while the software is keeping the snapshot, the snapshot logical
volume will run out of space and the backup will fail. That is why you can change the 10 percent
default value to any value up to 100 percent (which guarantees success) in
/etc/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery.config.
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To change the default size of a snapshot logical volume:
1. Decide how much unallocated space you want to use. If you are backing up two or more logical
volumes, base your choice on the size of the biggest of them.
Tip: To view the amount of unallocated space on a volume group, run the vgdisplay command and then
examine the Free PE / Size line. To view the sizes of logical volumes, run the lvdisplay command
and then examine the LV Size lines.
2. Open the file /etc/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery.config in a text editor.
3. Locate the line .
4. Add the following fragment directly before that line:
20
In this example, the new value is 20 percent. The number must be integer.
5. Save the file. The new setting will take effect at the next backup. No service restart is needed.
4.7.15 Media components
This option is effective for both Windows and Linux operating systems, when the backup destination
is CD, DVD, or Blue-ray Disc (BD).
When backing up to this media, you can make this media work as regular Linux-based bootable
media (p. 431) by writing additional components to it. As a result, you will not need a separate
rescue disc.
The preset is: No bootable components.
Choose one of the following components you want to put on the bootable media:
Acronis Bootable Agent is a bootable rescue utility (based on Linux kernel) that includes most of
the functionality of the Acronis Backup agent. Put this component on the media if you want more
functionality during recovery. You will be able to configure the recovery operation in the same
way as under regular bootable media; use Active Restore. If the media is being created in
Windows, the disk management functionality will also be available.
Acronis Bootable Agent and One-Click Restore. The One-Click Restore is the minimal addition to
a disk backup stored on removable media, allowing for easy recovery from this backup. If you
boot a machine from the media and click Run Acronis One-click Restore, the disk will be
immediately recovered from the backup contained on the same media.
Caution: Because the one-click approach does not presume user selections, such as selecting volumes to
recover, Acronis One-Click Restore always recovers the entire disk. If your disk contains several volumes and
you are planning to use Acronis One-Click Restore, include all the volumes in the backup. Any volumes
missing from the backup will be lost.
4.7.16 Mount points
This option is effective only in Windows for a file-level backup of a data source that includes
mounted volumes or cluster shared volumes.
This option is effective only when you select for backup a folder that is higher in the folder hierarchy
than the mount point. (A mount point is a folder on which an additional volume is logically attached.)
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If such folder (a parent folder) is selected for backup, and the Mount points option is enabled, all
files located on the mounted volume will be included in the backup. If the Mount points option is
disabled, the mount point in the backup will be empty.
During recovery of a parent folder, the mount point content will or will not be recovered,
depending on whether the Mount points option for recovery (p. 158) is enabled or disabled.
If you select the mount point directly, or select any folder within the mounted volume, the
selected folders will be considered as ordinary folders. They will be backed up regardless of the
state of the Mount points option and recovered regardless of the state of the Mount points
option for recovery (p. 158).
The preset is: Disabled.
Tip. You can back up Hyper-V virtual machines residing on a cluster shared volume by backing up the required
files or the entire volume with file-level backup. Just power off the virtual machines to be sure that they are
backed up in a consistent state.
Example
Let's assume that the C:\Data1\ folder is a mount point for the mounted volume. The volume
contains folders Folder1 and Folder2. You create a backup plan for file-level backup of your data.
If you select the check box for volume C and enable the Mount points option, the C:\Data1\ folder in
your backup will contain Folder1 and Folder2. When recovering the backed-up data, be aware of
proper using the Mount points option for recovery (p. 158).
If you select the check box for volume C, and disable the Mount points option, the C:\Data1\ folder
in your backup will be empty.
If you select the check box for the Data1, Folder1 or Folder2 folder, the checked folders will be
included in the backup as ordinary folders, regardless of the state of the Mount points option.
4.7.17 Multi-volume snapshot
This option is effective only for Windows operating systems.
This option applies to disk-level backup. This option also applies to file-level backup when the
file-level backup is performed by taking a snapshot. (The File-level backup snapshot (p. 112) option
determines whether a snapshot will be taken during file-level backup).
The option determines whether to take snapshots of multiple volumes at the same time or one by
one.
The preset is: Enable.
When this option is set to Enable, snapshots of all volumes being backed up will be created
simultaneously. Use this option to create a time-consistent backup of data spanned across multiple
volumes, for instance for an Oracle database.
When this option is set to Disable, the volumes' snapshots will be taken one after the other. As a
result, if the data spans across several volumes, the resulting backup may be not consistent.
4.7.18 Pre/Post commands
This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and PE-based bootable media.
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The option enables you to define the commands to be automatically executed before and after the
backup procedure.
The following scheme illustrates when pre/post commands are executed.
Pre-backup
command
Backup
Post-backup
command
Examples of how you can use the pre/post commands:
Delete some temporary files from the disk before starting backup.
Configure a third-party antivirus product to be started each time before the backup starts.
Selectively copy backups from an archive to another location. This option may be useful because
the replication configured in a backup plan copies every backup of an archive to subsequent
locations.
Acronis Backup performs the replication after executing the post-backup command. For more
information see "Sequence of operations in a backup plan" (p. 72).
The program does not support interactive commands, i.e. commands that require user input (for
example, "pause").
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.
4.7.18.1
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. The program does not support
interactive commands, i.e. commands that require user input (for example, "pause".)
2. In the Working directory field, specify a path to a directory where the command/batch file will
be executed.
3. In the Arguments field specify the command’s execution arguments, if required.
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.
Check box
Selection
Fail the task if the command
execution fails*
Selected
Cleared
Selected
Cleared
Do not back up until the
command execution is
complete
Selected
Selected
Cleared
Cleared
Result
Preset
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Perform the
backup after the
N/A
Perform the backup
concurrently with
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Perform the backup
only after the
command is
successfully
executed. Fail the
task if the command
execution fails.
command is
executed despite
execution failure
or success.
the command
execution and
irrespective of the
command execution
result.
* A command is considered failed if its exit code is not equal to zero.
4.7.18.2
Post-backup command
To specify a command/executable file to be executed after the backup is completed
1. In the Command field, type a command or browse to a batch file.
2. In the Working directory field, specify a path to a directory where the command/batch file will
be executed.
3. In the Arguments field, specify the command execution arguments, if required.
4. Select the Fail the task if the command execution fails check box if successful execution of the
command is critical for you. The command is considered failed if its exit code is not equal to zero.
If the command execution fails, the program will remove the resulting TIB file and temporary files
if possible, and the task run result will be set to Failed.
When the check box is not selected, the command execution result does not affect the task
execution failure or success. You can track the command execution result by exploring the log or
the errors and warnings displayed in the Log view.
5. Click Test Command to check if the command is correct.
4.7.19 Pre/Post data capture commands
This option is effective for both Windows and Linux operating systems.
The option enables you to define the commands to be automatically executed before and after data
capture (that is, taking the data snapshot). Data capture is performed by Acronis Backup at the
beginning of the backup procedure.
The following scheme illustrates when the pre/post data capture commands are executed.
<--------------Pre-backup
command
Pre-data
capture
command
Data
capture
Backup
--------------->
Post-data
capture
command
Post-backup
command
If the Volume Shadow Copy Service (p. 124) option is enabled, the commands' execution and the
Microsoft VSS actions will be sequenced as follows:
"Before data capture” commands -> VSS Suspend -> Data capture -> VSS Resume -> "After data
capture" commands.
Using the pre/post data capture commands, you can suspend and resume a database or application
that is not compatible with VSS. As opposed to the Pre/Post commands (p. 116), the pre/post data
capture commands will be executed before and after the data capture process. This takes seconds.
The entire backup procedure may take much longer, depending on the amount of data to be backed
up. Therefore, the database or application idle time will be minimal.
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To specify pre/post data capture commands
1. Enable pre/post data capture commands execution by checking the following options:
Execute before the data capture
Click Edit to specify a new command or a batch file
Execute after the data capture
2. Do any of the following:
Select the existing command or the batch file from the drop-down list
3. Click OK.
4.7.19.1
Pre-data capture command
To specify a command/batch file to be executed before data capture
1. In the Command field, type a command or browse to a batch file. The program does not support
interactive commands, i.e. commands that require user input (for example, "pause".)
2. In the Working directory field, specify a path to a directory where the command/batch file will
be executed.
3. In the Arguments field specify the command’s execution arguments, if required.
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.
Check box
Selection
Fail the backup task if the
command execution fails*
Selected
Cleared
Selected
Cleared
Do not perform the data
capture until the command
execution is complete
Selected
Selected
Cleared
Cleared
Result
Preset
Perform the data
capture after the
Perform the data
command is
capture only after the
executed despite
command is
execution failure
successfully executed.
or success.
Fail the task if the
command execution
fails.
N/A
Perform the data
capture concurrently
with the command
and irrespective of
the command
execution result.
* A command is considered failed if its exit code is not equal to zero.
4.7.19.2
Post-data capture command
To specify a command/batch file to be executed after data capture
1. In the Command field, type a command or browse to a batch file. The program does not support
interactive commands, i.e. commands that require user input (for example, "pause".)
2. In the Working directory field, specify a path to a directory where the command/batch file will
be executed.
3. In the Arguments field specify the command’s execution arguments, if required.
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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.
Check box
Selection
Fail the task if the command
execution fails*
Selected
Cleared
Selected
Cleared
Do not back up until the
command execution is
complete
Selected
Selected
Cleared
Cleared
Result
Preset
Continue the
backup after the
Continue the backup
command is
only after the
executed despite
command is
command
successfully
execution failure
executed. Delete the
or success.
TIB file and
temporary files and
fail the task if the
command execution
fails.
N/A
Continue the
backup concurrently
with the command
execution and
irrespective of the
command execution
result.
* A command is considered failed if its exit code is not equal to zero.
4.7.20 Replication/cleanup inactivity time
This option is effective only if you set up replication or retention rules (p. 91) for the backups.
This option defines a time period when starting replication or applying retention rules is not allowed.
The operations will be performed when the inactivity time ends, if the machine is powered on at that
moment. The operations that had started before the inactivity time began continue without
interruption.
The inactivity time affects all locations, including the primary one.
The preset is: Disabled.
To specify the inactivity time, select the Do not start replication/cleanup within the following time
check box, and then select the days and the time period during the day.
Usage example
You may want to use this option to separate the backup process from replication or cleanup. For
example, suppose that you back up machines locally during the day and replicate the backups to a
network folder. Make the inactivity time contain the working hours. Replication will be performed
after the working hours, when network load is lower.
4.7.21 Sector-by-sector backup
The option is effective only for disk-level backup.
To create an exact copy of a disk or volume on a physical level, select the Back up sector-by-sector
check box. The resulting backup will be equal in size to the disk being backed up (if the Compression
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level (p. 107) option is set to None). Use the sector-by-sector backup for backing up drives with
unrecognized or unsupported file systems and other proprietary data formats.
4.7.22 Tape management
These options are effective when the backup destination is a tape device.
Use a separate tape set for each single machine
The preset is: Disabled.
Tapes within one pool can be grouped into so-called tape sets.
If you leave this option disabled, data from different machines will be backed up on all tapes
belonging to a pool. If the option is enabled, backups of each machine will be stored on a separate
tape set.
The option applies to backing up to a storage node.
Enable file recovery from disk backups stored on tapes
The preset is: Disabled.
If this check box is selected, at each backup, the software creates supplementary files on a hard disk
of the machine where the tape device is attached. File recovery from disk backups is possible as long
as these supplementary files are intact. The files are deleted automatically when the tape storing the
respective backups is erased (p. 204), removed (p. 207) or overwritten.
The supplementary files' locations are as follows:
In Windows XP and Server 2003: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application
Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\TapeLocation.
In Windows Vista and later versions of
Windows: %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\TapeLocation.
In Linux: /var/lib/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery/TapeLocation.
The space occupied by these supplementary files depends on the number of files in the respective
backup. For a full backup of a disk containing approximately 20,000 files (the typical workstation disk
backup), the supplementary files occupy around 150 MB. A full backup of a server containing 250,000
files may produce around 700 MB of supplementary files. So if you are certain that you will not need
to recover individual files, you can leave the check box cleared to save the disk space.
When you configure a single-pass disk and application backup (p. 305), the Enable file recovery from
disk backups stored on tapes check box is automatically selected. You can clear it only if you change
the backup destination or disable single-pass backup.
If the supplementary files were not created during backup, or have been deleted, you still can create
them by rescanning (p. 204) the tapes where the backup is stored. This does not apply to backups
created by Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Update 0 (build 17318) and earlier.
Eject tapes after successful backups
The preset is: Disabled.
When this check box is selected, the software will eject tapes after any successful backup. If,
according to the backup plan, other operations follow the backup (such as the backup validation or
replication to another location), the tape will be ejected after completion of these operations.
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Move a tape back to the slot after using
The preset is: Enabled.
If you disable this option, a tape will remain in the drive after an operation with the tape is
completed.
If both this option and the Eject tapes after successful backups option are enabled, the tape will be
ejected.
Always use a free tape
By default, the software tries to write a backup onto a tape containing backups of the same backup
chain or archive. If not found, the software searches for a tape of the same tape set. (Tape sets can
be determined by tape pools, by the Use a separate tape set for each single machine option or by
the Grandfather-Father-Son (p. 61) or Tower of Hanoi (p. 67) backup schemes.) If a tape of the same
tape set is not found, the software will try to use a free tape.
You can force using a free tape by changing the following settings.
For each full backup
The preset is: Disabled.
When this option is enabled, each full backup will be written onto a free tape.
For each differential backup (not applicable when backing up Exchange data)
The preset is: Disabled.
When this option is enabled, each differential backup will be written onto a free tape. In addition,
each full backup will be written onto a free tape. The For each full backup check box becomes
selected and disabled.
For each incremental backup (or transaction log backup when backing up Exchange data)
The preset is: Disabled.
When this option is enabled, each incremental backup will be written onto a free tape. In addition,
each full backup and each differential backup will be written onto a free tape. The For each full
backup and For each differential backup check boxes become selected and disabled.
Overwrite a tape in the drive when creating a full backup
The preset is: Disabled.
The option applies only to stand-alone tape drives. When this option is enabled, a tape inserted into
a drive will be overwritten every time a full backup is created.
4.7.23 Task failure handling
This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems.
This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
This option determines the program behavior when any of the backup plan's tasks fails.
The preset is not to restart a failed task.
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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.
If the task fails because of a mistake in the backup plan, you can edit the plan while the task is in the Idle state.
While the task is running, you have to stop it prior to editing the backup plan.
4.7.24 Task start conditions
This option is effective in Windows and Linux operating systems.
This option is not available when operating under bootable media.
This option determines the program behavior in case a backup task is about to start (the scheduled
time comes or the event specified in the schedule occurs), but the condition (or any of multiple
conditions) is not met. For more information on conditions please see Scheduling (p. 77) and
Conditions (p. 88).
The preset is: Wait until the conditions are met.
Wait until the conditions are met
With this setting, the scheduler starts monitoring the conditions and launches the task as soon as the
conditions are met. If the conditions are never met, the task will never start.
To handle the situation when the conditions are not met for too long and further delaying the backup
is becoming risky, you can set the time interval after which the task will run irrespective of the
condition. Select the Run the task anyway after check box and specify the time interval. The task will
start as soon as the conditions are met OR the maximum time delay lapses, depending on which
comes first.
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Time diagram: Wait until conditions are met
Skip the task execution
Delaying a backup might be unacceptable, for example, when you need to back up data strictly at the
specified time. Then it makes sense to skip the backup rather than wait for the conditions, especially
if the events occur relatively often.
4.7.25 Volume Shadow Copy Service
These options are effective only for Windows operating systems.
Using Volume Shadow Copy Service
This option defines whether a Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) provider has to notify VSS-aware
applications that the backup is about to start. This ensures the consistent state of all data used by the
applications; in particular, completion of all database transactions at the moment of taking the data
snapshot by Acronis Backup. Data consistency, in turn, ensures that the application will be recovered
in the correct state and become operational immediately after recovery.
The preset is: Use Volume Shadow Copy Service.
Use VSS
When Use Volume Shadow Copy Service is selected, choose a snapshot provider from the following
list:
Hardware/software - Select automatically
VSS will use the hardware-based provider that supports the source volume. If one is not found,
VSS will try to use a software-based provider, the Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider, and
Acronis VSS Provider in turn.
Software - Select automatically
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VSS will use any available software-based provider. If one is not found, VSS will try to use the
Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider, and Acronis VSS Provider in turn.
Software - Acronis VSS Provider
VSS will use Acronis VSS Provider.
Software - System provider (selected by default)
VSS will use the Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider. We recommend choosing the system
provider when backing up application servers (Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server,
Microsoft SharePoint, or Active Directory).
Software - A software provider
VSS will use any available software-based provider that supports the source volume.
Hardware - Select automatically
VSS will use the hardware-based provider that supports the source volume.
If a snapshot cannot be taken by using any of the specified providers, Acronis Backup will take a
snapshot by using its own Snapshot Manager driver (snapman.sys).
Note: Using a hardware snapshot provider may require administrative privileges.
Do not use VSS
If you select Do not use VSS, Acronis Backup will take a snapshot by using its own Snapshot Manager
driver.
Choose Do not use VSS if your database is incompatible with VSS. Snapshots are taken faster, but
data consistency of the applications whose transactions are not completed at the time of taking a
snapshot cannot be guaranteed. You may use Pre/Post data capture commands (p. 118) to ensure
that the data is being backed up in a consistent state. For instance, specify pre-data capture
commands that will suspend the database and flush all caches to ensure that all transactions are
completed; and specify post-data capture commands that will resume the database operations after
the snapshot is taken.
About volume shadow copy writers
Before backing up the data of VSS-aware applications, make sure that the volume shadow copy
writers for those applications are turned on by examining the list of writers that are present in the
operating system. To view this list, run the following command:
vssadmin list writers
Note: In Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, the writer for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 is
turned off by default. For instructions on how to turn it on, see the following Microsoft knowledge base article
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/838183/.
Enabling VSS Full backup
The preset is: Disabled.
This option can be useful when you protect Microsoft Exchange Server with a disk-level backup (p.
278).
If enabled, logs of Microsoft Exchange Server and of other VSS-aware applications (except for
Microsoft SQL Server) will be truncated after each successful full, incremental or differential backup.
Leave this option disabled in the following cases:
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If you use Acronis Backup Agent for Exchange or third-party software for backing up the
Exchange Server data. This is because the log truncation will interfere with the consecutive
transaction log backups.
If you use third-party software for backing up the SQL Server data. The reason for this is that the
third-party software will take the resulting disk-level backup for its "own" full backup. As a result,
the next differential backup of the SQL Server data will fail. The backups will continue failing until
the third-party software creates the next "own" full backup.
If other VSS-aware applications are running on the machine and you need to keep their logs for
any reason.
Enabling this option does not result in the truncation of Microsoft SQL Server logs. To truncate the
SQL Server log after a single-pass backup (p. 301), enable the Log truncation setting in the
Single-pass disk and application backup (p. 305) section of the Create backup plan or Back up now
page.
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5 Recovery
When it comes to data recovery, first consider the most functional method: connect the console to
the managed machine running the operating system and create the recovery task.
If the machine's operating system fails to start or you need to recover data to bare metal, boot the
machine from the bootable media (p. 431) or using Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (p. 259) and
configure recovery.
Acronis Backup enables you to transfer Windows operating systems between BIOS-based hardware
and hardware that supports Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). See the "Recovering
BIOS-based systems to UEFI-based and back" (p. 143) section for more details.
A Windows system can be brought online in seconds while it is still being recovered. Using the
proprietary Acronis Active Restore (p. 147) technology, Acronis Backup will boot the machine into
the operating system found in the backup as if the system were on the physical disk. The system
becomes operational and ready to provide necessary services. Thus, the system downtime will be
minimal.
The most recent operating systems remain bootable when recovered to dissimilar hardware, or the
VMware or Hyper-V platforms. If a recovered operating system does not boot, use the Acronis
Universal Restore tool to update the drivers and modules that are critical for the operating system
startup. For details, see the Acronis Universal Restore page at http://www.acronis.com/en-us/aur/.
A dynamic volume can be recovered over an existing volume, to unallocated space of a disk group, or
to unallocated space of a basic disk. To learn more about recovering dynamic volumes, please turn to
the "Backup and recovery of dynamic volumes (Windows)" (p. 36) section.
For detailed information about recovering Linux Software RAID devices and volumes created by
Logical Volume Manager (LVM), see "Recovering MD devices and logical volumes" (p. 40).
Acronis Backup Agent for Windows and Agent for Linux have the ability to recover a disk (volume)
backup to a new virtual machine. With Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V or VMware, you can create
the new virtual machine on the respective virtualization server. See the "Recovery to the "New
virtual machine" destination" (p. 166) section for more details.
You might need to prepare target disks before recovery. Acronis Backup includes a handy disk
management utility which enables you to create or delete volumes, change a disk partitioning style,
create a disk group and perform other disk management operations on the target hardware, both
under the operating system and on bare metal. To find out more about Acronis Disk Director LV, see
"Disk management" (p. 262).
5.1
Creating a recovery task
To create a recovery task, perform the following steps
What to recover
Select data (p. 129)
Select data to recover.
Access credentials (p. 133)
[Optional] Provide credentials for the archive location if the task account does not have the
right to access it. To access this option, click Show access credentials.
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Where to recover
This section appears after the required backup is selected and the type of data to recover is
defined. The parameters you specify here depend on the type of data being recovered.
Disks (p. 134)
Volumes (p. 138)
Files (p. 141)
Microsoft Exchange databases or storage groups
Microsoft Exchange mailboxes or public folders
Microsoft SQL databases (p. 306)
Microsoft Active Directory (p. 314)
[On the management server only] Choose the registered machine to recover the data to. In
most cases, the machine that the data comes from is chosen automatically. If you need to
recover data to a network share or to a virtual machine, choose the registered machine with
the agent that will perform the recovery.
Acronis Active Restore
[Optional] Enable Acronis Active Restore if you need to bring a system or a database online
immediately after the recovery is started. Available when recovering Windows (p. 147),
Microsoft Exchange databases, or Microsoft SQL databases (p. 307).
Access credentials (p. 134)
[Optional] Provide credentials for the destination if the task credentials do not enable
recovery of the selected data. To access this setting, click Show access credentials.
When to recover
Recover (p. 142)
Select when to start recovery. The task can start immediately after its creation, be scheduled
for a specified date and time in the future or simply saved for manual execution.
Task parameters
Task name
[Optional] Enter a unique name for the recovery task. A conscious name lets you quickly
identify the task among the others.
Recovery options
[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. 152) will be used.
After any of the settings are changed against the default value, a new line that displays the
newly set value appears. The setting status changes from Default to Custom. Should you
modify the setting again, the line will display the new value unless the new value is the
default one. When the default value is set, the line disappears. Therefore, in this section you
always see only the settings that differ from the default values.
Clicking Reset to default resets all the settings to default values.
Task credentials
[Optional] The task will run on behalf of the user who is creating the task. You can change the
task account credentials if necessary. To access this setting, click Show task credentials.
After you complete all the required steps, click OK to create the recovery task.
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5.1.1
What to recover
1. Specifying the archive location
In the Data path field, specify the archive location path or click Browse and select the required
location as described in "Selecting archive location" (p. 130).
In Acronis Backup Advanced, you can select either to specify the archive location path as described
above, or use the centralized data catalog.
2. Selecting data
The backed-up data can be selected using the Data view tab, or the Archive view tab. The Data view
tab displays all the backed-up data by versions (the date and time of backup creation) within the
selected archive location. The Archive view tab displays the backed-up data by the archives.
Selecting data using the Data view
Since the Data view tab shares the same functionality with the data catalog, selecting data on the
Data view tab is performed in the same way as in the catalog. For more information about selecting
data, see "Data catalog" (p. 131).
Selecting data using the Archive view
1. Expand the required archive and 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.
If the list of archives is not displayed (for example, if the archive metadata has been lost), click
Refresh.
If the list of archives is too long, you can filter the archives by selecting only the required type of
archives to display. To do this, select the required archive type in the Show list.
Note for Microsoft Exchange users: For information about selecting Microsoft Exchange data, refer to the
"Selecting the Exchange data by using the Archive view" section of the "Backing up Microsoft Exchange
Server data" documentation.
2. For disk or volume backups only: in the Backup contents, select the type of data to display from
the drop-down box:
Disks - to recover disks as a whole (with all their volumes).
Volumes - to recover individual basic and/or dynamic volumes.
Files - to recover individual files and folders.
Microsoft SQL databases - to recover Microsoft SQL databases from single-pass disk and
application backups.
Microsoft Active Directory - to extract Microsoft Active Directory data from single-pass disk
and application backups.
3. In the Backup contents, select the check boxes for the items you need to recover.
4. Click OK.
Selecting MBR
When recovering a system volume, you will usually select the disk's MBR if:
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The disk is new and does not have MBR.
You are recovering custom or non-Windows boot loaders (such as LILO and GRUB).
The disk geometry is different to that stored in the backup.
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There are probably other times when you may need to recover the MBR, but the above are the most
common.
When recovering the MBR of one disk to another Acronis Backup recovers Track 0, which does not
affect the target disk’s partition table and partition layout. Acronis Backup automatically updates
Windows loaders after recovery, so there is no need to recover the MBR and Track 0 for Windows
systems, unless the MBR is damaged.
5.1.1.1
Selecting archive location
Location
Cloud storage
Details
If the archive is stored in Acronis Cloud Storage, click Log in and specify the credentials to
log in to the cloud storage. Then, expand the Cloud storage group and select the account.
Exporting and mounting are not supported for backups stored in Acronis Cloud Storage.
Personal
If the archive is stored in a personal vault, expand the Personal group and click the
required vault.
Centralized
If the archive is stored in a centralized vault, expand the Centralized group and click the
appropriate vault.
Machine name
Local machine
Local folders
If the archive is stored in a local folder on the machine, expand the
group and select the required folder.
CD, DVD, BD
If the archive is stored on optical media such as CD, DVD, or Blu-ray Discs (BD), expand the
group, then select the required drive. First insert the last disc. Then
insert the discs in order starting from the first one when the program prompts.
RDX, USB
If the archive is stored on an RDX drive or USB flash drive, expand the
group, then select the required drive. For information about using these drives, see the
"Removable devices" (p. 189) section.
Tape device
If the archive is stored on a locally attached tape device, expand the Tape devices group,
then click the required device.
Note Tape devices can only be used with Acronis Backup Advanced.
For information about using tapes, see the "Tape devices" (p. 190) section.
Network folders
If the archive is stored on a network share, expand the Network folders group, then select
the required networked machine and then click the shared folder. If the network share
requires access credentials, the program will ask for them.
Note for Linux users: To specify a Common Internet File System (CIFS) network share
which is mounted on a mount point such as /mnt/share, select this mount point instead of
the network share itself.
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Location
Details
If the archive is stored on an FTP or SFTP server, type the server name or address in the
Path field as follows:
FTP, SFTP
ftp://ftp_server:port _number or sftp://sftp_server:port number
To establish an active mode FTP connection, use the following notation:
aftp://ftp_server:port _number
If the port number is not specified, port 21 is used for FTP and port 22 is used for SFTP.
After entering access credentials, the folders on the server become available. Click the
appropriate folder on the server.
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.
Storage nodes
When working in the operating system, access a storage node by selecting the respective
centralized vault. When operating on a machine booted with bootable media:
To access a managed vault, type the following string in the Path field:
bsp://node_address/vault_name/
To access an unmanaged centralized vault, type the full path to the vault's folder.
NFS folders
If the archive is stored on an NFS share, expand the NFS folders group and click the folder.
Available only in Linux and under Linux-based bootable media.
5.1.1.2
Data catalog
Data catalog lets you easily find the required version of data and select it for recovery. On a managed
machine, the data catalog functionality is available through the Data view tab for any vault accessible
from this machine. On the management server, the catalog functionality is available through both
Data view and the centralized Data catalog. The centralized data catalog displays in a single place all
the data stored in the centralized managed vaults.
Acronis Backup may upload data catalog files from a vault to a local cache folder. By default, this folder is
located on the disk where the operating system is installed. For information about changing the default cache
folder, refer to the "Changing the default cache folder for catalog files" (p. 184) section.
Selecting the backed-up data for recovery
1. Do any of the following:
To access the Data view tab, connect the console to a machine or to the management server,
navigate to Vaults view, and click the required vault.
To access the Data catalog, connect the console to the management server and select Data
catalog in the Navigation tree.
2. In the Show field, select the type of data to display:
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Select Machines/disks/volumes to browse and search for entire disks and volumes in
disk-level backups.
Select Folders/files to browse and search for files and folders in both file-level and disk-level
backups.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Select Microsoft Exchange Information Store to browse and search for information stores,
individual storage groups or databases in the database-level backups.
Select Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes to browse and search for entire mailboxes, public
folders, individual folders, e-mails, calendar events, tasks, contacts, notes both in the
database-level and mailbox-level backups.
For information about selecting Microsoft Exchange data, refer to the "Selecting the
Exchange data by using the Data view or Data catalog" section of the "Backing up Microsoft
Exchange Server data" documentation.
Select Microsoft SQL databases to browse and search for Microsoft SQL databases in
single-pass disk and application backups.
Select Microsoft Active Directory to find Microsoft Active Directory data in single-pass disk
and application backups.
3. In the Display data backed up for field, specify the time period for which the backed-up data will
be displayed.
4. Do any of the following:
Select the data to recover in the catalog tree, or in the table to the right of the catalog tree.
In the search string, type the information that helps to identify the required data items (this
can be a machine name, a file or folder name, or a disk label) and then click Search. You can
use the asterisks (*) and question marks (?) wildcards.
As a result, in the Search window, you will see the list of backed up data items whose names
fully or partially coincide with the entered value. Select the required data and click OK to
return to the Data catalog/Data view.
5. Use the Versions list to select the point of time to revert the data to. By default, the data will be
reverted to latest point of time available for the time period selected in step 3.
[Optionally, applicable to the Data catalog only] If the backed-up data has multiple replicas
stored on more than one location, you can select the location to recover the data from. To access
information about locations of the selected data, right-click its version and then click Change the
vault to recover from. By default, the location that provides the fastest access to the data is
selected. Local hard disk drives are the fastest, tapes - the slowest.
6. Having selected the required data, click Recover and configure the parameters of the recovery
operation.
What if the data does not appear in the catalog or the data view
The probable reasons of the issue are as follows.
Wrong time period is set
The required data was not backed up during the time period set by the Display data backed up for
control.
Solution: Try to increase the time period.
Cataloging is disabled or fast cataloging is turned on
If the data is displayed partially or is not displayed at all, most likely cataloging was disabled or the
fast cataloging (p. 104) was turned on during backup.
Solutions:
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If cataloging is disabled
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On a managed machine: Enable cataloging in the Backup cataloging option (Options >
Machine options).
On the management server: Enable cataloging by modifying the Windows registry (p. 406).
On the storage node(s): Enable cataloging by modifying the Windows registry (p. 223).
Run the full cataloging manually by clicking Catalog now. For the Data catalog, all backups stored
in the managed vaults will be cataloged. For the Data view tab, only the backups stored on the
selected vault will be cataloged. The backups that have already been cataloged, will not be
cataloged again.
Since cataloging a large number of backed up data may take a long time, you may prefer to use
the Archive view of the respective vault. For more information about using the Archive view, see
"Browsing the vault contents and data selection" in the "Working with vaults" (p. 172) section.
The data is not supported by the catalog
The following data cannot be displayed in the catalog or data view:
Data from the encrypted and password-protected archives.
Data from encrypted managed vaults.
Data backed up to removable media, such as CD, DVD, BD, Iomega REV, RDX or USB devices.
Data backed up to Acronis Cloud Storage.
Data backed up using Acronis True Image Echo or earlier product versions.
Data backed up using the simplified backup naming.
Solution: To be able to browse such data, use the Archive view tab of the respective vault.
The data is not included in the centralized catalog
The centralized catalog does not display data from centralized unmanaged vaults or from personal
vaults (p. 182).
Solution for centralized unmanaged vaults: Select the vault in the Navigation tree, and then select
Data view.
Solution for personal vaults: Connect directly to the machine, select the vault and then select Data
view.
5.1.2
Access credentials for location
Specify the credentials required for access to the location where the backup is stored.
To specify credentials
1. Select one of the following:
Use the task credentials
The software will access the location using the credentials of the task account specified in the
Task parameters section.
Use the following credentials
The software 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:
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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).
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Password. The password for the account.
2. Click OK.
According to the original FTP specification, credentials required for access to FTP servers are transferred
through a network as plaintext. This means that the user name and password can be intercepted by an
eavesdropper using a packet sniffer.
5.1.3
Access credentials for destination
To specify credentials
1. Select one of the following:
Use the task credentials
The program will access the destination using the credentials of the task account specified in
the Task parameters section.
Use the following credentials
The program will access the destination using the credentials you specify. Use this option if
the task account does not have access permissions to the destination.
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.
5.1.4
Where to recover
Specify the destination the selected data will be recovered to.
5.1.4.1
Selecting target disks
Available disk or volume destinations depend on the agents operating on the machine.
Recover to:
Physical machine
Available when the Acronis Backup Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux is installed.
The selected disks will be recovered to the physical disks of the machine the console is connected
to. On selecting this, you proceed to the regular disk mapping procedure described below.
New virtual machine
If Acronis Backup Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux is installed.
The selected disks will be recovered to a new virtual machine of any of the following types:
VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Red Hat Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), Red
Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV), or Citrix XenServer Open Virtual Appliance (OVA).
The virtual machine files will be saved to the destination you specify in the Storage section. By
default, the new virtual machine will be created in the current user's documents folder.
If Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for VMware is installed.
These agents enable creating a new virtual machine on the virtualization server you specify.
By default, the new virtual machine will be created in the default storage of the virtualization
server. Whether you can change the storage on the virtualization server or not, depends on the
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virtualization product brand and settings. VMware ESX(i) may have multiple storages. A
Microsoft Hyper-V server enables creating a new virtual machine in any local folder.
The new virtual machine will be configured automatically, the source machine configuration being
copied where possible. The configuration is displayed in the Virtual Machine Settings (p. 168) section.
Check the settings and make changes if necessary.
Then you proceed to the regular disk mapping procedure described below.
Existing virtual machine
Available when the Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for VMware 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.
Disks/volumes
Map automatically
Acronis Backup attempts to map the selected disks to the target disks as described in the "How
the automatic mapping works" (p. 136) section. If you are unsatisfied with the mapping result,
you can re-map disks manually. To do this, you have to unmap the disks in a reverse order; that is,
the last mapped disk should be unmapped first. Then, map the disks manually as described
below.
Disk #:
Disk # (MODEL) (p. 135)
Select the destination disk for each of the source disks.
NT signature (p. 135)
Select the way the recovered disk's signature will be handled. The disk signature is used by
Windows and the Linux kernel version 2.6 and later.
Disk destination
To specify a destination disk:
1. Select a disk where you want the selected disk to recover to. The destination disk's space should
be at least the same size as the uncompressed image data.
2. Click OK.
All the data stored on the target disk will be replaced by the backed-up data, so be careful and watch out for
non-backed-up data that you might need.
NT signature
The NT signature is a record that is kept in the MBR. It uniquely identifies the disk for the operating
system.
When recovering a disk containing a system volume, you can choose what to do with the NT
signature of the target disk. Specify any of the following parameters:
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Select automatically
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The software will keep the NT signature of the target disk if it is the same as the NT signature
stored in the backup. (In other words, if you recover the disk to the same disk that was backed
up.) Otherwise, the software will generate a new NT signature for the target disk.
This is the default selection recommended in most cases. Use the following settings only if you
absolutely need to.
Create new
Acronis Backup will generate a new NT signature for the target hard disk.
Recover from backup
Acronis Backup will replace the NT signature of the target hard disk with one from the disk
backup.
Note: You should be absolutely sure that none of the existing disks on this machine has the same NT
signature. Otherwise, the operating system runs from the first disk at the startup; discovers the same
signature on the second one, automatically generates a new unique NT signature and assigns it to the
second disk. As a result, all the volumes on the second disk will lose their letters, all paths will be invalid on
the disk, and programs won't find their files. The operating system on that disk will be unbootable.
Recovering the disk signature may be desirable due to the following reasons:
Acronis Backup schedules tasks using the signature of the source hard disk. If you recover the
same disk signature, you don't need to re-create or edit the tasks created previously.
Some installed applications use disk signature for licensing and other purposes.
This enables you to keep all the Windows Restore Points on the recovered disk.
To recover VSS snapshots used by Windows Vista's "Previous Versions" feature.
Keep existing
The program will leave the NT signature of the target hard disk untouched.
How the automatic mapping works
Acronis Backup automatically maps the disks or volumes to the target disks only if the system
bootability can be preserved. Otherwise, the automatic mapping is canceled and you have to map
the disks or volumes manually.
Also, you have to map the volumes manually if they are Linux logical volumes, or Linux software RAID
(MD devices). For more information on recovering logical volumes and MD devices, see Recovering
MD devices and logical volumes (p. 40).
The automatic mapping is performed as follows.
1. If the disk or volume is recovered to its original location, the mapping process reproduces the
original disk/volume layout.
The original location for a disk or volume means exactly the same disk or volume that has been backed up.
A volume will not be considered original if its size, location or other physical parameters have been changed
after backup. Changing the volume letter or label does not prevent the software from recognizing the
volume.
2. If the disk or volume is recovered to a different location:
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When recovering disks: The software checks the target disks for size and volumes. A target
disk must contain no volumes and its size must be large enough to place the disk being
recovered. Not initialized target disks will be initialized automatically.
If the required disks cannot be found, you have to map the disks manually.
When recovering volumes: The software checks the target disks for unallocated space.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
If there is enough unallocated space, the volumes will be recovered "as is".
If unallocated space on the target disks is less than the size of the volumes being recovered,
the volumes will be proportionally shrunk (by decreasing their free space) in order to fit the
unallocated space. If the shrunk volumes still cannot fit the unallocated space, you have to
map the volumes manually.
Support for Advanced Format (4K-sector) hard disks
Acronis Backup can back up hard disks with a sector size of 4 KB (known as Advanced Format disks),
as well as traditional hard disks that have 512-byte sectors.
Acronis Backup can recover data from one disk to another as long as both disks have the same logical
sector size. (This is the sector size presented to the operating system.) Acronis Backup automatically
aligns the disk’s volumes (p. 140) if necessary. This way, the start of a cluster in the file system always
matches the start of a physical sector on the disk.
The disk management (p. 262) functionality of Acronis Backup is not available for disks with a 4-KB
logical sector size.
Determining the logical sector size
By disk specification
Development of the Advanced Format technology is coordinated by the International Disk Drive
Equipment and Materials Association (IDEMA). For more details, see
http://www.idema.org/?page_id=2.
In terms of the logical sector size, IDEMA specifies two types of Advanced Format disks:
512 Byte emulation (512e) disks have a 512-byte logical sector size. These disks are supported in
Windows starting with Windows Vista, and in modern Linux distributions. Microsoft and Western
Digital use the term “Advanced Format” exclusively for this type of disk.
4K native (4Kn) disks have a 4-KB logical sector size. Modern operating systems can store data on
these disks, but they generally cannot boot from these disks. These disks are commonly external
drives with USB connection.
By running the appropriate command
To find out the logical sector size of a disk, do the following.
In Windows:
1. Make sure that the disk contains an NTFS volume.
2. Run the following command as an administrator, specifying the drive letter of the NTFS
volume:
fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo D:
3. Examine the value in the Bytes Per Sector line. For example, the output may be the
following:
Bytes Per Sector : 512
In Linux:
1. Determine the device name of the disk, such as /dev/sdb.
2. Run the following command as the root user, specifying the device name:
parted /dev/sdb print
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3. Examine the first value in the Sector size (logical/physical) line. For example, the output may
be the following:
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
5.1.4.2
Selecting target volumes
Available volume destinations depend on the agents operating on the machine.
Recover to:
Physical machine
Available when the Acronis Backup Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux is installed.
The selected volumes will be recovered to the physical disks of the machine the console is
connected to. On selecting this, you proceed to the regular volume mapping procedure described
below.
New virtual machine
If Acronis Backup Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux is installed.
The selected volumes will be recovered to a new virtual machine of any of the following types:
VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Red Hat Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), Red
Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV), or Citrix XenServer Open Virtual Appliance (OVA).
The virtual machine files will be saved to the destination you specify in the Storage section. By
default, the new virtual machine will be created in the current user's documents folder.
If Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for VMware is installed.
These agents enable creating a new virtual machine on the virtualization server you specify.
By default, the new virtual machine will be created in the default storage of the virtualization
server. Whether you can change the storage on the virtualization server or not, depends on the
virtualization product brand and settings. VMware ESX(i) may have multiple storages. A
Microsoft Hyper-V server enables creating a new virtual machine in any local folder.
The new virtual machine will be configured automatically, the source machine configuration being
copied where possible. The configuration is displayed in the Virtual Machine Settings (p. 168) section.
Check the settings and make changes if necessary.
Then you proceed to the regular volume mapping procedure described below.
Existing virtual machine
Available when the Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for VMware is installed.
On selecting this, you specify the virtualization server and the target virtual machine. Then you
proceed to the regular volume mapping procedure described below.
Please be aware that the target machine will be powered off automatically before recovery. If you prefer to
power it off manually, modify the VM power management option.
Disks/volumes
Map automatically
Acronis Backup attempts to map the selected volumes to the target disks as described in the
"How the automatic mapping works" (p. 136) section. If you are unsatisfied with the mapping
result, you can re-map volumes manually. To do this, you have to unmap the volumes in a
reverse order; that is, the last mapped volume should be unmapped first. Then, map the volumes
manually as described below.
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Recover [Disk #] MBR to: [If the Master Boot Record is selected for recovery]
Disk # (p. 139)
Choose the disk to recover the Master Boot Record to.
NT signature: (p. 135)
Select the way the disk's signature contained in the MBR will be handled. The disk signature is
used by Windows and the Linux kernel version 2.6 and later.
Recover [Volume] [Letter] to:
Disk # /Volume
Sequentially map each of the source volumes to a volume or an unallocated space on the
destination disk.
Size: (p. 139)
[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 target volume or unallocated space
1. Select a volume or unallocated space where you want the selected volume to be recovered to.
The destination volume/unallocated space should be at least the same size as the uncompressed
image data.
2. Click OK.
All the data stored on the target volume will be replaced by the backed-up data, so be careful and watch out for
non-backed-up data that you might need.
When using bootable media
Disk letters seen under Windows-style bootable media might differ from the way Windows identifies
drives. For example, the D: drive in 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.
The Linux-style bootable media shows local disks and volumes as unmounted (sda1, sda2...).
Changing volume properties
Size and location
When recovering a volume to a basic MBR disk, you can resize and relocate the volume by dragging it
or its borders with a mouse or by entering corresponding values in the appropriate fields. Using this
feature, you can redistribute the disk space between the volumes being recovered. In this case, you
will have to recover the volume to be reduced first.
Note: Volumes backed up using the sector-by-sector option cannot be resized.
Tip: A volume cannot be resized when being recovered from a backup split into multiple removable media. To be
able to resize the volume, copy all parts of the backup to a single location on a hard disk.
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Type
A basic MBR disk can contain up to four primary volumes or up to three primary volumes and
multiple logical drives. By default, the program selects the original volume's type. You can change
this setting, if required.
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. You cannot set a logical
drive or dynamic volume active.
Logical. Information about logical volumes is located not in the MBR, but in the extended
partition table. The number of logical volumes on a disk is unlimited. A logical volume cannot be
set as active. If you recover a system volume to another hard disk with its own volumes and
operating system, you will most likely need only the data. In this case, you can recover the
volume as logical to access the data only.
File system
By default, the recovered volume will have the same file system as the original volume has. You can
change the volume's file system during recovery, if required.
Acronis Backup can make the following file system conversions: FAT 16 -> FAT 32 and Ext2 -> Ext3.
For volumes with other native file systems, this option is not available.
Assume you are going to recover a volume from an old, low-capacity FAT16 disk to a newer disk.
FAT16 would not be effective and might even be impossible to set on the high-capacity hard disk.
That's because FAT16 supports volumes up to 4 GB, so you will not be able to recover a 4 GB FAT16
volume to a volume that exceeds that limit, without changing the file system. It would make sense
here to change the file system from FAT16 to FAT32.
Older operating systems (MS-DOS, Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.x, 4.x) do not support FAT32 and
will not be operable after you recover a volume and change its file system. These can be normally
recovered on a FAT16 volume only.
Volume (partition) alignment
Acronis Backup automatically eliminates volume misalignment – a situation, when volume clusters
are not aligned with disk sectors. The misalignment occurs when recovering volumes created with
the Cylinder/Head/Sector (CHS) addressing scheme to a hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive
(SSD) drive that has a 4-KB sector size. The CHS addressing scheme is used, for example, in all
Windows operating systems earlier than Windows Vista.
If volumes are misaligned, the cluster overlaps more physical sectors than it would have occupied if
aligned. As a result, more physical sectors need to be erased and rewritten each time the data
changes. The redundant read/write operations noticeably slow down the disk speed and overall
system performance. SSD drive misalignment decreases not only system performance, but drive
lifetime. Since SSD memory cells are designed for a certain amount of read/write operations,
redundant read/write operations lead to early degradation of the SSD drive.
When recovering dynamic volumes and logical volumes created in Linux with Logical Volume
Manager (LVM), the appropriate alignment is set up automatically.
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When recovering basic MBR and GPT volumes, you can select the alignment method manually if the
automatic alignment does not satisfy you for some reason. The following options are available:
Select automatically - (Default) recommended. The software will automatically set the
appropriate alignment based on the source and target disk/volume properties.
Use the following options only if you absolutely need to.
CHS (63 sectors) - select this option if the recovered volume will be used under Microsoft
Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (or earlier) on disks having 512 bytes per physical
sector.
VMware VMFS (64 KB) - select this option when recovering the volume as a VMware Virtual
Machine File System partition.
Vista alignment (1 MB) - select this option if the recovered volume will be used under
Windows operating systems starting with Windows Vista, or when recovering volumes to an
HDD or SSD drive that has a 4-KB sector size.
Custom - Specify the volume alignment manually. It is recommended that the value be a
multiple of the physical sector size.
Logical drive letter (for Windows only)
By default, the first unused letter will be assigned to the volume. To assign other letter, select the
desired letter from a drop-down list.
If you select the empty value, no letter will be assigned to the recovered volume, hiding it from the
OS. You should not assign letters to volumes that are inaccessible to Windows, such as to those other
than FAT and NTFS.
5.1.4.3
Selecting target location for files and folders
Where to recover
Destination
Select a location to recover the backed-up files to:
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. The files and folders will be
recovered without recreating a full path, unless you clear the Recover without full path
check box.
Overwriting
Choose what to do if the program finds in the target folder a file with the same name as in the
archive:
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Overwrite existing files – this will give the file in the backup priority over the file on the hard
disk.
Overwrite an existing file if it is older – this will give priority to the most recent file
modification, whether it be in the backup or on the disk.
Do not overwrite existing files – this will give the file on the hard disk priority over the file in
the backup.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
If you allow files to be overwritten, you still have an option to prevent overwriting of specific files
by excluding them from the recovery operation.
Recovery exclusions (p. 142)
Specify files and folders you do not wish to be recovered.
Recovery exclusions
Set up exclusions for the specific files and folders you do not wish to recover.
Note: Exclusions override selection of data items to recover. For example, if you select to recover file MyFile.tmp
and to exclude all .tmp files, file MyFile.tmp will not be recovered.
Use the Add, Edit, Remove and Remove All buttons to create the list of files and folders to exclude.
Specify the name of the file or folder, such as Document.txt.
The names are not case-sensitive in Windows and Linux. For example, if you choose to exclude
all .tmp files and the Temp folders, also excluded will be all .Tmp files, all .TMP files, and the TEMP
folders.
You can use one or more wildcard characters * and ?:
The asterisk (*) substitutes for zero or more characters. For example, Doc*.txt covers files such
as Doc.txt and Document.txt.
The question mark (?) substitutes for exactly one character. For example, Doc?.txt covers files
such as Doc1.txt and Docs.txt, but not the files Doc.txt or Doc11.txt.
Exclusion examples
Criterion
Example
Description
By name
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"
By mask (*)
By mask (?)
5.1.5
When to recover
Select when to start the recovery task:
Now - the recovery task will be started immediately after you click OK on the Recover data page.
Later - the recovery task will be started manually afterwards. If you need to schedule the task,
clear the Task will be started manually check box, and specify the required date and time.
5.1.6
Task credentials
Provide credentials for the account under which the task will run.
To specify credentials
1. Select one of the following:
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Use current user credentials
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. 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, see the "Credentials used in backup plans
and tasks" (p. 29) section.
To learn more about operations available depending on the user privileges, see the "User privileges
on a managed machine" (p. 31) section.
5.2
Recovering BIOS-based systems to UEFI-based and
vice versa
Acronis Backup supports transferring 64-bit Windows operating systems between BIOS-based
hardware and hardware that supports Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).
How it works
Depending on whether the machine uses BIOS or UEFI firmware for booting, the disk with the system
volume must have a specific partition style. The partition style is master boot record (MBR) for BIOS,
and GUID partition table (GPT) for UEFI.
In addition, the operating system itself is sensitive to the type of firmware.
When performing a recovery to a machine that has a type of firmware that is different from the
firmware of the original machine, Acronis Backup:
Initializes the disk to which you are recovering the system volume either as an MBR disk or as a
GPT disk, depending on the new firmware.
Adjusts the Windows operating system so that it can start on the new firmware.
For details, including the list of Windows operating systems that can be adjusted this way, see
“Recovering volumes” (p. 144) and “Recovering disks” (p. 145) in this section.
Recommendations
Recover the entire system onto uninitialized disks.
Remember that BIOS does not allow using more than 2 TB of disk space.
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When migrating to UEFI-based hardware, use Linux-based bootable media or WinPE-based
bootable media of versions later than 4.0. Earlier versions of WinPE and Acronis PXE Server do
not support UEFI.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Limitations
Transferring a Linux system between UEFI and BIOS is not supported.
Transferring a Windows system between UEFI and BIOS is not supported if a backup is stored in any
of these locations:
Acronis Cloud Storage
Tape device
Optical discs (CDs, DVDs, or Blu-ray discs)
When transferring a system between UEFI and BIOS is not supported, Acronis Backup initializes the
target disk with the same partitioning scheme as the original disk. No adjustment of the operating
system is performed. If the target machine supports both UEFI and BIOS, you need to enable the
boot mode corresponding to the original machine. Otherwise, the system will not boot.
5.2.1
Recovering volumes
Let's assume you backed up the system and boot volumes (or the entire machine) and want to
recover these volumes to a different platform. The ability of the recovered system to boot up
depends on the following factors:
Source operating system: is the OS convertible or non-convertible? Convertible operating
systems allow changing the boot mode from BIOS to UEFI and back.
64-bit versions of all Windows operating systems starting with Windows Vista x64 SP1 are
convertible.
64-bit versions of all Windows Server operating systems starting with Windows Server 2008
x64 SP1 are convertible.
All other operating systems are non-convertible.
Source and target disk partition style: MBR or GPT. System and boot volumes of BIOS platforms
use MBR disks. System and boot volumes of UEFI platforms use GPT disks.
When selecting not initialized target disk for recovery, this disk will be automatically initialized
either to GPT or to MBR depending on the original disk partitioning style, the current boot mode
(UEFI or BIOS) and the type of operating systems (convertible or non-convertible) that are
located on this volume.
If the initialization may result in bootability loss, the software takes the partitioning style from
the source volume ignoring the target disk size. In such cases, the software can select the MBR
partitioning style for disks whose size is more than 2 TB; however, the disk space beyond 2 TB
will not be available for use.
If required, you can initialize the target disk manually by using the Disk management (p. 262)
functionality.
The following table summarizes whether it is possible to retain the system bootability when
recovering boot and system volumes of a BIOS-based system to UEFI-based and back.
A green background means that the system will be bootable. No user action is required.
A red background means that the system will not be able to boot due to BIOS and UEFI platform
limitations.
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A yellow background means that you need to perform additional steps to make the system
bootable. These steps are not possible on some machines.
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Original
system
Target hardware
BIOS
BIOS
UEFI
UEFI
Disk: MBR
Disk: GPT
Disk: MBR
Disk: GPT
BIOS
The target machine
must support BIOS.
OS:
convertible
Additional steps
Solution
Recover the operating
system to an MBR disk
or to an uninitialized
disk.
BIOS
OS: nonconvertible
UEFI
OS:
convertible
UEFI
OS: nonconvertible
5.2.2
The convertible OS
will be automatically
converted to support
BIOS booting.
1. Before recovery,
turn off the UEFI
mode in BIOS
2. Perform the
recovery under the
bootable media.
The convertible OS
will be automatically
converted to support
UEFI booting.
Solution
Recover the
operating system to
or
an MBR disk or to an
After recovery, turn off uninitialized disk.
the UEFI mode in BIOS.
The target machine
must support UEFI.
Additional steps
1. Before recovery,
turn on the UEFI
mode in BIOS.
2. Perform the
Solution
recovery under the
bootable media.
Recover the operating
system to a GPT disk
or
or to an uninitialized
After recovery, turn on
disk.
the UEFI mode in BIOS.
Solution
Recover the operating
system to a GPT disk or
to an uninitialized disk.
Recovering disks
Let's assume you backed up a whole disk (with all its volumes) and want to recover this disk to a
different target platform.
The ability of the recovered system to boot up in different modes depends on the operating systems
installed on the source disk. Operating systems can be convertible i.e. allow changing the boot mode
from BIOS to UEFI and back, or non-convertible. For the list of convertible operating systems, see
Recovering volumes (p. 144).
When a source disk contains one or more operating systems and all of them are convertible, the
boot mode can be automatically changed. Depending on the current boot mode, the target disk
may be initialized either to GPT or to MBR partitioning style.
If at least one operating system on a source disk is non-convertible (or the source disk contains
any boot volumes of the non-convertible OSes), the boot mode cannot be changed automatically
and the software will initialize the target disk as the source one. To boot up the target machine,
you have to turn on/off the UEFI mode in BIOS manually. Otherwise, the system will not boot
after recovery.
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The following table summarizes all cases of recovering disks of a BIOS-based system to UEFI-based
and vice versa.
Green background means that the system will be bootable. No user action is required.
Yellow background means that you need to perform additional steps to make the system
bootable. These steps are not possible on some machines.
Original
system
Target hardware
BIOS
UEFI
BIOS
The target disk will be initialized as GPT.
OS:
convertible
The OS will be automatically converted to support
UEFI booting.
If you want to recover the source disk “as is”:
1. Turn off the UEFI mode in BIOS.
2. Boot from a bootable media, and perform the
recovery.
BIOS
The target disk will be initialized as the source one
(MBR).
OS: nonconvertible
The target machine must support BIOS.
Additional steps
1. Turn off the UEFI mode in BIOS.
2. Boot from a bootable media, and perform the
recovery.
UEFI
The target disk will be initialized as MBR.
OS:
convertible
The OS will be automatically converted to
support BIOS booting.
If you want to recover the source disk “as
is”:
1. Turn on the UEFI mode in BIOS.
2. Boot from a bootable media, and
perform the recovery.
UEFI
OS: nonconvertible
The target disk will be initialized as the
source one (GPT).
The target machine must support UEFI.
Additional steps
1. Turn on the UEFI mode in BIOS.
2. Boot from a bootable media, and
perform the recovery.
Recovery to large disks in BIOS
After a recovery to a BIOS-based system, the target system disk is initialized as MBR. Because of disk
size limitations in BIOS, if the disk is larger than 2 TB, only the first 2 TB of disk space will be available
for use. If the machine supports UEFI, you can overcome this limitation by turning on the UEFI mode
and then performing the recovery. The disk is initialized as GPT. The 2-TB limitation for GPT disks
does not exist.
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5.3
Acronis Active Restore
Active Restore is the Acronis proprietary technology that brings a system or a database online
immediately after its recovery is started.
This section describes the use of Active Restore during an operating system recovery. While based on
the same technology, recovery of Microsoft Exchange databases or Microsoft SQL databases
proceeds in a different way. For more information, refer to following sections:
When recovering Microsoft Exchange databases, see the "Using Acronis Active Restore for
database recovery" section of the "Backing up Microsoft Exchange Server data" document.
When recovering Microsoft SQL databases, see "Using Acronis Active Restore for SQL database
recovery" (p. 307).
Limitations
Active Restore is meant for instant data recovery on the same machine. It is not available when
recovering to dissimilar hardware.
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.
Active Restore does not support disks with the GPT partitioning style as a source being recovered,
as a recovery destination, or as an archive location. This also means that Unified Extensible
Firmware Interface (UEFI) is not supported. The only supported boot mode is BIOS.
How it works
When configuring a recovery operation, you select disks or volumes to recover from a backup.
Acronis Backup scans the selected disks or volumes in the backup. If this scan finds a supported
operating system, use of Acronis Active Restore becomes available.
If you do not enable Active Restore, the system recovery will proceed in the usual way and the
machine will become operational after the recovery is completed.
If you enable Active Restore, the sequence of actions will be set as follows.
Once the system recovery is started, the operating system boots from the backup. 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.
Because serving requests is performed simultaneously with recovery, the system operation can slow
down even if recovery priority (p. 159) in the recovery options is set to Low. Although the system
downtime is minimal, there may be reduced performance during recovery.
Usage scenarios
1. The system uptime is one of the efficiency criteria.
Examples: Client-oriented online services, Web-retailers, polling stations.
2. The system/storage space ratio is heavily biased toward storage.
Some machines are being used as storage facilities, where the operating system claims a small
space segment and all other disk space is committed to storage, such as movies, sounds or other
multimedia files. Some of these storage volumes can be extremely large as compared to the
system and so practically all the recovery time will be dedicated to recovering the files, which
might be used much later on, if in any near future at all.
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If you opt for Acronis Active Restore, the system will be operational in a short time. Users will be
able to open the necessary files from the storage and use them while the rest of the files, which
are not immediately necessary, are being recovered in the background.
Examples: movie collection storage, music collection storage, multimedia storage.
How to use
1. Back up the system disk or volume to a location accessible through the system’s BIOS. This may
be Acronis Secure Zone, a USB hard drive, a flash drive or any internal hard drive.
If your operating system and its loader reside on different volumes, always include both volumes in the
backup. The volumes must also be recovered together; otherwise, there is a high risk that the operating
system will not start.
2. Create bootable media.
3. If a system failure occurs, boot the machine using the bootable media. Start the console and
connect to the bootable agent.
4. Create a recovery task (p. 127). In What to recover, make sure that the system disk or volume is
selected for recovery.
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. In Where to recover, make sure that the system disk or volume is mapped to the first disk. If it is
not, map it manually as described in "Selecting target disks" (p. 134).
6. In Acronis Active Restore, select Use.
7. Once the system recovery is started, the operating system boots from the backup. The Acronis
Active Restore icon appears in the system tray. The machine becomes operational and ready to
provide necessary services. The immediate user sees the drive tree and icons and can open files
or launch applications even though they were not yet recovered.
The drivers of Acronis Active Restore intercept system queries and set the immediate priority for
recovery of the files that are necessary to serve the incoming requests. While this on-the-fly
recovery proceeds, the continuing recovery process is transferred to the background.
Please do not shut down or reboot the machine until the recovery is completed. If you switch off the
machine, all the changes made to the system since the last boot up will be lost. The system will not be
recovered, not even partially. The only possible solution in this case will be to restart the recovery process
from a bootable media.
8. The background recovery continues until all the selected volumes are recovered, the log entry is
made and the Acronis Active Restore icon disappears from the system tray.
5.4
Bootability troubleshooting
If a system was bootable at the time of backup, you expect that it will boot after recovery. However,
the information the operating system stores and uses for booting up may become outdated during
recovery, especially if you change volume sizes, locations or destination drives. Acronis Backup
automatically updates Windows loaders after recovery. Other loaders might also be fixed, but there
are cases when you have to re-activate the loaders. Specifically when you recover Linux volumes, it is
sometimes necessary to apply fixes or make booting changes so that Linux can boot and load
correctly.
Below is a summary of typical situations that require additional user actions.
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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: The most recent operating systems remain bootable when recovered to dissimilar
hardware, or the VMware or Hyper-V platforms. If a recovered operating system does not
boot, use the Acronis Universal Restore tool to update the drivers and modules that are
critical for the operating system startup. For details, see the Acronis Universal Restore page
at http://www.acronis.com/en-us/aur/.
Windows was recovered to a dynamic volume that cannot be bootable
Solution: Recover Windows to a basic, simple or mirrored volume.
A system volume was recovered to a disk that does not have an MBR
When you configure recovery of a system volume to a disk that does not have an MBR, the
program prompts whether you want to recover the MBR along with the system volume. Opt
for not recovering, only if you do not want the system to be bootable.
Solution: Recover the volume once again along with the MBR of the corresponding disk.
The system uses Acronis OS Selector
Because the Master Boot Record (MBR) can be changed during the system recovery, Acronis
OS Selector, which uses the MBR, might become inoperable. If this happens, reactivate
Acronis OS Selector as follows.
Solution: Boot the machine from the Acronis Disk Director's bootable media and select in the
menu Tools -> Activate OS Selector.
The system uses GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) and was recovered from a normal (not
from a raw, that is, sector-by-sector) backup
One part of the GRUB loader resides either in the first several sectors of the disk or in the
first several sectors of the volume. The rest is on the file system of one of the volumes.
System bootability can be recovered automatically only when the GRUB resides in the first
several sectors of the disk and on the file system to which direct access is possible. In other
cases, the user has to manually reactivate the boot loader.
Solution: Reactivate the boot loader. You might also need to fix the configuration file.
The system uses Linux Loader (LILO) and was recovered from a normal (not from a raw, that is,
sector-by-sector) backup
LILO contains numerous references to absolute sector numbers and so cannot be repaired
automatically except for the case when all data is recovered to the sectors that have the
same absolute numbers as on the source disk.
Solution: Reactivate the boot loader. You might also need to fix the loader configuration file
for the reason described in the previous item.
The system loader points to the wrong volume
This may happen when system or boot volumes are not recovered to their original location.
Solution: Modification of the boot.ini or the boot\bcd files fixes this for Windows loaders.
Acronis Backup does this automatically and so you are not likely to experience the problem.
For the GRUB and LILO loaders, you will need to correct the GRUB configuration files. If the
number of the Linux root partition has changed, it is also recommended that you change
/etc/fstab so that the SWAP volume can be accessed correctly.
Linux was recovered from an LVM volume backup to a basic MBR disk
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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.
5.4.1
How to reactivate GRUB and change its configuration
Generally, you should refer to the boot loader manual pages for the appropriate procedure. There is
also the corresponding Knowledge Base article on the Acronis website.
The following is an example of how to reactivate GRUB in case the system disk (volume) is recovered
to identical hardware.
1. Start Linux or boot from the bootable media, and then press CTRL+ALT+F2.
2. Mount the system you are recovering:
mkdir /mnt/system/
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda2 /mnt/system/ # root partition
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/system/boot/ # boot partition
3. Mount the proc and dev file systems to the system you are recovering:
mount -t proc none /mnt/system/proc/
mount -o bind /dev/ /mnt/system/dev/
4. Save a copy of the GRUB menu file, by running one of the following commands:
cp /mnt/system/boot/grub/menu.lst /mnt/system/boot/grub/menu.lst.backup
or
cp /mnt/system/boot/grub/grub.conf /mnt/system/boot/grub/grub.conf.backup
5. Edit the /mnt/system/boot/grub/menu.lst file (for Debian, Ubuntu, and SUSE Linux
distributions) or the /mnt/system/boot/grub/grub.conf file (for Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise
Linux distributions)—for example, as follows:
vi /mnt/system/boot/grub/menu.lst
6. In the menu.lst file (respectively grub.conf), find the menu item that corresponds to the system
you are recovering. This menu items have the following form:
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.24.4)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.24.4 ro root=/dev/sda2 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.24.4.img
The lines starting with title, root, kernel, and initrd respectively determine:
The title of the menu item.
The path to the kernel on that device and the root partition—in this example, the path is
/vmlinuz-2.6.24.4 and the root partition is /dev/sda2. You can specify the root partition by
label (such as root=LABEL=/), identifier (in the form root=UUID=some_uuid), or device name
(such as root=/dev/sda2).
The device on which the Linux kernel is located—typically, this is the boot partition or the
root partition, such as root (hd0,0) in this example.
The path to the initrd service on that device.
7. Edit the file /mnt/system/etc/fstab to correct the names of any devices that have changed as a
result of the recovery.
8. Start the GRUB shell by running one of the following commands:
chroot /mnt/system/ /sbin/grub
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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. Unmount the mounted file systems and then reboot:
umount
umount
umount
umount
reboot
/mnt/system/dev/
/mnt/system/proc/
/mnt/system/boot/
/mnt/system/
13. Reconfigure the bootloader by using tools and documentation from the Linux distribution that
you use. For example, in Debian and Ubuntu, you may need to edit some commented lines in the
/boot/grub/menu.lst file and then run the update-grub script; otherwise, the changes might not
take effect.
5.4.2
About Windows loaders
Windows XP/2003
A part of the loader resides in the partition boot sector, the rest is in the files ntldr, boot.ini,
ntdetect.com, ntbootdd.sys. boot.ini is a text file that contains the loader configuration. Example:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional"
/noexecute=optin /fastdetect
Windows Vista and later
A part of the loader resides in the partition boot sector, the rest is in the files bootmgr, boot\bcd. At
starting Windows, boot\bcd is mounted to the registry key HKLM \BCD00000000.
5.5
Reverting a Windows system to its factory settings
If your Windows operating system was deployed by using Acronis Backup for System Builders, you
can revert the system to its factory settings.
Reverting the system to the factory settings can be started from the management console or at boot
time. The second method is useful if the operating system became unbootable for some reason.
To start the operation from the management console, click Revert to factory settings in the
Welcome screen.
To start the operation at boot time, press a hot key (usually, F11) and then click Revert to factory
settings in the appeared screen. Alternatively, you can continue booting the operating system.
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Once you confirm the operation, Acronis Backup will re-deploy the factory image located in Acronis
Secure Zone. This will recover the original volume layout, the pre-installed Windows operating
system, and any original third-party applications. In addition, the software will remove all user
archives from Acronis Secure Zone and resize Acronis Secure Zone to its original size.
Caution: All user data stored on the original disks of the machine will be lost.
Sometimes, a system cannot be reverted to the factory settings even at boot time. This may be the
case if a drive failure occurred, if the factory image became corrupted in Acronis Secure Zone, or if
the original drive was replaced with a new one. In these cases, you can revert the system to the
factory settings by using the factory bootable media if it was shipped with the machine.
To start the operation, boot the machine into the factory bootable media and click Revert to factory
settings in the appeared screen. Once you confirm the operation, Acronis Backup will create Acronis
Secure Zone and copy the factory image to it. Then, it will re-deploy the factory image as described
above.
For additional information, refer to "Acronis Secure Zone" (p. 185) and "Acronis Startup Recovery
Manager" (p. 259).
5.6
Default recovery options
Each Acronis agent has its own default recovery options. Once an agent is installed, the default
options have pre-defined values, which are referred to as presets in the documentation. When
creating a recovery task, you can either use a default option, or override the default option with the
custom value that will be specific for this task only.
You can also customize a default option itself by changing its value against the pre-defined one. The
new value will be used by default in all recovery tasks you will create later on this machine.
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.
Availability of the recovery options
The set of available recovery options depends on:
The environment the agent operates in (Windows, Linux, bootable media).
The type of data being recovered (disk, file).
The operating system being recovered from the disk backup (Windows, Linux).
The following table summarizes the availability of the recovery options.
Agent for Windows
Agent for Linux
Bootable media
(Linux-based or PE-based)
Disk
recovery
File recovery
+
+
(also from a
disk backup)
Disk
recovery
File recovery
+
+
(also from a
disk backup)
Disk
recovery
File recovery
+
+
(also from a
disk backup)
Additional settings (p. 153):
Validate backup archive
before recovery
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Agent for Windows
Agent for Linux
Bootable media
(Linux-based or PE-based)
Disk
recovery
File recovery
Disk
recovery
File recovery
Restart the machine
automatically if it is required
for recovery
+
+
-
-
Restart the machine
automatically after recovery
is finished
-
-
+
+
Check file system after
recovery
-
+
-
+
-
-
+
Windows
recovery
-
-
+
Windows
recovery
-
+
+
+
+
+
-
-
Do not show messages and
dialogs while processing
(silent mode)
+
+
+
+
+
+
Re-attempt if an error occurs
+
+
+
+
+
+
Windows events log (p. 157)
+
+
-
-
-
-
SNMP (p. 156)
+
+
+
+
-
-
Recover files with their
security settings
-
+
-
+
-
+
Mount points (p. 158)
-
+
-
-
-
-
Pre/Post recovery
commands (p. 158)
+
+
+
+
PE only
PE only
Recovery priority (p. 159)
+
+
+
+
-
-
Tape management (p. 160)
-
Location:
tape
-
Location:
tape
-
Location:
tape
Change SID after recovery
Set current date and time for
recovered files
E-mail notifications (p. 154)
Disk
recovery
File recovery
+
+
-
-
+
Windows
recovery
-
(also from a
disk backup)
(also from a
disk backup)
(also from a
disk backup)
Error handling (p. 156):
Event tracing:
File-level security (p. 157):
5.6.1
Additional settings
Specify the additional settings for the recovery operation by selecting or clearing the following check
boxes.
Set current date and time for recovered files
This option is effective only when recovering files.
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The preset is Enabled.
This option defines whether to recover the files’ date and time from the archive or assign the files
the current date and time.
Validate backups before recovery
The preset is Disabled.
This option defines whether to validate a backup to ensure that the backup is not corrupted, before
data is recovered from it.
Check file system after recovery
This option is effective only when recovering disks or volumes.
The preset is Disabled.
This option defines whether to check the integrity of the file system after a disk or volume recovery.
The check takes place either immediately after recovery or after the machine boots into the
recovered operating system.
Restart the 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.
The option defines whether to reboot the machine automatically if it is required for recovery. Such
might be the case when a volume locked by the operating system has to be recovered.
Restart the machine automatically after recovery is finished
This option is effective when operating under bootable media.
The preset is Disabled.
This option enables booting the machine into the recovered operating system without user
interaction.
Change SID after recovery
This option is not effective when recovery to a virtual machine is performed by Acronis Backup Agent
for VMware or Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V.
The preset is Disabled.
Acronis Backup can generate an unique security identifier (SID) for the recovered system. You do not
need a new SID when recovering a system over itself or when creating a system replica that will
replace the original system. Generate a new SID if the original and the recovered systems will work
concurrently in the same workgroup or domain.
5.6.2
E-mail notifications
This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems.
This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
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The option enables you to receive e-mail notifications about the recovery task's successful
completion, failure or when user interaction is required.
The preset is: Disabled.
To configure e-mail notification
1. Select the Send e-mail notifications check box to activate notifications.
2. Under Send e-mail notifications, select the appropriate check boxes as follows:
When recovery completes successfully.
%description%
For a machine running Windows, the %description% variable will be replaced by the text that
is given in the Computer description field of the machine. To specify this text, either go to
Control panel > System or run the following command as an administrator:
When recovery fails.
When user interaction is required.
3. In the E-mail addresses field, type the destination e-mail address. You can enter several
addresses separated by semicolons.
4. In the Subject field, type the notification subject.
The subject can include ordinary text and one or more variables. In the received e-mail messages,
each variable will be replaced by its value at the time of task execution. The following variables
are supported:
net config server /srvcomment:
For a machine running Linux, the %description% variable will be replaced by an empty string
("").
5.
6.
7.
8.
%subject%
The %subject% variable will be replaced by the following phrase: Task on machine .
In the SMTP server field, enter the name of the outgoing mail server (SMTP).
In the Port field, set the port of the outgoing mail server. By default, the port is set to 25.
If the outgoing mail server requires authentication, enter User name and Password of the
sender's e-mail account.
If the SMTP server does not require authentication, leave the User name and Password fields
blank. If you are not sure whether the SMTP server requires authentication, contact your
network administrator or your e-mail service provider for assistance.
Click Additional e-mail parameters... to configure additional e-mail parameters as follows:
a. From – type the name of the sender. If you leave this field empty, the messages will contain
the sender's e-mail account in the From field.
b. Use encryption – you can opt for encrypted connection to the mail server. SSL and TLS
encryption types are available for selection.
c. 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 and Password of the incoming mail server.
d. Click OK.
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9. Click Send test e-mail message to check whether e-mail notifications work correctly with the
specified settings.
5.6.3
Error handling
These options are effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media.
These options enable you to specify how to handle errors that might occur during recovery.
Do not show messages and dialogs while processing (silent mode)
The preset is: Disabled.
With the silent mode enabled, the program will automatically handle situations requiring user
interaction where possible. If an operation cannot continue without user interaction, it will fail.
Details of the operation, including errors, if any, can be found in the operation log.
Re-attempt, if an error occurs
The preset is: Enabled. Number of attempts: 30. Interval between attempts: 30 seconds.
When a recoverable error occurs, the program re-attempts to perform the unsuccessful operation.
You can set the time interval and the number of attempts. The attempts will be stopped as soon as
the operation succeeds OR the specified number of attempts are performed, depending on which
comes first.
For example, if the network location becomes unavailable or not reachable, the program will attempt
to reach the location every 30 seconds, but no more than 5 times. The attempts will be stopped as
soon as the connection is resumed OR the specified number of attempts is performed, depending on
which comes first.
5.6.4
Event tracing
It is possible to duplicate log events of the recovery operations, performed on the managed machine,
in the Application Event Log of Windows; or send the events to the specified SNMP managers.
5.6.4.1
SNMP notifications
This option is effective for both Windows and Linux operating systems.
This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
The option defines whether the agent(s) operating on the managed machine have to send the log
events of the recovery operations to the specified Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
managers. You can choose the types of events to be sent.
For detailed information about using SNMP with Acronis Backup, please see "Support for SNMP (p.
48)".
The preset is: Use the setting set in the Machine options.
To select whether to send the recovery operations events to the SNMP managers:
Choose one of the following:
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Use the setting set in the Machine options – to use the setting specified for the machine. For
more information refer to Machine options.
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Send SNMP notifications individually for recovery operation events – to send the events of the
recovery 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.
Server name/IP – type the name or IP address of the host running the SNMP management
application, the messages will be sent to.
Community – type the name of SNMP community to which both the host running SNMP
management application and the sending machine belong. The typical community is "public".
Click Send test message to check if the settings are correct.
Do not send SNMP notifications – to disable sending the log events of the recovery operations
to SNMP managers.
5.6.4.2
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.
To select whether to log the recovery operations events in the Application Event Log of
Windows:
Select one of the following:
Use the setting set in the Machine options – to use the setting specified for the machine. For
more information refer to Machine options.
Log the following event types – to log events of the recovery operations in the Application Event
Log. Specify the types of events to be logged:
All events – log all events (information, warnings and errors)
Errors and warnings
Errors only
Do not log - to disable logging events of the recovery operations in the Application Event Log.
5.6.5
File-level security
This option is effective only for recovery from file-level backup of Windows files.
This option defines whether to recover NTFS permissions for files along with the files.
The preset is: Recover files with their security settings.
If the file NTFS permissions were preserved during backup (p. 113), you can choose whether to
recover the permissions or let the files inherit the NTFS permissions from the folder to which they
are recovered.
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5.6.6
Mount points
This option is effective only in Windows for recovering data from a file-level backup.
Enable the Mount points option to recover files and folders that were stored on the mounted
volumes and were backed up with the enabled Mount points option. For details of backing up
mounted volumes or cluster shared volumes, see Mount points (p. 115).
The preset is: Disabled.
This option is effective only when you select for backup a folder that is higher in the folder hierarchy
than the mount point. If you select for recovery folders within the mount point or the mount point
itself, the selected items will be recovered regardless of the Mount points option value.
Please be aware that if the volume is not mounted at the moment of recovery, the data will be recovered
directly to the folder that has been the mount point at the time of backing up.
5.6.7
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.
Example of how you can use the pre/post commands:
Launch the Checkdisk command in order to find and fix logical file system errors, physical
errors or bad sectors to be started before the recovery starts or after the recovery ends.
The program does not support interactive commands, i.e. commands that require user input (for
example, "pause".)
A post-recovery command will not be executed if the recovery proceeds with reboot.
To specify pre/post commands
1. Enable pre/post commands execution by checking the following options:
Execute before the recovery
Click Edit to specify a new command or a batch file
Execute after the recovery
2. Do any of the following:
Select the existing command or the batch file from the drop-down list
3. Click OK.
5.6.7.1
Pre-recovery command
To specify a command/batch file to be executed before the recovery process starts
1. In the Command field, type a command or browse to a batch file. The program does not support
interactive commands, i.e. commands that require user input (for example, "pause".)
2. In the Working directory field, specify a path to a directory where the command/batch file will
be executed.
3. In the Arguments field specify the command’s execution arguments, if required.
4. Depending on the result you want to obtain, select the appropriate options as described in the
table below.
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5. Click Test command to check if the command is correct.
Check box
Selection
Fail the task if the command
execution fails*
Selected
Cleared
Selected
Cleared
Do not recover until the
command execution is
complete
Selected
Selected
Cleared
Cleared
N/A
Perform the
recovery
concurrently with
the command
execution and
irrespective of the
command execution
result.
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.
Fail the task if the
command execution
failed.
* A command is considered failed if its exit code is not equal to zero.
5.6.7.2
Post-recovery command
To specify a command/executable file to be executed after the recovery is completed
1. In the Command field, type a command or browse to a batch file.
2. In the Working directory field, specify a path to a directory where the command/batch file will
be executed.
3. In the Arguments field, specify the command execution arguments, if required.
4. Select the Fail the task if the command execution fails check box if successful execution of the
command is critical for you. The command is considered failed if its exit code is not equal to zero.
If the command execution fails, the task run result will be set to Failed.
When the check box is not selected, the command execution result does not affect the task
execution failure or success. You can track the command execution result by exploring the Log
view.
5. Click Test command to check if the command is correct.
A post-recovery command will not be executed if the recovery proceeds with reboot.
5.6.8
Recovery priority
This option is effective for both Windows and Linux operating systems.
This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
The priority of a process running in a system determines the amount of CPU and system resources
allocated to that process. Decreasing the recovery priority will free more resources for other
applications. Increasing the recovery priority might speed up the recovery process by requesting the
operating system to allocate more resources to the application that will perform the recovery.
However, the resulting effect will depend on the overall CPU usage and other factors like disk I/O
speed or network traffic.
The preset is: Normal.
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To specify the recovery process priority
Select one of the following:
Low – to minimize resources taken by the recovery process, leaving more resources to other
processes running on the machine
Normal – to run the recovery process with normal speed, allocating resources on a par with
other processes
High – to maximize the recovery process speed by taking resources from the other processes.
5.6.9
Tape management
Use a disk cache to accelerate the recovery
This option is effective for file recovery from backups stored on tapes.
The preset is: Disabled.
When this option is enabled, the software uses temporary files to minimize the number of tape
rewinds and thus accelerate the recovery. The software creates the files on a local disk of the
machine where the tape device is attached and deletes the files after the recovery is completed.
This option is especially efficient if you recover large files. However, temporary files require as much
space as the total size of the files you want to recover.
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6 Conversion to a virtual machine
Acronis Backup offers a number of ways of converting a disk backup into a virtual machine. This
section helps you choose the method that best fits your needs and provides step-by-step instructions
for conversion.
6.1
Conversion methods
Depending on your needs, you can choose among the following conversion methods:
a) Make the conversion a part of a backup plan
When to use.
If you want the backup and the conversion to be executed on a schedule. This helps you
maintain a standby virtual server ready to power on in case your physical server fails.
If you do not need to adjust the resulting virtual machine settings.
How to perform. When creating a backup plan (p. 50), enable conversion of a backup to a virtual
machine (p. 163).
b) Recover the backed-up disks or volumes to the "New virtual machine" destination
When to use.
If you want to do the conversion once or occasionally, as required.
If you want to do a lossless physical to virtual migration. In this case, you boot the original
machine from bootable media, back up the machine in the off-line state and immediately
recover the machine from the resulting backup.
If you need to adjust the resulting virtual machine settings. You may want to add or remove
disks, choose the disk provisioning mode, change the volume sizes and their location on the
disks, and more.
How to perform. Follow the steps described in "Recovery to the 'New virtual machine'
destination" (p. 166).
c) Recover the backed-up disks or volumes to a manually created virtual machine by using
bootable media
When to use.
If you want to create a machine directly on a virtualization server, rather than import it.
Tip. With Agent for VMware or Agent for Hyper-V, a virtual machine can be created directly
on a respective virtualization server by using methods (a) and (b).
If you need to recreate dynamic volumes on a Windows machine.
If you need to recreate logical volumes or software RAID on a Linux machine.
How to perform. Follow the steps described in “Recovery to a manually created virtual machine”
(p. 169).
6.2
Conversion to an automatically created virtual
machine
This section describes the conversion methods (p. 161) in which Acronis Backup automatically
creates a new virtual machine:
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During conversion which is part of a backup plan (p. 163), the software creates the virtual
machine in addition to creating the backup. The virtual machine has the same configuration as
the original machine.
During recovery to the "New virtual machine" destination (p. 166), the software creates the
virtual machine from a backup you already have. You can change the configuration of the virtual
machine.
Depending on the agent that performs the conversion, Acronis Backup can create a virtual machine
of any of these formats:
Agent for Windows, Agent for Linux
VMware Workstation
Microsoft Virtual PC (includes Windows Virtual PC)
Citrix XenServer OVA (only during recovery to the "New virtual machine" destination)
Kernel-based Virtual Machine
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RAW format)
Agent for VMware
VMware ESX(i)
Agent for Hyper-V
Microsoft Hyper-V
6.2.1
Considerations before conversion
Converting a UEFI-based machine
Virtual machines that use Unified Extensible Hardware Interface (UEFI) are currently supported in
VMware ESXi 5 only. If the target virtualization platform is ESXi 5, Acronis Backup creates a
UEFI-based machine. Otherwise, the resulting machine will use the BIOS boot firmware.
Acronis Backup adjusts the Windows boot mode to the BIOS boot firmware and ensures that
Windows remains bootable.
For Linux operating systems, changing the boot mode from UEFI to BIOS is not supported. When
converting a UEFI-based machine running Linux, make sure that it uses GRUB version 1 and that the
target virtualization platform is ESXi 5. For more details, see "Support for UEFI-based machines" (p.
45).
Logical and dynamic volumes
The resulting machine will have basic volumes, even if Linux logical volume structure is present in the
backup. The same applies to dynamic volumes used in Windows systems. If you want to recreate
logical or dynamic volumes on the machine, perform the conversion as described in “Recovery to a
manually created virtual machine” (p. 169).
Custom loader reactivation
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During conversion, the disk interfaces may be changed as a result of migration to a different
platform or just manually. The software sets the system-disk interface to be the same as the
default interface for the new platform. The default interface is SCSI for VMware and IDE for other
supported platforms. If the system disk interface changes, the name of the boot device also
changes, while the boot loader still uses the old name.
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Conversion of logical volumes to basic ones may also prevent the system from booting up.
For these reasons, if the machine uses a custom boot loader, you might need to configure the loader
to point to the new devices and reactivate it. Configuring GRUB is normally not needed because
Acronis Backup does this automatically. Should the need arise, use the procedure described in "How
to reactivate GRUB and change its configuration" (p. 150).
For more considerations about physical to virtual machine conversion, see the "Backing up virtual
machines" document.
6.2.2
Setting up regular conversion to a virtual machine
When creating a backup plan (p. 50), you can set up regular conversion of a disk or volume backup to
a virtual machine. 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.
Restrictions
Conversion of a backup from the following locations is not available: CD, DVD, Blu-Ray Discs, tape
devices and Acronis Cloud Storage.
Conversion to a Citrix XenServer virtual machine is not available as a part of the backup plan. As
an alternative, use methods (b) and (c) as described in "Conversion methods" (p. 161).
Microsoft Virtual PC does not support virtual disks larger than 127 GB. During a conversion to a
Virtual PC machine, the size of every disk that exceeds 127 GB will be reduced to this value. If the
disk resize is not possible, the conversion will fail. If you need larger virtual disks in order to
connect them to a Hyper-V machine, use methods (b) and (c) as described in "Conversion
methods" (p. 161).
6.2.2.1
Conversion settings
This section provides information that helps you make the appropriate conversion settings.
The settings are specified in the Convert to virtual machine section of the Create backup plan page.
Convert to virtual machine
Convert from
If you are copying or moving backups to other locations (p. 91), select the location where the
backup will be taken from. Conversion locations which are not available (p. 163), such as
Acronis Cloud Storage, are not listed.
By default, conversion will be performed from the primary location.
When to convert
Depending on the selected backup scheme, specify whether to convert every full, every
incremental or every differential backup or convert the last created backup on schedule.
Specify the conversion schedule (p. 164) if required.
Target host... (p. 164)
Select the resulting virtual machine type and location. Available options depend on the agent
that will perform conversion. This may be the agent that performs the backup (by default) or
an agent installed on another machine. If the latter is the case, the archive must be stored in
a shared location such as a network folder or a managed vault, so that the other machine can
access the archive.
To specify another agent, click Change and select a machine where Agent for VMware, Agent
for Hyper-V, Agent for Windows, or Agent for Linux is installed.
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Storage
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. The default name is Backup_of_[Machine Name].
You can add more variables to the name. The following templates are supported:
[Plan Name]
[Machine Name]
[Virtual Host Name]
[Virtual Machine Name]
[Virtualization Server Type]
Folder on VMware vCenter
If the management server is integrated with vCenter Server, the resultant virtual machines
will appear in the Acronis Backups folder on the vCenter. You can specify a subfolder for the
machines resulting from execution of the plan.
6.2.2.2
Setting up a conversion schedule
A disk backup (p. 434) created while executing a backup plan can be converted to a virtual machine
immediately, on schedule, or combining both methods.
The conversion task will be created on the machine being backed up, and will use this machine's date
and time. If the agent that backs up the machine is installed outside it (such is the case when a ESX(i)
or Hyper-V virtual machine is backed up at a hypervisor level), the task will be created on the
machine where the agent is.
The target virtual machine must be powered off by the time of conversion, otherwise the conversion
task will fail. If this happens, you can restart the conversion task manually after powering off the
machine. Any changes made to the machine while it was powered on, will be overwritten.
6.2.2.3
Selecting a machine that will perform conversion
Take into account the following considerations.
Which agent is installed on the machine?
The resulting virtual machine type and location depend on the agent that resides on the selected
machine.
Agent for VMware is installed on the ESX(i) host
You can only create a virtual machine on the ESX(i) host where the agent is running.
In the Storage step, you can select the storage where the virtual machine will be created.
Virtual machines created as a result of backup cannot be added to a backup plan. On the
management server they appear as unmanageable or do not appear at all (if integration with
vCenter Server is not enabled).
Agent for Hyper-V is installed on the machine
You can only create a virtual machine on the Hyper-V server.
In the Storage step, you can select the virtual machine path.
Virtual machines created on the server as a result of backup do not appear on the management
server, because such machines are not intended to be backed up.
Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux is installed on the machine
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You can choose the virtual machine type: VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Red Hat
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) or Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV).
In the Storage step, you can select the virtual machine path.
What is the machine's processing power?
Conversion will take the selected machine's CPU resource. Multiple conversion tasks will be queued
on that machine and it may take considerable time to complete them all. Consider this when creating
a centralized backup plan with conversion for multiple machines or multiple local backup plans using
the same machine for conversion.
What storage will be used for the virtual machines?
Network usage
As opposed to ordinary backups (TIB files), virtual machine files are transferred uncompressed
through the network. Therefore, using a SAN or a storage local to the machine that performs
conversion is the best choice from the network usage standpoint. A local disk is not an option though,
if the conversion is performed by the same machine that is backed up. Using a NAS also makes good
sense.
Storage space
For VMware, Hyper-V and Virtual PC, disks of the resulting virtual machine will use as much storage
space as the original data occupies. Assuming that the original disk size is 100 GB and the disk stores
10 GB of data, the corresponding virtual disk will occupy about 10 GB. VMware calls this format "thin
provisioning", Microsoft uses the "dynamically expanding disk" term. Since the space is not
pre-allocated, the physical storage is expected to have sufficient free space for the virtual disks to
increase in size.
For KVM or RHEV, disks of the resulting virtual machine will have the raw format. This means that
virtual disk size is always equal to the original disk capacity. Assuming that the original disk size is 100
GB, the corresponding virtual disk will occupy 100 GB even if the disk stores 10 GB of data.
6.2.2.4
How regular conversion to VM works
The way the repeated conversions work depends on where you choose to create the virtual machine.
If you choose to save the virtual machine as a set of files: each conversion re-creates the virtual
machine from scratch.
If you choose to create the virtual machine on a virtualization server: when converting an
incremental or differential backup, the software updates the existing virtual machine instead of
re-creating it. Such conversion is normally faster. It saves network traffic and CPU resource of the
host that performs the conversion. If updating the virtual machine is not possible, the software
re-creates it from scratch.
The following is a detailed description of both cases.
If you choose to save the virtual machine as a set of files
As a result of the first conversion, a new virtual machine will be created. Every subsequent
conversion will re-create this machine from scratch. First, the old machine is temporarily renamed.
Then, a new virtual machine is created that has the previous name of the old machine. If this
operation succeeds, the old machine is deleted. If this operation fails, the new machine is deleted
and the old machine is given its previous name. This way, the conversion always ends up with a single
machine. However, extra storage space is required during conversion to store the old machine.
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If you choose to create the virtual machine on a virtualization server
The first conversion creates a new virtual machine. Any subsequent conversion works as follows:
If there has been a full backup since the last conversion, the virtual machine is re-created from
scratch, as described earlier in this section.
Otherwise, the existing virtual machine is updated to reflect changes since the last conversion. If
updating is not possible (for example, if you deleted the intermediate snapshots, see below), the
virtual machine is re-created from scratch.
Intermediate snapshots
To be able to update the virtual machine, the software stores a few intermediate snapshots of it.
They are named Backup… and Replica… and should be kept. Unneeded snapshots are deleted
automatically.
The latest Replica… snapshot corresponds to the result of the latest conversion. You can go to this
snapshot if you want to return the machine to that state; for example, if you worked with the
machine and now want to discard the changes made to it.
Other snapshots are for internal use by the software.
6.2.3
Recovery to the ''New virtual machine'' destination
Rather than converting a TIB file to a virtual disk file, which requires additional operations to bring
the virtual disk into use, Acronis Backup performs the conversion by recovery of a disk backup to a
fully configured and operational new virtual machine. You have the ability to adapt the virtual
machine configuration to your needs when configuring the recovery operation.
With Acronis Backup Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux, you can create a new virtual machine in
a local or network folder. You can start the machine using the respective virtualization software or
prepare the machine files for further usage. The following table summarizes the available virtual
machine formats and the actions you can take to add the machine to a virtualization server.
VM format
Further action and tool to use
Target virtualization
platform
VMware Workstation
Export using VMware Workstation; or
Convert to OVF using VMware OVF tool > Deploy OVF
template using vSphere Client
ESX(i)
Microsoft Virtual PC*
Add the VHD file to a Hyper-V machine
Hyper-V
Citrix XenServer OVA
Import using Citrix XenCenter
XenServer
Kernel-based Virtual
Machine (Raw format)
Move the virtual machine files to a machine running
Linux and run the virtual machine by using Virtual
Machine Manager
-
Red Hat Enterprise
Virtualization (RHEV)
(Raw format)
Import using RHEV Manager
RHEV
*Microsoft Virtual PC does not support disks that are larger than 127 GB. Acronis enables you to create a
Virtual PC machine with larger disks so that you can attach the disks to a Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machine.
With Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for VMware, you can create a new virtual machine
directly on the respective virtualization server.
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6.2.3.1
Steps to perform
To perform a recovery to a new virtual machine
1. Connect the console to the management server, to a machine where an agent is installed, or to a
machine booted from a bootable media.
2. Click Recover to open the Recover data (p. 127) page.
3. Click Select data (p. 129). Use the Data view tab or the Archive view tab to select the disks or
volumes to convert.
4. In Recover to, select New virtual machine.
5. Click Browse. In the VM/VS Selection (p. 167) window, select the resulting virtual machine type
or the virtualization server where to create the machine.
6. [Optional] In Storage, you can view or select the storage where the virtual machine will be
created.
7. [Optional] In Virtual machine settings (p. 168), you can change the name of the virtual machine,
the disk provisioning mode, the allocated memory, and other settings.
Machines of the same type and with the same name cannot be created in the same folder. If you get an
error message caused by identical names, change either the VM name or the path.
8. The destination disk for each of the source disks or source volumes and the MBRs will be
selected automatically. If required, you can change the destination disks.
On a Microsoft Virtual PC, be sure to recover the disk or volume where the operating system's loader
resides to the Hard disk 1. Otherwise, the operating system will not boot. This cannot be fixed by changing
the boot device order in BIOS, because a Virtual PC ignores these settings.
9. In When to recover, specify when to start the recovery task.
10. [Optional] In Task, review Recovery options and change the settings from the default ones, if
need be. You can specify in Recovery options > VM power management whether to start the
new virtual machine automatically after the recovery is completed. This option is available only
when the new machine is created on a virtualization server.
11. Click OK. If the recovery task is scheduled for the future, specify the credentials under which the
task will run.
In the Backup plans and tasks view, you can examine the state and progress of the recovery task.
6.2.3.2
Virtual machine type / virtualization server selection
Select the resulting virtual machine type or the virtualization server where the machine will be
created.
The available options depend on the agent(s) installed on the machine the console is connected to. If
the console is connected to the management server, you can choose any registered machine that is
able to perform the required operation.
To select the virtualization server where the new virtual machine will be created
1. Choose the Create a new virtual machine on the server option.
2. In the left part of the window, select the virtualization server. Use the right part of the window to
review details on the selected server.
[Only if the console is connected to the management server] If multiple agents manage the
selected ESX(i) host, you can choose the agent that will perform recovery. If no agent manages
the ESX(i) and automatic deployment is turned on, Agent for VMware (Virtual Appliance) will be
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deployed immediately after you click OK. Recovery will be performed by that agent. It will take a
license.
3. Click OK to return to the Recover data page.
To select the virtual machine type
1. Choose the Save the virtual machine as a set of files option.
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.
[Only if the console is connected to the management server] You can select the machine that will
perform recovery. This can be any registered machine where Agent for Windows or Agent for
Linux is installed.
3. Click OK to return to the Recover data page.
6.2.3.3
Virtual machine settings
The following virtual machine settings can be configured.
Disks
Initial setting: the number and size of the source machine's disks.
The number of disks is generally equal to that of the source machine. It might be different if the
software has to add more disks to accommodate the source machine volumes because of limitations
set by the virtualization product. You can add virtual disks to the machine configuration or, in some
cases, delete the proposed disks.
When adding a new virtual disk, along with interface and capacity, you can specify its format.
Thin format. The disk occupies as much storage space as the data it stores. This saves the storage
space. To enable thin format, select the Thin provisioning (for ESX), or Dynamically expanding
disk (for Hyper-V) check box.
Thick format. The disk occupies all the provisioned storage space. This improves the virtual
machine performance. To use thick format, clear the Thin provisioning (for ESX), or Dynamically
expanding disk (for Hyper-V) check box.
The default setting is thick format if a physical machine was backed up. When recovering from a
virtual machine backup, the software tries to reproduce the format of the original machine's disks. If
this is not possible, thick format is used.
Implementation of Xen machines is based on Microsoft Virtual PC and inherits its limitations: up to 3 IDE disks
and 1 processor. SCSI disks are not supported.
Memory
Initial setting: if not contained in the backup, it is the default setting of the virtualization server.
This is the amount of memory allocated to the new virtual machine. The memory adjustment range
depends on the host hardware, the host operating system and the virtualization product settings. For
example, virtual machines may be allowed to use no more than 30% of memory.
Name
Initial setting: if not contained in the backup, New virtual machine.
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Enter the name for the new virtual machine. If the backup was created by Agent for VMware or
Agent for Hyper-V, the software takes the name from the virtual machine configuration contained in
the backup.
Processors
Initial setting: if not contained in the backup or if the backed-up setting is not supported by the
virtualization server, it is the default server's setting.
This is the number of processors of the new virtual machine. In most cases, it is set to one. The result
of assignment of more than one processor to the machine is not guaranteed. The number of virtual
processors may be limited by the host CPU configuration, the virtualization product and the guest
operating system. Multiple virtual processors are generally available on multi-processor hosts. A
multicore host CPU or hyperthreading may enable multiple virtual processors on a single-processor
host.
6.3
Recovery to a manually created virtual machine
This section describes the conversion method (p. 161) in which you create a virtual machine yourself
and perform a recovery to it as if it were a physical machine.
6.3.1
Considerations before conversion
Converting a UEFI-based machine
If the original machine uses Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) for booting, consider
creating a virtual machine that is also UEFI-based.
If your virtualization product does not support UEFI, you can create a BIOS-based machine, provided
that the original machine is running Windows. Acronis Backup adjusts the Windows boot mode to
the BIOS boot firmware and ensures that Windows remains bootable.
For Linux operating systems, changing the boot mode from UEFI to BIOS is not supported. Acronis
Backup can convert a UEFI-based machine running Linux only when the machine uses GRUB version 1
and the target machine is also UEFI-based. For more details, see "Support for UEFI-based machines"
(p. 45).
Choosing the disk interface
When creating the virtual machine, you may want its disks to have a different interface than those of
the original machine.
You may want to change all disk interfaces from IDE to SCSI when migrating a machine to ESX(i),
because SCSI is a default disk interface for ESX(i) and it provides better performance.
You need to change the system disk interface from SCSI to IDE when migrating a machine to
Hyper-V, because Hyper-V does not support booting from SCSI disks.
If the original machine uses a custom boot loader, either recover the system disk to a disk with the
same interface, or manually configure the boot loader. The reason is that when the interface of the
system disk changes, the name of the boot device also changes; however, the boot loader still uses
the old name. Configuring GRUB is normally not needed because Acronis Backup does this
automatically.
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6.3.2
Steps to perform
To perform a recovery to a manually created virtual machine
1. [Optional] When recovering Windows, prepare Windows drivers that correspond to the target
virtualization platform.
For machines running Linux, the necessary drivers are normally already present in the operating
system.
2. Create a bootable media (p. 249) by using Acronis Bootable Media Builder.
3. Create a virtual machine by using your virtualization product’s native tools.
4. Boot the virtual machine from the bootable media.
5. [When recovering Windows] If you need dynamic volumes, create a volume group by using the
disk management functionality (p. 272).
6. Select Actions > Recover.
7. [When recovering Linux] If you need logical volumes, click Apply RAID/LVM. The LVM structure
will be automatically recreated (p. 41) during the recovery.
8. Configure other recovery settings and perform a recovery in the same way as onto a physical
machine.
The most recent operating systems remain bootable when recovered to dissimilar hardware, or the
VMware or Hyper-V platforms. If a recovered operating system does not boot, use the Acronis
Universal Restore tool to update the drivers and modules that are critical for the operating system
startup. For details, see the Acronis Universal Restore page at http://www.acronis.com/en-us/aur/.
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7 Storing the backed up data
7.1
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.
There are no settings for limiting a vault size or number of backups in a vault. You can limit the size of
each archive using cleanup. However, the total size of archives stored in the vault is limited by the
storage size only.
Why create vaults?
We recommend that you create a vault in each destination where you are going to store backup
archives. This will ease your work as follows.
Quick access to the vault
You will not have to remember paths to the folders where the archives are stored. When creating a
backup plan or a task that requires selection of an archive or an archive destination place, the list of
vaults will be available for quick access without drilling down through the folders tree.
Easy archive management
A vault is available for access from the Navigation pane. Having selected the vault, you can browse
the archives stored there and perform the following archive management operations:
Get a list of backups included in each archive
Recover data from a backup
Examine backup content
Validate all archives in the vault or individual archives or backups
Mount a volume backup to copy files from the backup to a physical disk
Safely delete archives and backups from the archives.
Creating vaults is highly recommended but is not obligatory. You may choose not to use the shortcuts
and always specify the location path.
Creating a vault results in adding the vault name to the Vaults section of the Navigation pane.
Centralized and personal vaults
A centralized vault is a networked location allotted by the management server administrator to serve
as storage for the backup archives. A centralized vault can be managed by a storage node (managed
vault) or be unmanaged. For more information, see the Centralized vaults (p. 173) section.
A vault is called personal if it was created using direct connection of the console to a managed
machine. Personal vaults are specific for each managed machine.
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'Vaults' view
Vaults (on the navigation pane) - top item of the vaults tree. Click this item to display centralized
and personal vaults. To perform actions on any vault, use the toolbar that is located at the top of the
Vaults view. For centralized vaults, see the Actions on centralized vaults (p. 174) section. For
personal vaults, see the Actions on personal vaults (p. 182) section.
Centralized vaults. These vaults are available when the console is connected to a managed
machine or to a management server.
Personal vaults. These vaults are available when the console is connected to a managed
machine.
Click any vault in the vaults tree to open the detailed view of this vault (p. 172) and to take actions on
archives (p. 244) and backups (p. 245) stored in there.
7.1.1
Working with vaults
This section briefly describes the main GUI elements of the selected vault, and suggests ways to work
with them.
Examining information on a vault
Information about the selected vault is located at the top pane of the selected vault. Using the
stacked bar, you can estimate the vault's load. The vault's load is the proportion of the vault's free
space and occupied space (not available if the vault is located on a tape library). Free space is a space
on the storage device where the vault is located. For example, if the vault is located on a hard disk,
the vault free space is the free space of the respective volume. Occupied space is the total size of
backup archives and their metadata, if it is located in the vault.
You can obtain the total number of archives and backups stored in the vault and full path to the
vault.
For managed vaults only, you can examine the name of the storage node that manages the vault,
encryption and deduplication (p. 225) states.
Browsing the vault contents and data selection
You can browse the vault content and select data to recover by using the Data view tab or the
Archive view tab.
Data view
The Data view tab lets you browse and select the backed-up data by versions (backup date and time).
The Data view tab shares the same searching and cataloging functionality with the data catalog (p.
131).
Archive view
The Archive view tab displays the backed-up data by archives. Use the Archive view to perform
operations with archives and backups stored in the vault. For more information about these
operations, see the following sections:
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Operations with archives stored in a vault (p. 244).
Operations with backups (p. 245).
Sorting, filtering and configuring table items (p. 24).
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
What does the
icon mean?
When browsing archives on the Archive view tab, you may encounter a backup with the
icon.
This icon means that the backup is marked for deletion but cannot be deleted immediately for any of
the following reasons:
Other backups depend on it, but consolidation is either not possible or disabled by retention
rules.
The backup is stored on a tape.
You cannot perform any operation on backups marked for deletion. They disappear from the Archive
view after they are physically deleted. This happens when all of the dependent backups are also
deleted, or when the tape is overwritten, or at next cleanup after you enable consolidation in the
retention rules.
7.1.2
Centralized vaults
A centralized vault is a networked location allotted by the management server administrator to serve
as storage for the backup archives. A centralized vault can be managed by a storage node or be
unmanaged. The total number and size of archives stored in a centralized vault is limited by the
storage size only.
As soon as the management server administrator creates a centralized vault, the vault path and
name are distributed to all machines registered on the server. The shortcut to the vault appears on
the machines in the Vaults group. Any backup plan existing on the machines, including local plans,
can use the centralized vault.
The following table explains in details the difference between managed and unmanaged vaults.
Functionality
Managed vaults
Unmanaged vaults
Requires installation of Acronis Backup Storage Node
Yes
No
Data stored in the vault is included in the centralized data
catalog (p. 131)
Yes
No
Dedicated user accounts for accessing a vault (vault
administrators (p. 178) and vault users (p. 179))
Yes
No
Data deduplication (p. 225)
Yes
No
Vault encryption (p. 177)
Yes
No
Archive cleanup, replication and validation set in the backup
plan is performed by...
...the storage node
...the agent.
(p. 212) (except
replication to Acronis
Cloud Storage,
performed by the
agent).
Supported types of storage:
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Acronis Cloud Storage
No
Yes
Tape device
Yes
(no deduplication or
vault encryption)
No
Network share (SMB/CIFS)
Yes
Yes
NFS share
Yes
Yes
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Functionality
Managed vaults
Unmanaged vaults
SAN, NAS
Yes
Yes
FTP/SFTP server
No
Yes
7.1.2.1
Actions on centralized vaults
To access actions
1. Connect the console to the management server.
2. In the Navigation pane, click Vaults > Centralized.
All the operations described here are performed by clicking the corresponding buttons on the vaults
toolbar. These operations can be also accessed from the [Vault name] actions item of the main
menu.
The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with centralized vaults.
To
Do
Create a managed or an
unmanaged vault
1. Click
Create.
2. In the Type field, select the vault type: Managed or Unmanaged
The procedure of creating centralized vaults is described in-depth in the following
sections:
Create a managed centralized vault (p. 175)
Create an unmanaged centralized vault (p. 179)
Edit a managed or an
unmanaged vault
1. Select the vault.
2. Click
Edit.
Depending on the vault you select (managed or unmanaged), the respective Edit
page will be opened:
The Edit managed vault page lets you change the vault's name, user accounts
and information in the Comments field.
The Edit unmanaged vault page lets you edit the vault's name and information in
the Comments field.
Detach a managed vault 1. Select the vault.
2. Click
Detach.
Detaching a vault removes association between the vault and the storage node and
deletes this vault from the GUI. Nevertheless, all archives stored in the vault will
remain untouched. The plans and tasks that use this vault will fail.
Later on, you'll be able to attach this detached vault to the same or to another
storage node.
Notes.
Tape-based vaults cannot be detached.
To detach a vault from an unavailable storage node, remove the storage node (p.
215) from the management server.
Attach the previously
Click
Attach.
detached managed vault
The procedure of attaching a managed vault to a storage node is described in-depth
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To
Do
in the Attaching a managed vault (p. 180) section.
Note. Tape-based vaults cannot be attached.
Validate a vault
1. Select the vault.
2. Click
Validate.
You will be taken to the Validation (p. 232) page with an already pre-selected vault
as a source. The vault validation checks all the archives in this vault.
Open an unmanaged
vault folder
1. Select the unmanaged vault.
2. Click
Explore.
The vault will be available for examination with the standard file manager program.
Delete a vault
1. Select the vault.
2. Click
Delete.
The vault will be deleted along with all the archives stored in there. The plans and
tasks that use this vault will fail.
Change user credentials
for accessing a vault
Click
Refresh a vault's
information
Click
Change user.
Changing user credentials is available for vaults that reside on shared storages only.
Refresh.
While you are reviewing the vault content, archives can be added to the vault,
deleted or modified. Click Refresh to update the vault information with the most
recent changes.
Creating a managed centralized vault
To create a managed centralized vault, perform the following steps
Vault
Name
Specify a unique name for the vault. Creation of two centralized vaults with the same name
is prohibited.
Comments
[Optional] Enter the distinctive description of the vault being created.
Type
Select the Managed type.
Storage node
Select the Acronis Backup Storage Node that will manage the vault.
Deduplication
[Optional] Select whether to enable archive deduplication in the vault. Deduplication
minimizes storage space taken by the archives and backup traffic. It reduces the size of
archives in the vault by eliminating redundant data such as duplicate files or disk blocks.
Deduplication is not possible on tape devices.
Deduplication is not possible if the storage node is installed in a 32-bit operating system.
To learn more about how deduplication works, see the Deduplication (p. 225) section.
Encryption (p. 177)
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[Optional] Select whether to protect the vault with encryption. Anything written to the vault
will be encrypted and anything read from it will be decrypted transparently by the storage
node, using a vault-specific encryption key stored on the storage node.
A vault located on a tape device cannot be protected with encryption.
Path (p. 177)
Specify where the vault will be created.
Place deduplication database along with backups (available only if the Deduplication is
enabled)
The deduplication database stores the hash values of all items stored in the
vault—except for those that cannot be deduplicated, such as encrypted files.
If the vault is created on the disk local to the storage node, the deduplication database is
placed to the same vault (the Place deduplication database along with backups check
box is selected).
If the vault is created on the network share, the Place deduplication database along
with backups check box is disabled, and you have to specify a path to the deduplication
database manually.
Placing the deduplication database along with backups may result in system performance
slowdown. To improve the system performance, we recommend you to create the
deduplication database and the managed vault on different disks.
Deduplication database (p. 177) (available only if the Deduplication is enabled)
Specify a folder on the storage node local disks or SAN to create the deduplication
database.
Drives
[Optional] If the vault is created on a tape device, specify the tape drive(s) to be used
when backing up to the vault. By default, all available drives will be used. Click the down
arrow and select or clear required check boxes.
Tape pool
[Optional] If the vault is created on a tape device, specify the pool whose tapes will be
used by the vault. By default, the Acronis pool is selected.
Catalog database
[Optional] Specify where the data catalog database will be placed.
Backward compatibility
To access this option, click Show backward compatibility.
[Optional] Select whether to make the vault backward compatible for working with Acronis
Backup & Recovery 10 agents.
What you need to know about backward compatible vaults:
- A vault located on a tape device cannot be backward compatible.
- Agents of Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 and Acronis Backup can back up to a vault
regardless of its backward compatibility property.
- You cannot specify vault administrators and vault users for a backward compatible vault.
- When the console is connected to an Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent, the Data view
tab for a vault is not displayed.
- Backups created by Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 and Acronis Backup are cataloged
automatically. To include backups created by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 in the data
catalog, click the update the catalog now link on the Data view tab of the vault. Please be
aware that the cataloging procedure may be time and resource consuming.
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Compression
[Optional] Select whether to compress the deduplication data stores. This setting is available
only if the backward compatibility is turned on and deduplication is enabled.
User accounts
Vault administrators (p. 178)
Add groups or user accounts that will have administrator rights on this vault. Vault
administrators can view and manage all the archives stored in the vault. Acronis Centralized
Admins and members of the Administrators group on the storage node are considered as
vault administrators by default.
Vault users (p. 179)
Add groups or user accounts that will have user rights on this vault. Vault users can view and
manage only their own archives in the vault. By default, the Everyone group of the storage
node is added to the vault users.
After you have performed all the required steps, click OK to commit creating the managed vault.
Vault path
To specify the path where the managed vault will be created
1. Enter the full path to the folder in the Path field or select the desired folder in the folders tree.
Managed vaults can be organized:
On the hard drives local to the storage node.
On a network share (SMB/CIFS).
On a Network File System (NFS) share.
On a Storage Area Network (SAN).
On a Network Attached Storage (NAS).
On a tape library locally attached to the storage node.
To create a new folder for the vault in the selected location, click
2. Click OK.
Create folder.
A vault can be created in an empty folder only.
We do not recommend creating a deduplicating managed vault on a FAT32 volume. The reason is that such
vault stores all deduplicated items in two potentially large files. Because the maximum file size in the FAT file
systems is limited to 4 GB, the storage node may stop working when this limit is reached.
Deduplication database path
To specify the path where the deduplication 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
Create folder.
We strongly advise that you follow the recommendations given in the "Selecting a disk for the
deduplication database" section of "Deduplication best practices" (p. 228).
2. Click OK.
Vault encryption
If you protect a vault with encryption, anything written to the vault will be encrypted and anything
read from it will be decrypted transparently by the storage node using a vault-specific encryption key
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stored on the node. If the storage medium is stolen or accessed by an unauthorized person, the
malefactor will not be able to decrypt the vault contents without access to the storage node.
This encryption has nothing to do with the archive encryption specified by the backup plan and
performed by an agent. If the archive is already encrypted, the storage node-side encryption is
applied over the encryption performed by the agent.
To protect the vault with encryption
1. Select one of the following encryption algorithms from the drop-down list:
AES 128 – the vault contents will be encrypted using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
algorithm with a 128-bit key
AES 192 – the vault contents will be encrypted using the AES algorithm with a 192-bit key
AES 256 – the vault contents will be encrypted using the AES algorithm with a 256-bit key.
2. In the Enter the word field, specify a word to be used for generating the encryption key.
Details. The word is case-sensitive. You will be asked for this word only when attaching the vault
to another storage node.
3. In the Confirm field, re-type the word you just entered.
4. 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 archives stored in the vault and the more secure the
archives will be.
The encryption key is then encrypted with AES-256 using a SHA-256 hash of the selected word as a
key. The word itself is not stored anywhere on the disk; the word hash is used for verification
purposes. With this two-level security, the archives are protected from any unauthorized access, but
recovering a lost word is not possible.
Vault administrators
Vault administrators can back up to the vault, view and manage any archive stored in the vault. By
default, the Administrators group on the storage node is added to the vault administrators.
To add a group or user accounts
1. Enter names of groups or users in the separate fields in accordance with the following patterns:
DisplayName (example: FirstName LastName).
UserName (example: User1).
ObjectName@DomainName (example: User1@Domain1).
DomainName\ObjectName (example: Domain1\User1).
2. Once the names are entered, click Check names. If the entered name is found, click OK (the OK
button is disabled until the name is found).
If no objects were found, delete the name and enter another one. If several objects for the
entered name were found, select one of them and click OK, or click Cancel and specify another
name.
At first, the software tries to find the entered names in the list of local users and groups on the
machine where the storage node is installed. If not found, the software checks the domain users
and groups.
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You will be prompted to specify the domain account credentials, when you enter a user or group
name that cannot be checked using your domain account; for example, if you are logged on using
a domain account other than the domain name you have entered to check.
Vault users
Vault users can view and manage only their own archives in the vault. A vault user who is a member
of the Administrators group on a machine can additionally view and manage any archives created
from that machine in a managed vault. By default, the Everyone group on the storage node is added
to the vault users.
To add a group or user accounts
1. Enter names of groups or users in the separate fields in accordance with the following patterns:
DisplayName (example: FirstName LastName).
UserName (example: User1).
ObjectName@DomainName (example: User1@Domain1).
DomainName\ObjectName (example: Domain1\User1).
2. Once the names are entered, click Check names. If the entered name is found, click OK (the OK
button is disabled until the name is found).
If no objects were found, delete the name and enter another one. If several objects for the
entered name were found, select one of them and click OK, or click Cancel and specify another
name.
At first, the software tries to find the entered names in the list of local users and groups on the
machine where the storage node is installed. If not found, the software checks the domain users
and groups.
You will be prompted to specify the domain account credentials, when you enter a user or group
name that cannot be checked using your domain account; for example, if you are logged on using
a domain account other than the domain name you have entered to check.
Creating an unmanaged centralized vault
In contrast to centralized managed vaults, the data from unmanaged vaults is not included in the
centralized data catalog (p. 131). Nevertheless, you can use the Data view tab of each vault to
browse its data.
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. 180)
Specify where the vault will be created.
After you have performed all the required steps, click OK to commit creating the unmanaged
centralized vault.
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Vault path
To specify the path where the unmanaged vault will be created
1. Enter the full path to the folder in the Path field or select the desired folder in the folders tree.
Unmanaged vaults can be organized:
On Acronis Cloud Storage.
On a network share (SMB/CIFS).
On a Network File System (NFS) share.
On a Storage Area Network (SAN).
On a Network Attached Storage (NAS).
On FTP and SFTP servers.
According to the original FTP specification, credentials required for access to FTP servers are transferred
through a network as plaintext. This means that the user name and password can be intercepted by an
eavesdropper using a packet sniffer.
To create a new folder for the vault, click
Create folder.
A vault can be created in an empty folder only.
2. Click OK.
Attaching a managed vault
A vault managed by a storage node can be detached (p. 174) from this storage node and attached to
another one. As a result, the old storage node stops managing the vault, and the new one starts
managing the vault. You might need to do this when retiring the storage node hardware, when the
storage node is lost, or when reinstalling a storage node.
If the old storage node is unavailable, remove it (p. 215) from the management server prior to
attaching its vaults to a new storage node.
Note: Personal, centralized unmanaged and tape-based vaults cannot be attached.
Before attaching
Catalog database
We recommend that you move the vault catalog database from the old storage node to the new one.
Otherwise, you will have to re-catalog the vault, which may take a long time to perform.
The vault catalog database is a set of files located in the folder whose name is the same as the GUID
of the vault. Do not change the folder name when moving it. To learn the GUID of a properly
detached vault, find the file named _L.FDB in the vault folder.
The default location of catalog databases on a storage node is as follows:
In Windows XP and Server 2003: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application
Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\ASN\Catalog.
In Windows Vista and later versions of
Windows: %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\ASN\Catalog.
Deduplication database
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If the vault is deduplicating, we recommend that you move the deduplication database from the old
storage node to the new one. Otherwise, the software will automatically re-create the deduplication
database, which may take a long time to perform.
For the information about the recommended location of the deduplication database, see
"Deduplication best practices" (p. 228).
The deduplication database consists of several files that are named _u.*. To learn
the GUID of a properly detached vault, find the file named _L.FDB in the vault folder.
Vault database
The vault database contains the metadata of all archives stored in the vault. Normally, when
detaching a vault from the storage node, the vault database is moved from its default location to the
vault being detached. While attaching the vault, the software searches for the database in the vault.
If the vault database is found, it is moved to the default location on the storage node the vault is
being attached to. If the database is not found in the vault, you will be asked to manually specify the
path to this database.
The default location of a vault database on a storage node is as follows:
In Windows XP and Server 2003: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application
Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\ASN\VaultMetadataDatabases.
In Windows Vista and later versions of
Windows: %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\ASN\VaultMetadataDatabases.
To attach a managed vault to a storage node, perform the following steps.
Vault
Storage node
Select the storage node that will manage the vault.
Path
Specify the path to the detached vault.
Vault database
Specify where the vault database is located. This section appears only if the storage node
cannot find the database inside the vault.
If the database is found in the folder you specify, it will be moved to the default location on
the storage node where the vault is being attached to. Otherwise, the new storage node will
retrieve the metadata and re-create the database in the default location mentioned above.
Deduplication database
Specify the folder where the deduplication database of the vault is located. If the database is
not found in the folder you specify, it will be re-created there.
The database path is auto-filled if the database is stored in the vault folder.
Catalog database
Specify the folder where the vault catalog database is located. (For example, if the vault
catalog database path is E:\catalog_db\AAAAAAAA-BBBB-CCCC-DDDD-EEEEEEEEEEEE,
specify E:\catalog_db.) If the catalog database is not found in the folder you specify, the
attached vault will be considered as not cataloged.
Password
For the encrypted vault, provide the encryption password.
After you have performed all the required steps, click OK to commit to attaching the vault.
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7.1.3
Personal vaults
A vault is called personal if it was created using direct connection of the console to a managed
machine. Personal vaults are specific for each managed machine. Personal vaults are visible to any
user that can log on to the system. A user's right to back up to a personal vault is defined by the
user's permission for the folder or device where the vault is located.
A personal vault can be organized on a network share, FTP server, detachable or removable media,
Acronis Cloud Storage, tape device, or on a hard drive local to the machine. Acronis Secure Zone is
considered as a personal vault available to all users that can log on the system. Personal vaults are
created automatically when backing up any of the above locations.
Personal vaults can be used by local backup plans or local tasks. Centralized backup plans cannot use
personal vaults except for Acronis Secure Zone.
Sharing a personal vault
Multiple machines can refer to the same physical location; for example, to the same shared folder.
However, each of the machines has its own shortcut in the Vaults tree. Users that back up to a
shared folder can see and manage each other's archives according to their access permissions for
that folder. To ease archive identification, the Personal vault view has the Owner column that
displays the owner of each archive. To find out more about the owner concept see Owners and
credentials (p. 29).
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.
7.1.3.1
Actions on personal vaults
To access actions
1. Connect the console to the managed machine.
2. In the Navigation pane, click Vaults > Personal.
All the operations described here are performed by clicking the corresponding buttons on the vaults
toolbar. These operations can be also accessed from the [Vault name] actions item of the main
menu.
The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with personal vaults.
To
Do
Create a personal vault Click
Create.
The procedure of creating personal vaults is described in-depth in the Creating a
personal vault (p. 183) section.
Edit a vault
1. Select the vault.
2. Click
Edit.
The Edit personal vault page lets you edit the vault's name and information in the
Comments field.
Change user account
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Click
Change user.
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To
Do
for accessing a vault
In the appearing dialog box, provide the credentials required for accessing the vault.
Create Acronis Secure
Zone
Click
Explore a vault's
content
Click
Validate a vault
Click
Create Acronis Secure Zone.
The procedure of creating the Acronis Secure Zone is described in-depth in the
Creating Acronis Secure Zone (p. 186) section.
Explore.
In the appearing Explorer window, examine the selected vault's content.
Validate.
You will be taken to the Validation (p. 232) page, where this vault is already
pre-selected as a source. The vault validation checks all the archives stored in the
vault.
Delete a vault
Click
Delete.
The deleting operation actually removes only a shortcut to the folder from the
Vaults view. The folder itself remains untouched. You have the option to keep or
delete archives contained in the folder.
Refresh vault table
information
Click
Refresh.
While you are reviewing the vault content, archives can be added to the vault,
deleted or modified. Click Refresh to update the vault information with the most
recent changes.
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. Click Path and specify a path to the folder that will be used as the vault. A personal vault can be
organized on a network share, FTP server, detachable media, Acronis Cloud Storage, tape device,
or on a hard drive local to the machine.
4. [Optional] If the vault is created on a tape device:
a. Click Drives to specify the tape drive(s) to be used when backing up to the vault. By default,
all available drives will be used. Click Use the following drives only and select or clear
required check boxes;
b. Click Tape pool and specify the pool whose tapes will be used by the vault. By default, the
Acronis pool is selected.
5. Click OK. As a result, the created vault appears in the Personal group of the vaults tree.
Merging and moving personal vaults
What if I need to move the existing vault from one place to another?
Proceed as follows
1. Make sure that none of the backup plans uses the existing vault while moving files, or disable the
given plans. See Actions on backup plans and tasks (p. 316).
2. Move the vault folder with all its content to a new place manually by means of a third-party file
manager.
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3. Create a new vault.
4. Edit the backup plans and tasks: redirect their destination to the new vault.
5. Delete the old vault.
How can I merge two vaults?
Suppose you have two vaults A and B in use. Both vaults are used by backup plans. You decide to
leave only vault B, moving all the archives from vault A there.
To do this, proceed as follows
1. Make sure that none of the backup plans uses vault A while merging, or disable the given plans.
See Actions on backup plans and tasks (p. 316).
2. Move the content of vault A folder to vault B manually by means of a third-party file manager.
3. Edit the backup plans that use vault A: redirect their destination to vault B.
4. In the vaults tree, select vault B to check whether the archives are displayed. If not, click Refresh.
5. Delete vault A.
7.1.4
Changing the default cache folder for catalog files
Catalog files are normally stored in vaults. When working with catalog files, Acronis Backup may save
them to a local folder on a managed machine or on a management server. This happens in the
following cases:
When an agent catalogues the data backed up to an unmanaged vault. The agent creates or
updates the catalog locally and then copies it to the vault.
When storing backups on a tape device. Because tape has a long latency for random accesses,
the catalog of a tape-based vault is always stored on the machine where the tape device is
attached.
When browsing the data backed up to an FTP server in the Data view tab. During the browsing
session, Acronis Backup maintains a full copy of the data catalog from an FTP server on a
managed machine or on a management server. This is done for the purpose of fast access to the
data catalog.
By default, a cache folder is located on the disk where the operating system is installed. Storing
multiple catalog files in this location may result in the lack of free disk space. Therefore, you may
want to change the folder path.
Changing the default cache folder
To do this, add a special parameter to the system registry in Windows or modify the MMS.config
configuration file in Linux.
If the specified folder does not exist, Acronis Backup will automatically create it when creating or
copying catalog files next time. If you are storing backups on a tape device, create the folder in
advance so as not to catalog the data over again.
To specify a new cache folder in Windows:
1. Add the Catalog key to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\AMS\Configuration (on a management server) or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\MMS\Configuration (on a managed machine).
2. Add the CatalogDir string value.
3. Specify a new folder path in the CatalogDir string value. The path must end with a backslash (\)
and can be 32765 characters long.
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To specify a new cache folder in Linux:
Add the following element inside the Configuration tag in /etc/Acronis/MMS.config:
"/home/Catalog/"
So, the configuration file will look like:
...
"/home/Catalog/"
Where /home/Catalog/ is a new folder path. The path must end with a slash mark (/) and can
be 32765 characters long.
Moving the catalog files
After changing a cache folder, Acronis Backup neither moves the catalog files to the new folder nor
removes the old folder.
If your backups are stored on a tape device, move the catalog files to the new location so as not to
catalog the data over again. Otherwise, you may let Acronis Backup create or copy the catalog files
anew.
You may also want to delete the old folder. The default cache folder path is as follows:
In Windows XP and Server 2003: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application
Data\Acronis\AMS\AMS\Catalog (on a management server)
or %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\Catalog (on a
managed machine).
In Windows Vista and later versions of
Windows: %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis\AMS\AMS\Catalog (on a management server)
or %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\Catalog (on a managed machine).
In Linux: /var/lib/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery/MMS/Catalog/
7.2
Acronis Secure Zone
Acronis Secure Zone is a secure partition that enables keeping backup archives on a managed
machine disk space and therefore recovery of a disk to the same disk where the backup resides.
Should the disk experience a physical failure, the zone and the archives located there will be lost.
That's why Acronis Secure Zone should not be the only location where a backup is stored. In
enterprise environments, Acronis Secure Zone can be thought of as an intermediate location used for
backup when an ordinary location is temporarily unavailable or connected through a slow or busy
channel.
Advantages
Acronis Secure Zone:
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Offers a cost-effective and handy method for protecting data from software malfunction, virus
attack, operator error.
Since it is internal archive storage, it eliminates the need for a separate media or network
connection to back up or recover the data. This is especially useful for mobile users.
Can serve as a primary destination when using replication of backups (p. 94).
Limitations
Acronis Secure Zone cannot be organized on a dynamic disk.
7.2.1
Creating Acronis Secure Zone
You can create Acronis Secure Zone while the operating system is running or using bootable media.
To create Acronis Secure Zone, perform the following steps.
Location and size
Disk (p. 186)
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. 187)
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.
Security
Password (p. 187)
[Optional] Protect the Acronis Secure Zone from unauthorized access with a password. The
prompt for the password appear at any operation relating to the zone.
After you configure the required settings, click OK. In the Result confirmation (p. 187) window,
review the expected layout and click OK to start creating the zone.
7.2.1.1
Acronis Secure Zone Disk
The Acronis Secure Zone can be located on any fixed hard drive. Acronis Secure Zone is always
created at the end of the hard disk. A machine can have only one Acronis Secure Zone. Acronis
Secure Zone is created using unallocated space, if available, or at the expense of the volumes' free
space.
The Acronis Secure Zone cannot be organized on a dynamic disk.
To allocate space for Acronis Secure Zone
1. Choose a hard disk (if several) on which to create the zone. The unallocated space and free space
from all volumes of the first enumerated disk are selected by default. The program displays the
total space available for the Acronis Secure Zone.
2. If you need to allocate more space for the zone, you can select volumes from which free space
can be taken. Again, the program displays the total space available for the Acronis Secure Zone
depending on your selection. You will be able to set the exact zone size in the Acronis Secure
Zone Size (p. 187) window.
3. Click OK.
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7.2.1.2
Acronis Secure Zone Size
Enter the Acronis Secure Zone size or drag the slider to select any size between the minimum and the
maximum ones. The minimum size is approximately 50MB, depending on the geometry of the hard
disk. The maximum size is equal to the disk's unallocated space plus the total free space on all the
volumes you have selected in the previous step.
If you have to take space from the boot or the system volume, please bear the following in mind:
Moving or resizing of the volume from which the system is currently booted will require a reboot.
Taking all free space from a system volume may cause the operating system to work unstably
and even fail to start. Do not set the maximum zone size if the boot or the system volume is
selected.
7.2.1.3
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.
To disable password
1. Choose Do not use.
2. Click OK.
7.2.1.4
Result confirmation
The Result confirmation window displays the expected partition layout according to the settings you
have chosen. Click OK, if you are satisfied with the layout and the Acronis Secure Zone creation will
start.
How the settings you make will be processed
This helps you to understand how creating the Acronis Secure Zone will transform a disk containing
multiple volumes.
Acronis Secure Zone is always created at the end of the hard disk. When calculating the final
layout of the volumes, the program will first use unallocated space at the end.
If there is no or not enough unallocated space at the end of the disk, but there is unallocated
space between volumes, the volumes will be moved to add more unallocated space to the end.
When all unallocated space is collected but it is still not enough, the program will take free space
from the volumes you select, proportionally reducing the volumes' size. Resizing of locked
volumes requires a reboot.
However, there should be free space on a volume, so that the operating system and applications
can operate; for example, for creating temporary files. The program will not decrease a volume
where free space is or becomes less than 25% of the total volume size. Only when all volumes on
the disk have 25% or less free space, will the program continue decreasing the volumes
proportionally.
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As is apparent from the above, setting the maximum possible zone size is not advisable. You will end
up with no free space on any volume which might cause the operating system or applications to work
unstably and even fail to start.
7.2.2
Managing Acronis Secure Zone
Acronis Secure Zone is considered as a personal vault (p. 441). Once created on a managed machine,
the zone is always present in the list of Personal vaults. Centralized backup plans can use Acronis
Secure Zone as well as local plans.
All the archive management operations available in vaults are also applicable to Acronis Secure Zone.
To learn more about archive management operations, see Operations with archives and backups (p.
244).
7.2.2.1
Increasing Acronis Secure Zone
To increase Acronis Secure Zone
1. On the Manage Acronis Secure Zone page, click Increase.
2. Select volumes from which free space will be used to increase the Acronis Secure Zone.
3. Specify the new size of the zone by:
dragging the slider and selecting any size between the current and maximum values. The
maximum size is equal to the disk’s unallocated space plus the total free space of all selected
partitions;
typing an exact value in the Acronis Secure Zone Size field.
When increasing the size of the zone, the program will act as follows:
first, it will use the unallocated space. Volumes will be moved, if necessary, but not resized.
Moving of locked volumes requires a reboot.
If there is not enough unallocated space, the program will take free space from the selected
volumes, proportionally reducing the volumes' size. Resizing of locked partitions requires a
reboot.
Reducing a system volume to the minimum size might prevent the machine's operating system from
booting.
4. Click OK.
7.2.2.2
Decreasing Acronis Secure Zone
To decrease Acronis Secure Zone
1. On the Manage Acronis Secure Zone page, click Decrease.
2. Select volumes that will receive the free space after the zone is decreased.
If you select several volumes, the space will be distributed to each partition equally. If you do not
select any volumes, the freed space becomes unallocated.
3. Specify the new size of the zone by:
dragging the slider and selecting any size between the current and minimum values. The
minimum size is approximately 50MB, depending on the geometry of the hard disk;
typing an exact value in the Acronis Secure Zone Size field.
4. Click OK.
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7.2.2.3
Deleting Acronis Secure Zone
To delete Acronis Secure Zone:
1. On the Manage Acronis Secure Zone page, click Delete.
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 to each partition equally. If you do not
select any volumes, the freed space becomes unallocated.
After you click OK, Acronis Backup will start deleting the zone.
7.3
Removable devices
This section describes peculiarities of backing up to removable devices.
By a removable device, we mean an RDX drive or USB flash drive. A USB hard disk drive is not
considered to be a removable device unless it is recognized as such by the operating system.
In Linux, an RDX drive or USB flash drive is considered to be a removable device if it is specified by its
name (for example, sdf:/). If a device is specified by its mount point (for example, /mnt/backup), it
behaves as a fixed drive.
The method of working with removable disk libraries (multi-cartridge devices) depends on the device
type, brand, and configuration. Therefore, each case should be considered individually.
Vaults on removable devices
Before backing up a machine to a removable device, you can create a personal vault (p. 183). If you
do not want to, the software will automatically create a personal vault in the drive folder selected for
backing up.
Limitations
Centralized vaults cannot be created on removable devices.
Vaults created on removable devices do not have the Data view (p. 131) tab.
Usage modes of removable devices
When creating a backup plan, you can choose whether to use your removable device as a fixed drive
or as removable media. The Fixed drive mode presumes that the removable device will always be
attached to the machine. The Removable media mode is selected by default.
When you back up using the Back up now feature or under bootable media, the removable device is
always used in the Removable media mode.
When you back up using Agent for Exchange or Agent for Hyper-V, the removable device is always
used in the Fixed drive mode.
The difference between the two modes is mostly related to retention and replication of backups.
Functionality
Fixed drive
Removable media
If there is insufficient space to continue backing up, the
software will prompt you to...
...manually free up disk
space.
...insert new media.
You can set retention rules (p. 94) for backups stored on
the device.
Yes
No
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Functionality
Fixed drive
Removable media
You can set the option to clean up the archive "When
there is insufficient space while backing up" within the
Custom (p. 64) backup scheme.
Yes
No
Simplified naming (p. 72) of backup files...
...is unavailable.
...is always used.
You can replicate backups (p. 94) to the removable
device.
Yes
No
You can replicate backups from the removable device.
No
No
An archive with several full backups can be created.
Yes
No. Before creating a
new full backup, the
software will delete the
entire archive and start
a new one.
You can delete any backup of any archive.
Yes
No. You can delete only
a backup that does not
have dependent
backups.
Since the removable device mode determines the naming scheme for backup files, the Name backup
files using the archive name... check box does not appear when the backup destination is a
removable device.
7.4
Tape devices
The following sections describe in detail how to use tape devices for storing backup archives.
You can work with tape devices only if you have Acronis Backup Advanced.
7.4.1
What is a tape device?
A tape device is a generic term that means a tape library or a stand-alone tape drive.
A tape library (robotic library) is a high-capacity storage device that contains:
one or more tape drives
multiple (up to several thousand) slots to hold tapes
one or more changers (robotic mechanisms) intended to move the tapes between the slots and
the tape drives.
It may also contain other components such as barcode readers or barcode printers.
An autoloader is a particular case of tape libraries. It contains one drive, several slots, a changer and
a barcode reader (optional).
A stand-alone tape drive (also called streamer) contains one slot and can hold only one tape at a
time.
7.4.2
Overview of tape support
Acronis Backup agents can back up data to a tape device directly or through Acronis Backup Storage
Node (p. 14). In either case, fully automatic operation of the tape device is ensured. When a tape
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device with several drives is attached to a storage node, multiple machines can simultaneously back
up to tapes.
7.4.2.1
Compatibility with RSM and third-party software
Coexistence with third-party software
Acronis Backup cannot work with tapes on a machine where third-party software with proprietary
tape management tools is installed. For Acronis Backup to use tapes on such machine, you need to
uninstall or deactivate the third-party tape management software.
Interaction with RSM
Unlike Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, Acronis Backup does not use Windows Removable Storage
Manager. During an upgrade from Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, Acronis Backup writes the
necessary information from RSM to its own database in the new format.
When detecting a tape device (p. 200), Acronis Backup disables the device from RSM (unless it is
being used by other software). As long as you want Acronis Backup to work with the tape device,
make sure that neither a user nor third-party software enables the device in RSM. If the tape device
was enabled in RSM, repeat the tape device detection.
7.4.2.2
Supported hardware
Acronis Backup supports external SCSI devices. These are devices connected to Fibre Channel or
using the SCSI, iSCSI, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interfaces. Also, Acronis Backup supports
USB-connected tape devices.
In Windows, Acronis Backup can back up to a tape device even if the drivers for the device's changer
are not installed. Such a tape device is shown in Device Manager as Unknown Medium Changer.
However, drivers for the device's drives must be installed. In Linux and under bootable media,
backing up to a tape device without drivers is not possible.
Recognition of IDE or SATA connected devices is not guaranteed. It depends on whether proper
drivers have been installed in the operating system.
To learn if your specific device is supported, use the Hardware Compatibility Tool as described in the
following Acronis Knowledge Base article: https://kb.acronis.com/content/57237. You are welcome
to send a report about the test results to Acronis. Hardware with confirmed support is listed in the
Hardware Compatibility List: https://go.acronis.com/acronis-backup-advanced-tape-hcl.
7.4.2.3
Tape management database
Acronis Backup stores information about all tape devices attached to a machine in the tape
management database. The default database path is as follows:
In Windows XP/Server 2003: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application
Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\ARSM\Database.
In Windows Vista and later versions of
Windows: %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\ARSM\Database.
In Linux: /var/lib/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery/ARSM/Database.
The database size depends on the number of archives stored on tapes and equals approximately
10 MB per hundred archives. The database may be large if the tape library contains thousands of
archives. In this case, you may want to store the tape database on a different volume.
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To relocate the database in Windows:
1. Stop the Acronis Removable Storage Management service.
2. Move all files from the default location to the new location.
3. Add the registry key described below. Specify the new location path in the registry value
ArsmDmlDbProtocol.
Registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\ARSM\Settings
Registry value: ArsmDmlDbProtocol
Possible data values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long.
Description: Specifies the folder where the tape management database is stored.
4. Start the Acronis Removable Storage Management service.
To relocate the database in Linux:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Stop the acronis_rsm service.
Move all files from the default location to the new location.
Open the configuration file /etc/Acronis/ARSM.config in a text editor.
Locate the line .
Change the path under this line.
Save the file.
Start the acronis_rsm service.
7.4.2.4
Parameters for writing to tapes
The tape writing parameters (block size and cache size) allow you to fine-tune the software to
achieve the maximum performance. Both parameters are required for writing to tapes, but normally
you only need to adjust the block size. The optimal value depends on the tape device type and on the
data being backed up, such as the number of files and their size.
Note When the software reads from a tape, it uses the same block size that was used when writing to the tape.
If the tape device does not support this block size, the reading will fail.
The parameters are set on each machine that has a tape device attached. It can be a machine where
an agent or a storage node is installed. On a machine running Windows, the configuration is
performed in the registry; on a Linux machine, it is done in the configuration file
/etc/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery.config.
In Windows, create the respective registry keys and their DWORD values. In Linux, add the following
text at the end of the configuration file, right before the tag:
"value"
"value"
DefaultBlockSize
This is the block size (in bytes) used when writing to tapes.
Possible values: 0, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536, 131072,
262144, 524288, 1048576.
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If the value is 0 or if the parameter is absent, the block size is determined as follows:
In Windows, the value is taken from the tape device driver.
In Linux, the value is 64 KB.
Registry key (on a machine running Windows):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\TapeLocation\DefaultBlockSize
Line in /etc/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery.config (on a machine running Linux):
"value"
If the specified value is not accepted by the tape drive, the software divides it by two until the
applicable value is reached or until the value reaches 32 bytes. If the applicable value is not found,
the software multiplies the specified value by two until the applicable value is reached or until the
value reaches 1 MB. If no value is accepted by the drive, the backup will fail.
WriteCacheSize
This is the buffer size (in bytes) used when writing to tapes.
Possible values: 0, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536, 131072,
262144, 524288, 1048576, but not less than the DefaultBlockSize parameter value.
If the value is 0 or if the parameter is absent, the buffer size is 1 MB. If the operating system does not
support this value, the software divides it by two until the applicable value is found or until the
DefaultBlockSize parameter value is reached. If the value supported by the operating system is not
found, the backup fails.
Registry key (on a machine running Windows):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\TapeLocation\WriteCacheSize
Line in /etc/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery.config (on a machine running Linux):
"value"
If you specify a non-zero value that is not supported by the operating system, the backup will fail.
7.4.2.5
Peculiarities of backing up to tapes
Backup options
You can configure the Tape management (p. 121) backup options to determine:
When to eject a tape.
Whether to use a free tape for each full, incremental or differential backup.
Whether to overwrite a tape when creating a full backup (for stand-alone tape drives only).
Whether to use a separate tape set for backing up each machine.
Whether to enable file recovery from disk-level backups stored on tapes.
Backup schemes
Simple scheme
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When you use the Simple backup scheme (p. 60), only full backups can be created on tapes. This is
because backups located on tapes cannot be consolidated (p. 433). If you had the option of creating
incremental backups, you would not be able to delete any of the backups.
Grandfather-Father-Son and Tower of Hanoi schemes
By default, the Grandfather-Father-Son (p. 61) and Tower of Hanoi (p. 67) backup schemes create
only full backups on tapes. This helps the software to delete each backup on time as defined by the
backup scheme.
You may want to change the default setting to creating full, incremental and differential backups. For
example, if you have a few tapes but your full backups are quite large, you may want to save space
on tapes.
Each level of the above schemes uses a separate tape set within the same tape pool. This means that
the software can only take a tape belonging to a certain tape set or a free tape (when space is
running out on the currently used tape). This helps minimize the quantity of used tapes, because
tapes with incremental and differential backups are filled and rewritten more often than tapes with
full backups.
Custom scheme
Set up the custom scheme so that it creates full backups with a reasonable frequency. Otherwise, if
you specify retention rules, the software will not be able to overwrite tapes as appropriate.
In the retention rules of the Custom backup scheme (p. 64), the If a backup to be moved or deleted
has dependencies: Consolidate these backups option is disabled. Only the Retain the backup until
all dependent backups become subject to deletion option is available. This is because backups
located on tapes cannot be consolidated (p. 433).
7.4.2.6
Parallel operations
Acronis Backup can simultaneously perform operations with various components of a tape device.
During an operation that uses a drive (backing up, recovering, rescanning (p. 204), or erasing (p. 204)),
you can launch an operation that uses a changer (moving (p. 203) a tape to another slot or ejecting (p.
204) a tape) and vice versa. If your tape library has more than one drive, you can also launch an
operation that uses one of the drives during an operation with another drive. For example, several
machines can back up or recover simultaneously using different drives of the same tape library.
The operation of detecting the new tape devices (p. 200) can be performed simultaneously with any
other operation. During inventorying (p. 206), no other operation is available except for detecting the
new tape devices.
Operations that cannot be performed in parallel are queued.
7.4.2.7
Limitations
The limitations of tape device usage are the following:
1. The consolidation (p. 433) of backups located on tapes is not possible. As a result, usage of
backup schemes has certain peculiarities (p. 193).
2. The deduplication (p. 434) of backups located on tapes is not possible.
3. Simplified naming of backup files (p. 72) is not possible for backups stored on tapes.
4. You cannot recover under an operating system from a backup stored on tapes if the recovery
requires the operating system reboot. Use bootable media to perform such recovery.
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5. Files cannot be recovered from disk-level backups created by Acronis Backup & Recovery 11
Update 0 (build 17318) and earlier.
Files can be recovered from a disk-level backup created by Acronis Backup & Recovery 11
Update 0.5 (build 17437) only after you rescan (p. 204) the tapes where the backup is located.
The Enable file recovery from disk backups stored on tapes (p. 121) option value determines
whether files and folders can be recovered from disk-level backups created by Acronis Backup.
6. You can validate (p. 232) any backup or archive stored on tapes, but you cannot select for
validation an entire tape-based vault or tape device.
7. You cannot attach (p. 180) or detach a tape-based vault.
8. A managed tape-based vault cannot be protected with encryption. Encrypt your archives instead.
9. You cannot create a managed tape-based vault (p. 175) with the backward compatibility
property. This means that Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agents cannot back up to Acronis
Backup managed tape-based vaults.
10. The software cannot simultaneously write one backup to multiple tapes or multiple backups
through the same drive to the same tape.
11. Devices that use the Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) are not supported.
12. Barcode printers are not supported.
7.4.2.8
Readability of tapes written by the older Acronis products
The following table summarizes the readability of tapes written by Acronis True Image Echo, Acronis
True Image 9.1, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 and Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 product families in
Acronis Backup. The table also illustrates the compatibility of tapes written by various components of
Acronis Backup.
...is readable on a tape device attached to a machine
with...
Bootable Media
Tape written on a
locally attached tape
device (tape drive or
tape library) by...
Agent for
Windows
Agent for Linux
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Acronis
Backup
Bootable
Media
+
+
+
+
Acronis
Backup
Agent for
Windows
+
+
+
+
Acronis
Backup
Agent for
Linux
+
+
+
+
Acronis
Backup
Storage
Node
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Echo
ABR10
ABR11/
Acronis
Backup
11.5/11.7
9.1
Echo
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
ABR10
+
+
+
+
9.1
Echo
ABR10
ABR11/
Acronis
Backup
11.5/11.7
9.1
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Tape written on a
tape device
through...
7.4.3
Backup Server
Storage Node
ABR11/
Acronis
Backup
11.5/11.7
9.1
Echo
ABR10
ABR11/
Acronis
Backup
11.5/11.7
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Getting started with a tape device
7.4.3.1
Backing up a machine to a directly attached tape device
Prerequisites
The tape device is attached to the machine in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions.
Acronis Backup agent is installed on the machine.
Before backing up
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Load tapes to the tape device.
Connect the console to the machine.
In the Navigation tree, click Tape management.
Click Detect tape devices.
If your tape device is a stand-alone drive, skip this step. Otherwise, do the following:
a. Click Inventory to detect the loaded tapes. Select the Full inventorying method. Do not select
the Move newly detected tapes from the 'Unrecognized tapes' or 'Imported tapes' pools to
the 'Free tapes' pool check box.
Result. The loaded tapes have been moved to proper pools as specified in the "Inventorying"
(p. 206) section.
Full inventorying of an entire tape device may take a long time.
b. If the loaded tapes were sent to the Unrecognized tapes or Imported tapes pool and you
want to use them for backing up, move (p. 203) such tapes to the Free tapes pool manually.
Tapes sent to the Imported tapes pool contain backups written by Acronis software. Before moving
such tapes to the Free tapes pool, make sure you do not need these backups.
Backing up
On the Actions menu, click Back up now or Create backup plan. Configure (p. 50) the backup settings.
When specifying the backup destination, select the tape device.
Results
The resulting backups will be located in an automatically created personal vault (p. 208). To
access the vault, click Vaults in the Navigation tree. Each time you select the tape device as the
backup destination, the backups will be saved to the same vault.
Tapes with the backups will be moved to the Acronis pool.
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7.4.3.2
Backing up to a tape device attached to a storage node
Prerequisites
Acronis Backup Storage Node is added to the management server (p. 215).
The tape device is attached to the storage node in accordance with the manufacturer’s
instructions.
Before backing up
1. Load tapes to the tape device.
2. Connect the console to the management server.
3. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. Select the storage node to which your tape
device is attached.
4. Click Detect tape devices.
5. If your tape device is a stand-alone drive, skip this step. Otherwise, do the following:
a. Click Inventory to detect the loaded tapes. Select the Full inventorying method. Do not select
the Move newly detected tapes from the 'Unrecognized tapes' or 'Imported tapes' pools to
the 'Free tapes' pool check box.
Result. The loaded tapes have been moved to proper pools as specified in the "Inventorying"
(p. 206) section.
Full inventorying of an entire tape device may take a long time.
b. If the loaded tapes were sent to the Unrecognized tapes or Imported tapes pool and you
want to use them for backing up, move (p. 203) such tapes to the Free tapes pool manually.
Tapes sent to the Imported tapes pool contain backups written by Acronis software. Before moving
such tapes to the Free tapes pool, make sure you do not need these backups.
c.
Decide whether you want to back up to the default Acronis pool (p. 200) or to create a new
pool (p. 201).
Details. Having several pools enables you to use a separate tape set for each machine or
each department of your company. By using multiple pools, you can prevent backups created
via different backup plans from mixing up on one tape.
d. If you chose the Acronis pool, or enabled the new pool to take tapes from the Free tapes
pool when required, skip this step.
Otherwise, move tapes from the Free tapes pool to the new pool.
Tip. To learn whether a pool can take tapes from the Free tapes pool, click the pool and then
click Details.
6. In the Navigation tree, click Storage nodes. Select the storage node to which your tape device is
attached, and then click Create vault. Proceed as described in the "Creating a managed
centralized vault" (p. 175) section. In the Tape pool list, select the pool you decided to use on
step 5c.
Creating a centralized vault is mandatory when the tape device is attached to the storage node.
Backing up
On the Actions menu, click Back up now or Create backup plan. Configure (p. 348) the backup
settings for one or more machines. When specifying the backup destination, select the created vault.
Results
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The resulting backups will be located in the vault you created.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Tips for further usage of the tape library
You do not need to perform full inventorying each time you load a new tape. To save time, follow
the procedure described in the "Inventorying" (p. 206) section under "Combination of fast and
full inventorying".
You can create other vaults (p. 208) on the same tape library and select any of them as a
destination for backups.
7.4.3.3
Recovering under an operating system from a tape device
To recover under an operating system from a tape device:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Connect the console to the machine you want to recover.
On the Actions menu, click Recover.
Click Select data, click Data path, and then click Browse.
Select the vault that contains the backup whose data is to be recovered, click OK, and then click
Archive view.
Select the backup, and then select the data you want to recover. After you click OK, the Recover
page will show you the list of tapes required for the recovery. The missing tapes are grayed out.
If your tape device has empty slots, load these tapes into the device.
Configure (p. 127) other recovery settings.
Click OK to start the recovery operation.
If any of the required tapes are not loaded for some reason, the software will show you a
message with the identifier of the needed tape. Load the tape, and click Retry to continue the
recovery.
What if I do not see backups stored on tapes?
It may mean that the database with the contents of tapes is lost or corrupted for some reason.
To restore the database, do the following:
If the backup is located on the machine
1. After you click Recover, click Select data, and then click Browse.
2. Double-click Tape devices. The system prompts to confirm the tape devices detection. Click Yes.
3. After the detected tape devices appear in the tree, select the necessary device and click OK. The
system prompts to confirm the rescanning operation. Click Yes.
4. Rescan (p. 204) the Unrecognized tapes pool. As a result, you will get the contents of the loaded
tape(s).
5. If any of the detected backups continue on other tapes that have not been rescanned yet, load
these tapes as prompted and rescan them.
6. After that, you can select the required backup.
If the backup is located on a storage node
1. Connect the console to the management server.
2. Detect the tape devices (p. 200).
3. Perform the fast inventorying (p. 206).
During the inventorying, do not select the Move newly detected tapes from the 'Unrecognized tapes' or
'Imported tapes' pools to the 'Free tapes' pool check box. If the check box is selected, you may lose all your
backups.
4. Create a managed vault (p. 208) on the tape device.
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5. Rescan (p. 204) the Unrecognized tapes pool. As a result, you will get the contents of the loaded
tape(s).
6. If any of the detected backups continue on other tapes that have not been rescanned yet, load
these tapes as prompted and rescan them.
7.4.3.4
Recovering under bootable media from a locally attached tape
device
To recover under bootable media from a locally attached tape device:
1. Load the tape(s) required for the recovery into the tape device.
2. Boot the machine from the bootable media.
3. Click Acronis Backup, and then click Manage this machine locally. Skip this step if you use
WinPE-based media.
4. If the tape device is connected by using the iSCSI interface, configure the device as described in
"Configuring iSCSI and NDAS devices" (p. 257).
5. Click Recover.
6. Click Select data, and then click Browse.
7. Double-click Tape devices. The system prompts to confirm the tape devices detection. Click Yes.
8. After the detected tape devices appear in the tree, select the necessary device. The system
prompts to confirm the rescanning. Click Yes.
9. Select the Unrecognized tapes pool.
10. Select the tapes to be rescanned. To select all the tapes of the pool, select the check box next to
the Tape name column header.
11. If the tapes contain a password-protected archive, select the corresponding check box, and then
specify the password for the archive in the Password box. If you do not specify a password, or
the password is incorrect, the archive will not be detected. Please keep this in mind in case you
see no archives after the rescanning.
Tip. If the tapes contain several archives protected by various passwords, you need to repeat the
rescanning several times specifying each password in turn.
12. Click Start to start the rescanning. As a result, you will get the contents of the loaded tape(s).
13. If any of the detected backups continue on other tapes that have not been rescanned yet, load
these tapes as prompted and rescan them.
14. After the rescanning completes, click OK.
15. In the Archive view, select the backup whose data is to be recovered, and then select the data
you want to recover. After you click OK, the Recover page will show you the list of tapes required
for the recovery. The missing tapes are grayed out. If your tape device has empty slots, load
these tapes into the device.
16. Configure (p. 127) other recovery settings.
17. Click OK to start the recovery.
18. If any of the required tapes are not loaded for some reason, the software will show you a
message with the identifier of the needed tape. Load the tape, and click Retry to continue the
recovery.
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7.4.3.5
Recovering under bootable media from a tape device attached
to a storage node
To recover under bootable media from a tape device attached to a storage node:
1. Load the tape(s) required for the recovery into the tape device.
2. Boot the machine from the bootable media.
3. Click Acronis Backup, and then click Manage this machine locally. Skip this step if you use
WinPE-based media.
4. Click Recover.
5. Click Select data, and then click Browse.
6. In the Path box, type bsp:////, where is the IP address of the storage node that contains the required backup, and
is the name of the vault. Click OK and specify credentials for the vault.
7. Select the backup, and then select the data you want to recover. After you click OK, the Recover
page will show you the list of tapes required for the recovery. The missing tapes are grayed out.
If your tape device has empty slots, load these tapes into the device.
8. Configure (p. 127) other recovery settings.
9. Click OK to start the recovery.
10. If any of the required tapes are not loaded for some reason, the software will show you a
message with the identifier of the needed tape. Load the tape, and click Retry to continue the
recovery.
7.4.4
7.4.4.1
Tape management
Detecting tape devices
When detecting tape devices, Acronis Backup finds tape devices attached to the machine and places
information about them in the tape management database. Detecting tape devices is required:
After you have attached or re-attached a tape device.
After you have installed or reinstalled Acronis Backup on the machine to which a tape device is
attached.
When detecting tape devices, Acronis Backup disables them from RSM.
To detect the tape devices
1. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
2. Click Detect tape devices. You will see the quantity of connected tape devices, their drives and
slots.
7.4.4.2
Tape pools
Acronis Backup uses tape pools that are logical groups of tapes. The software contains the following
predefined tape pools: Unrecognized tapes, Imported tapes, Free tapes, and Acronis. Also, you can
create your own custom pools.
Predefined pools
Unrecognized tapes
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The pool contains tapes that were written by third-party applications. To write to such tapes, you
need to move (p. 203) them to the Free tapes pool explicitly. You cannot move tapes from this pool
to any other pool, except for the Free tapes pool.
Imported tapes
The pool contains tapes that were written by Acronis Backup in a tape device attached to another
storage node or agent. To write to such tapes, you need to move them to the Free tapes pool
explicitly. You cannot move tapes from this pool to any other pool, except for the Free tapes pool.
Free tapes
The pool contains free (empty) tapes. You can manually move tapes to this pool from other pools.
When you move a tape to the Free tapes pool, the software marks it as empty. If the tape contains
backups, they are marked with the
icon. When the software starts overwriting the tape, the data
related to the backups will be removed from the database.
Acronis
The pool is used for backing up by default, when you do not want to create your own pools. Usually it
applies to one tape drive with a small number of tapes.
Custom pools
You need to create several pools if you want to separate backups of different data. For example, you
may want to create custom pools in order to separate:
backups from different departments of your company
backups from different machines
backups of system volumes and users' data
filled tapes from tapes being written to (p. 201).
Separating filled tapes
You may want to separate filled tapes from incomplete ones. Let's assume you want the tapes filled
over a month to be taken to an off-site location. To do this:
1. Create a custom tape pool (p. 201) (for example, Filled tapes).
2. Create another custom tape pool (for example, Current tapes). In the pool settings, select the
When tape is full, move to pool check box and select the Filled tapes pool in the list.
3. Create a vault (p. 208), and associate it with the Current tapes pool.
4. When creating a backup plan, choose the created vault as the backup destination.
5. Once a month, eject tapes stored in the Filled tapes pool and take them to an off-site storage.
7.4.4.3
Operations with pools
Creating a pool
To create a pool:
1. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
2. Click Create pool.
3. Specify the pool name.
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4. [Optional] Select tapes to be moved to the pool from the Free tapes pool.
5. [Optional] Clear the Take tapes from the Free tapes pool automatically... check box. If cleared,
only tapes that are included into the new pool at a certain moment will be used for backing up.
6. [Optional] Select the After ... rewritings, move tape to pool check box, specify the number of
information writing cycles, and then select the pool to which a tape will be moved after that.
Tip. Tapes have relatively short durability. So, you can create a special pool and move old tapes
to it. Then, you regularly eject tapes stored in this pool, get rid of them and load new tapes into
your tape device.
7. [Optional] Select the After ... backups, move tape to pool check box, specify the number of
backups, and then select the pool to which a tape will be moved after that.
Tip. For example, this option can be useful in the following case. You back up your machine once
a day from Monday until Friday and move the tape(s) after five backups to a custom pool. Once a
week special employees eject the tapes from this pool and take them to a secure off-site
location.
8. [Optional] Select the When tape is full, move to pool check box, and then select the pool to
which a tape will be moved when it is full.
Tip. For example, this option can be useful for separating filled tapes from tapes being written to
(p. 201).
9. Click OK.
Editing a pool
You can edit parameters of the Acronis pool or your own custom pool.
To edit a pool:
1. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
2. Select the required pool, and then click Settings.
3. You can change the pool name (except the name of the Acronis pool) or settings. For more
information about pool settings, see the "Creating a pool" (p. 201) section.
4. Click OK to save the changes.
Deleting a pool
You can delete only custom pools. Predefined tape pools (Unrecognized tapes, Imported tapes, Free
tapes, and the Acronis pool) cannot be deleted.
To delete a pool:
1. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
2. Select the required pool and click Remove.
3. If the pool is associated with one or several vaults, the system will notify you that it cannot
delete the pool. You need to click Close, change the pool in the settings of each of the vaults
mentioned in the notification message, and then repeat the pool deletion operation.
Otherwise, select the pool to which the tapes of the pool being deleted will be moved after the
deletion.
4. Click OK to delete the pool.
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7.4.4.4
Operations with tapes
Renaming
When a new tape is detected by the software, it is automatically assigned a name in the following
format: Tape XXX, where XXX is a unique number. Tapes are numbered sequentially. The renaming
operation allows you to manually change the name of one or several tapes.
To rename tapes:
1. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
2. Click the pool that contains the necessary tape(s), and then select the required tape(s).
3. Click Rename.
4. Type new name(s) of the selected tape(s).
5. Click OK to save the changes.
Changing pool
The operation allows you to move one or several tapes from one pool to another.
When you move a tape to the Free tapes pool, the software marks it as empty. If the tape contains
backups, they are marked with the
icon. When the software starts overwriting the tape, the data
related to the backups will be removed from the database.
Notes about specific types of tape
You cannot move write-protected and once-recorded WORM (Write-Once-Read-Many) tapes to
the Free tapes pool.
Cleaning tapes are always displayed in the Unrecognized tapes pool; you cannot move them to
any other pool.
To move tapes to another pool:
1. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
2. Click the pool that contains the necessary tapes, and then select the required tapes.
3. Click Change pool.
4. [Optional] Click Create pool if you want to create another pool for the selected tapes. Perform
actions described in the "Creating a pool" (p. 201) section.
5. Select the pool to move the tapes to.
6. Click OK to save the changes.
Moving to another slot
Use this operation in the following situations:
You need to take several tapes out of a tape device simultaneously.
Your tape device does not have a mail slot and the tapes to be taken out are located in slots of
non-detachable magazine(s).
You need to move tapes to slots of one slot magazine and then take the magazine out manually.
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To move tapes to other slots:
1. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
2. Click the pool that contains the necessary tapes, and then select the required tapes.
3. Click Move.
4. Select a new slot to move each of the selected tapes to.
5. Click OK to start the operation.
Ejecting
For successful ejecting of a tape from a tape library, the tape library must have the mail slot and the
slot must not be locked by a user or by other software.
To eject a tape:
1. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
2. Click the pool that contains the necessary tape, and then select the required tape.
3. Click Eject. The software will prompt you to provide the tape description. We recommend that
you describe the physical location where the tape will be kept. During recovery, the software will
display this description so you could easily find the tape.
Details. You can disable the tape description prompt by clicking Do not show this message again.
To re-enable the prompt: click Options on the menu, then click Console options, click Pop-up
messages, and then select the Request description when ejecting a tape check box.
4. Click OK to start the operation.
After a tape is ejected either manually or automatically (p. 121), it is recommended to write its name
on the tape.
Erasing
Erasing a tape physically deletes all backups stored on the tape and removes the information about
these backups from the database. However the information about the tape itself remains in the
database.
After erasing, a tape located in the Unrecognized tapes or Imported tapes pool is moved to the Free
tapes pool. A tape located in any other pool is not moved.
You can apply the operation to one tape at a time.
To erase a tape:
1. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
2. Click the pool that contains the necessary tape, and then select the required tape.
3. Click Erase. The system prompts to confirm the operation.
4. Click OK to start the operation.
Details. You cannot cancel the erasing operation.
Rescanning
The information about the contents of tapes is stored in a dedicated database. The rescanning
operation reads the contents of tapes and updates the database if the information in it mismatches
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the data stored on tapes. The archives detected as a result of the operation are placed in the
specified vault.
Within one operation, you can rescan tapes of one pool. Only online tapes can be selected for the
operation.
Run the rescanning:
If the database of a storage node or managed machine is lost or damaged.
To obtain access to backups stored on tapes when working under bootable media.
If backups were deleted from a tape either manually or through retention rules (p. 440) but you
want them to become accessible for data recovery. Before rescanning such a tape, eject (p. 204)
it, remove (p. 207) the information about it from the database, and then insert the tape into the
tape device again.
If information about a tape in the database is out of date (for example, a tape contents were
modified by another storage node or agent).
If you have mistakenly removed (p. 207) the information about a tape from the database. When
you rescan a removed tape, the backups stored on it reappear in the database and become
available for data recovery.
To rescan tapes:
1. If you have no tape-based vault (p. 208) associated with the device you loaded the tapes to,
create one.
2. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
3. Perform the fast inventorying (p. 206).
Note During the inventorying, do not select the Move newly detected tapes from the 'Unrecognized
tapes' or 'Imported tapes' pools to the 'Free tapes' pool check box.
4. Click Rescan.
5. Select the vault where the newly detected archives will be placed.
6. Select the Unrecognized tapes pool. This is the pool to which most of the tapes are sent as a
result of the fast inventorying. Rescanning the pool associated with the selected vault or the
Imported tapes pool is also possible.
7. Select the tapes to be rescanned. To select all the tapes of the pool, select the check box next to
the Tape name column header.
8. If necessary, select the Enable file recovery from disk backups stored on tapes check box.
Details. If the check box is selected, the software will create special supplementary files on a
hard disk of the machine where the tape device is attached. File recovery from disk backups is
possible as long as these supplementary files are intact. Be sure to select the check box if the
tapes contain single-pass backups (p. 440). Otherwise, you will not be able to recover the
application data from these backups.
9. If the tapes contain a password-protected archive, select the corresponding check box, and then
specify the password for the archive in the Password box. If you do not specify a password, or
the password is incorrect, the archive will not be detected. Please keep this in mind in case you
see no archives after the rescanning.
Tip. If the tapes contain several archives protected by various passwords, you need to repeat the
rescanning several times specifying each password in turn.
10. Click Start to start the rescanning.
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Result. The selected tapes are moved to the pool associated with the selected vault. The backups
stored on the tapes can be found in this vault. A backup spread over several tapes will not appear in
the vault until all of these tapes are rescanned.
Inventorying
The inventorying operation detects tapes loaded into a tape device and assigns names to those that
have none. Perform the operation every time you load tapes into the tape device slots.
Inventorying methods
Acronis Backup provides the following two methods of inventorying.
Fast inventorying
Acronis Backup scans tapes for barcodes. Using barcodes, the software can quickly return a tape to
the pool where it was before.
Select this method to recognize tapes used by the same tape device attached to the same machine.
Other tapes will be sent to the Unrecognized tapes pool.
If your tape library contains no barcode reader, all tapes will be sent to the Unrecognized tapes pool.
To recognize your tapes, perform full inventorying or combine fast and full inventorying as described
later in this section.
Full inventorying
Acronis Backup reads tags written by Acronis software and analyzes other information about the
contents of the loaded tapes. Select this method to recognize empty tapes and tapes written by
Acronis software on any tape device and any machine.
The following table shows pools to which tapes are sent as a result of the full inventorying.
Tape was used by...
Agent
Storage Node
third-party backup application
Tape is read by...
Tape is sent to pool...
the same Agent
where the tape was before
another Agent
Imported tapes
Storage Node
Imported tapes
the same Storage Node
where the tape was before
another Storage Node
Imported tapes
Agent
Imported tapes
Agent or Storage Node
Unrecognized tapes
Tapes of certain types are sent to specific pools:
Tape type
Tape is sent to pool...
Empty tape
Free tapes
Empty write-protected tape
Unrecognized tapes
Cleaning tape
Unrecognized tapes
The fast inventorying can be applied to entire tape devices. The full inventorying can be applied to
entire tape devices, individual drives, or slots.
Combination of fast and full inventorying
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Full inventorying of an entire tape device may take a long time. If you need to inventory only a few
tapes, proceed as follows:
1. Perform the fast inventorying of the tape device.
2. Click the Unrecognized tapes pool. Find the tapes you want to inventory and note which slots
they occupy.
3. Perform the full inventorying of these slots.
What to do after inventorying
If you want to back up to tapes that were placed in the Unrecognized tapes or Imported tapes pool,
move (p. 203) them to the Free tapes pool, and then to the Acronis pool or a custom pool. If the pool
to which you want to back up is replenishable (p. 440), you may leave the tapes in the Free tapes
pool.
If you want to recover from a tape that was placed in the Unrecognized tapes or Imported tapes
pool, you need to rescan (p. 204) it. The tape will be moved to the pool associated with the vault you
have selected during the rescanning, and the backups stored on the tape will appear in the vault.
Sequence of actions
1. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
2. Click Inventory.
3. Select the inventorying method: Fast or Full.
4. [Optional] Select the Move newly detected tapes from the 'Unrecognized tapes' or 'Imported
tapes' pools to the 'Free tapes' pool check box.
Warning. Only select this check box if you are absolutely sure that the data stored on your tapes can be
overwritten.
5. [Optional] Select tape libraries and stand-alone drives to be inventoried. By default, all the tape
libraries and stand-alone drives are selected.
6. [Optional] If you chose the Full inventorying method, you can select tape library slots and drives
to be inventoried. By default, all the slots and drives are selected.
Removing
The removal operation deletes the information about the backups stored on the selected tape and
about the tape itself from the database.
You can only remove an offline (ejected (p. 204)) tape.
To remove a tape:
1. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
2. Click the pool that contains the necessary tape, and then select the required tape.
3. Click Remove. The system prompts to confirm the operation.
4. Click OK to remove the tape.
What to do if I removed a tape by mistake?
Unlike an erased (p. 204) tape, the data from a removed tape is not physically deleted. Hence, you
can make backups stored on such tape available again. To do so:
1. Load the tape into your tape device.
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2. Perform the fast inventorying (p. 206) to detect the tape.
During the inventorying, do not select the Move newly detected tapes from the 'Unrecognized tapes' or
'Imported tapes' pools to the 'Free tapes' pool check box.
3. Perform the rescanning (p. 204) to match the data stored on tapes with the database.
7.4.5
Vaults on tapes
Each tape-based vault is associated with one or several drives of a tape device and with a tape pool
(p. 200).
Why do I need several vaults?
Two of the most common scenarios that require you to create several vaults are as follows:
You want to back up the data of several machines so that backups from each machine are
located on a separate tape set.
You want to back up different data of the same machine onto separate tape sets. For example,
you want to back up the system volume weekly and the frequently changing data daily.
In either case, create a separate custom pool for each tape set and associate a separate vault with it.
Personal tape-based vaults
Before backing up a machine to a directly attached tape device, you can create a personal vault. If
you do not want to, the software will automatically create a personal vault associated with the
Acronis pool.
If you create more than one personal vault, tapes with backups will be placed in the respective pools
specified in the vaults' settings. However, each vault will show all the backups located in all of the
vaults.
To create a personal vault:
1. In the Navigation tree, click Vaults.
2. Click Create.
3. Proceed as described in the "Creating a personal vault" (p. 183) section.
Managed centralized tape-based vaults
To back up a machine to a tape device attached to a storage node, you need to create a managed
centralized vault on the tape device.
To create a managed centralized vault:
1. In the Navigation tree, click Storage nodes.
2. Select the required storage node, and then click Create vault.
3. Proceed as described in the "Creating a managed centralized vault" (p. 175) section.
Tip. If you back up multiple machines to a tape library with multiple drives, associate the vault with
the whole library. This will allow you to back up the machines simultaneously via different drives. If
you associate a vault or several vaults with one drive, backups will be queued.
7.4.6
Usage examples
Apart from the examples described in this section, you can consider the following two examples:
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Moving older backups to tapes for long-term retention (p. 99) (disk-to-disk-to-tape)
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Backing up to tapes within a narrow backup window (p. 99)
7.4.6.1
Example 1. A tape autoloader and 12 tapes
Consider the following scenario:
You have 12 tapes and a tape autoloader attached to the machine whose data you want to back
up.
You want to back up the machine data so that if there is insufficient space on a tape, the backup
continues onto another one.
When all of the tapes are filled, you want them to be overwritten sequentially without any user
interaction.
You need a separate pool for the backup plan that will perform this scenario. If you have or are
planning to create other backup plans that write to the same tape device, use other pools for those
plans.
Sequence of actions
1. Load your tapes into the autoloader slots.
2. Perform the fast inventorying (p. 206) with the Move newly detected tapes from the
'Unrecognized tapes' or 'Imported tapes' pools to the 'Free tapes' pool check box selected.
Result. The loaded tapes are in the Free tapes pool. If some of them are sent to the Acronis pool
or a custom pool, this means the tapes contain backups you did earlier on this machine. Move (p.
203) such tapes to the Free tapes pool manually if you don't need these backups.
3. Decide whether you want to back up to the default Acronis pool (p. 200) or to create a new pool
(p. 201). In either case, clear the Take tapes from the Free tapes pool automatically... check box
in the settings of the chosen pool.
4. Move all of the loaded tapes from the Free tapes pool to the chosen pool.
5. Create a personal vault (p. 208) and associate your pool with it.
6. When creating a backup plan (p. 50):
Select your vault as the backup location.
In Clean up archive, select When there is insufficient space while backing up.
Select the Custom backup scheme. Set the backup schedules in such a way that the whole
set of 12 tapes contains at least two full backups. This will allow the software to overwrite
tapes as appropriate.
Result
The backup plan will use only the tapes located in the selected pool. When all of the tapes are full,
the oldest tape will be overwritten, and so on.
7.4.6.2
Example 2. Backing up to tapes on a weekly rotational basis
Consider the following scenario:
You want to back up several machines to a tape device attached to Acronis Backup Storage Node.
You want to use two tape sets, each one to be written over a week. A set of tapes from a week
that has just passed should be ejected and replaced with the other set which will be later
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You want to create full backups on Fridays and incremental ones on Mondays, Tuesdays,
Wednesdays and Thursdays.
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overwritten in turn. This way of working can be useful if the number of slots of your tape device
is only enough for backing up during a week.
Sequence of actions
1. Load one of your tape sets into the tape device slots.
2. Perform the fast inventorying (p. 206) with the Move newly detected tapes from the
'Unrecognized tapes' or 'Imported tapes' pools to the 'Free tapes' pool check box selected.
Result. The loaded tapes are in the Free tapes pool. If some of them are sent to the Acronis pool
or a custom pool, this means the tapes contain backups you did earlier on this machine. Move (p.
203) such tapes to the Free tapes pool manually if you don't need these backups.
3. Decide whether you want to back up to the default Acronis pool (p. 200) or to create a new pool
(p. 201).
4. If the chosen pool is not replenishable (p. 440), move all of the loaded tapes from the Free tapes
pool to it.
5. Eject the loaded tape set. Repeat steps 1, 2 and 4 for the other tape set.
6. Create a managed vault (p. 175). When creating the vault:
In Drives, select the entire tape device. This will enable simultaneous backup of the machines
via different drives, if your tape device has more than one drive.
In Tape pool, select the pool where you will back up to (the Acronis pool or the newly
created one).
7. When creating a centralized backup plan (p. 348):
In Items to back up, select the machines you want to back up.
Choose the created vault as the backup destination.
Select the Custom backup scheme.
Specify the schedules for full and incremental backups.
In Clean up archive, select Using retention rules, and then click Retention rules. Specify the
retention rule to delete backups older than 1 week.
8. Each Friday, before a new full backup runs, eject the loaded tape set and insert the other one. If
your tape device contains a barcode reader, perform the fast inventorying. Otherwise, perform
the full inventorying.
Result
The tape sets will be used in turns. After a tape set is inserted, its tapes will be sequentially
overwritten.
7.4.6.3
Example 3. Disk-to-disk-to tape with sending tapes to an off-site
storage
Consider the following scenario:
You want to back up a machine to a hard disk and replicate each backup to the locally attached
tape device.
You want to eject tapes with each backup and send them to an off-site storage.
Sequence of actions
1. Load tapes into the tape device slots.
2. Perform the fast inventorying (p. 206) with the Move newly detected tapes from the
'Unrecognized tapes' or 'Imported tapes' pools to the 'Free tapes' pool check box selected.
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3.
4.
5.
6.
Result. The loaded tapes are in the Free tapes pool. If some of them are sent to the Acronis pool
or a custom pool, this means the tapes contain backups you did earlier on this machine. Move (p.
203) such tapes to the Free tapes pool manually if you don't need these backups.
Decide whether you want to back up to the default Acronis pool (p. 200) or to create a new pool
(p. 201).
If the chosen pool is not replenishable (p. 440), move all of the loaded tapes from the Free tapes
pool to it.
Create a personal vault (p. 208) and associate your pool with it.
When creating a backup plan (p. 50):
Specify a local folder as the backup destination.
Set up the required backup scheme.
Select the Replicate newly created backup to another location check box, click 2nd location,
and select the created vault in the tree.
Click Backup options, click Tape management (p. 121) in the tree, and select the Eject tapes
after successful backups check box.
7. After each backup is created and the tapes with it are ejected, send them to a secure off-site
storage. If you do not have enough free tapes to continue backups, load new tapes and perform
steps 2 and 4.
Result
The machine will be backed up to the local folder and to tapes. Tapes with each backups will be sent
to the off-site storage.
7.4.6.4
Example 4. GFS. Sending full backups to an off-site storage
Consider the following scenario:
You want to back up a machine to a tape device attached to a storage node.
You want to use the Grandfather-Father-Son backup scheme (p. 61).
You want to create full, incremental and differential backups. Each full backup should be written
to a separate tape in order to send tapes with full backups to a secure off-site storage.
Sequence of actions
1. Load tapes into the tape device slots.
2. Perform the fast inventorying (p. 206) with the Move newly detected tapes from the
'Unrecognized tapes' or 'Imported tapes' pools to the 'Free tapes' pool check box selected.
Result. The loaded tapes are in the Free tapes pool. If some of them are sent to the Acronis pool
or a custom pool, this means the tapes contain backups you did earlier on this machine. Move (p.
203) such tapes to the Free tapes pool manually if you don't need these backups.
3. Decide whether you want to back up to the default Acronis pool (p. 200) or to create a new pool
(p. 201).
4. If the chosen pool is not replenishable (p. 440), move all of the loaded tapes from the Free tapes
pool to it.
5. Create a managed vault (p. 175). When creating the vault:
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In Drives, select the entire tape device. This will enable simultaneous backup of the machines
via different drives, if your tape device has more than one drive.
In Tape pool, select the pool where you will back up to (the Acronis pool or the newly
created one).
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
6. When creating a backup plan (p. 50):
Choose the created vault as the backup destination.
Click Show backup type, validation..., and then select Full/incremental/differential in
Backup type.
Select the Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) backup scheme.
Specify the rules to keep daily backups for 7 days, weekly ones for 4 weeks and monthly ones
indefinitely.
Click Backup options, click Tape management (p. 121) in the tree, and select For each full
backup under Always use a free tape.
7. After a full backup is created, you can eject the tapes with it and send them to a secure off-site
storage. If you do not have enough free tapes to continue backups, load new tapes and perform
steps 2 and 4.
Result
The machine will be backed up to tapes according to the specified backup scheme. Tapes with full
backups will be sent to a secure off-site storage.
7.5
Storage nodes
The following sections describe how to use Acronis Backup Storage Node.
Storage nodes are available only in Acronis Backup Advanced.
7.5.1
What is a storage node?
Acronis Backup Storage Node is a server designed to optimize the usage of various resources (such as
the corporate storage capacity, the network bandwidth, or the managed machines' CPU load) which
are required to protect enterprise data. This goal is achieved by organizing and managing the
locations that serve as dedicated storages of the enterprise backup archives (managed vaults).
The most important function of a storage node is deduplication of backups stored in its vaults. This
means that identical data will be backed up to this vault only once. This minimizes the network usage
during backup and storage space taken by the archives.
Up to 50 storage nodes can be set up.
7.5.2
Supported types of storage
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 (p. 190) locally attached to the storage node.
7.5.3
Operations performed by storage nodes
Storage nodes can perform the following operations on archives stored in managed vaults.
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Cleanup and validation
Archives stored in unmanaged vaults are maintained by the agents (p. 430) that create the archives.
This means that each agent not only backs up data to the archive, but also executes service tasks that
apply to the archive the retention rules and validation rules specified by the backup plan (p. 430). To
relieve the managed machines of unnecessary CPU load, execution of the service tasks can be
delegated to the storage node. Since the task schedules exist on the machine the agent resides on,
and therefore uses that machine’s time and events, the agent has to initiate the cleanup and the
validation according to the schedule. To do so, the agent must be online. Further processing is
performed by the storage node.
This functionality cannot be disabled in a managed vault. The next two operations are optional.
Deduplication
A managed vault can be configured as a deduplicating vault. This means that identical data will be
backed up to this vault only once to minimize network usage during backup and to minimize storage
space taken by the archives. For more information, see the "Deduplication" (p. 225) section.
Encryption
A managed vault can be configured so that anything written to it is encrypted and anything read
from it is decrypted transparently by the storage node. This is done by using a vault-specific
encryption key stored on the node server. In case the storage medium is stolen or accessed by an
unauthorized person, the malefactor will not be able to decrypt the vault contents without access to
this specific storage node.
If the archive is already encrypted by the agent, the storage node applies its own encryption over the
encryption performed by the agent.
7.5.4
Getting started with a storage node
Prerequisites
Make sure that:
The management server, the console and the agents are already installed.
You downloaded the setup program of Acronis Backup Advanced.
The machine where the storage node is planned to be installed meets the system requirements
described in the installation documentation.
Setting up the storage node
1. Install Acronis Backup Storage Node.
a. Log on as an administrator and start the Acronis Backup Advanced setup program.
b. Click Install Acronis Backup.
c. Accept the terms of the license agreement.
d. Select the Store the backups of other machines on this machine check box.
e. Click Register now. Specify the name or IP address of the machine where you installed the
management server. Provide the user name and password of a user who is a member of the
Acronis Centralized Admins group on the management server's machine.
Details. Alternatively, you can add the storage node at a later time as described in step 2.
f. Proceed with the installation.
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2. Add the storage node to the management server. Skip this step, if you registered the storage
node during the installation.
a. Connect the console to the management server, and click Storage nodes in the Navigation
pane.
b. Click
Add, and then proceed as described in "Adding a storage node to a management
server" (p. 216).
3. Create a managed centralized vault.
a. If not connected, connect the console to the management server, and then click Storage
nodes in the Navigation pane.
b. Select the storage node, then click
Create vault. The Create centralized vault page will
be opened with the pre-selected storage node. Perform the remaining steps to create the
vault as described in "Creating a managed centralized vault" (p. 175).
Details. When specifying the paths to the vault and to the deduplication database, follow the
recommendations described in "Deduplication best practices" (p. 228).
Backup to the storage node
Create a local (p. 50) or centralized (p. 348) backup plan. When creating the backup plan, specify the
managed vault as a destination for storing backups.
Recovery from the storage node
Follow the regular steps described in "Creating a recovery task" (p. 127).
Managing storage nodes
1. Connect the console to the management server.
2. In the Navigation pane, click Storage nodes.
3. Select the storage node; then, perform the required operations as described in "Actions on
storage nodes" (p. 215).
7.5.5
User privileges on a storage node
User accounts can have the different scope of user's privileges on Acronis Backup Storage Node.
1. Acronis Centralized Admins - management server administrators, members of the Acronis
Centralized Admins group. Acronis Centralized Admins can:
Create centralized vaults to be managed by the storage node.
Add, edit, or remove Vault administrators and Vault users accounts.
View and manage any archive in any centralized vault managed by the storage node.
Manage indexing and compacting as described in "Actions on storage nodes" (p. 215).
2. Vault administrators - group or user accounts on the storage node, selected by the management
server administrator when creating or editing a vault. Vault administrators can view and manage
any archive in the specified managed vault. By default, the Administrators group on the storage
node is added to the Vault administrators.
3. Vault users - group or user accounts on the storage node, selected by the management server
administrator when creating or editing a vault. Vault users can view and manage only their own
archives in the vault. By default, the Everyone group on the storage node is added to the Vault
users.
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Recommendations on user accounts
To allow users to access the centralized vaults managed by a storage node, you must ensure that
those users have a right to access the storage node from the network.
If both the users' machines and the machine with the storage node are in one Active Directory
domain, you probably do not need to perform any further steps: all users are typically members of
the Domain Users group and so can access the storage node.
Otherwise, you need to create user accounts on the machine where the storage node is installed. We
recommend creating a separate user account for each user who will access the storage node, so that
the users are able to access only the archives they own.
Additional right of machine administrators
A vault 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. On the storage node, let these users to be added as
regular (non-administrative accounts) UserA_SN and UserB_SN, respectively. While creating a
managed vault, both accounts were added as vault users.
Normally, UserA can access only the archives created by UserA (and owned by UserA_SN), and UserB
can access only the archives created by UserB (and owned by UserB_SN).
However, if UserA is a member of the Administrators group on the machine, this user can
additionally access the archives created from this machine by UserB—even though UserA's account
on the storage node is a regular one.
7.5.6
7.5.6.1
Operations with storage nodes
Actions on storage nodes
To access actions
1. Connect the console to the management server.
2. In the Navigation pane, click Storage nodes.
3. The actions are performed by clicking the corresponding buttons on the toolbar.
To
Do
Add a storage node to
the management
server
1. Click
Add.
2. In the Add storage node (p. 216) 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. Once the storage node is added to the management
server, you will be able to create managed vaults on the node.
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To
Do
Remove a storage
node from the
management server
1. Select the storage node you need to remove.
2. Click
Remove.
Once the storage node is removed from the management server, the vaults being
managed by the storage node disappear from the vault list (p. 171) and become
unavailable for performing operations. All the plans and tasks that use these vaults
will fail. All the databases and vaults of this storage node remain untouched.
It is possible to add the previously removed storage node to the management
server again. As a result, all the vaults managed by the storage node will appear in
the vault list and become available once again for all the plans and tasks that used
these vaults.
Create a centralized
managed vault on the
selected storage node
1. Select the storage node that will manage the vault.
2. Click
Create vault.
The Create centralized vault (p. 175) page will be opened with the pre-selected
storage node. Perform the remaining steps to create the vault.
View details of the
storage node
1. Select the storage node.
2. Click
View details.
In the Storage node properties (p. 217) window (its content is duplicated on the
Information panel at the bottom of the Storage nodes view), examine information
about the storage node and the vaults managed by this node.
Run, stop or
1. Select the storage node.
reschedule compacting
2. Click
View details.
In the Storage node properties (p. 217) window, click the Run compacting, Stop,
or Compacting schedule links respectively.
Run or stop indexing
1. Select the storage node.
2. Click
View details.
In the Storage node properties (p. 217) window, click the Run indexing or Stop
links respectively.
Refresh the list of
storage nodes
7.5.6.2
Click
Refresh.
The management console will update the list of storage nodes from the
management server with the most recent information. The list of storage nodes is
refreshed automatically based on events. However, 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.
Adding a storage node to a management server
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. These settings are no good even if the management server and the
storage node are on the same machine; because, after the centralized backup plan using the
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storage node is deployed, each agent will try to access the storage node as if it were installed on
the agent's host.
2. To provide a valid user account for the machine, click Options>>, and specify:
User name. When entering a name of an Active Directory user account, be sure to also
specify the domain name (DOMAIN\Username or Username@domain). The user account has
to be a member of the Administrators group on the machine.
Password. The password for the account.
Select the Save password check box to store the password for the account.
3. Click OK.
Because registration requires the storage node's participation, it cannot take place when the
machine is offline.
7.5.6.3
Storage node properties
The Storage node properties window accumulates in four tabs all information on the selected
Acronis Backup Storage Node. This information is also duplicated on the Information panel.
Storage node properties
This tab displays the following information about the selected storage node:
Name - the name of the machine where the storage node is installed.
Availability:
Unknown - this status is displayed until the first connection between the management server
and the storage node is established after adding the storage node or starting the
management server's service.
Online - the storage node is available for the management server. This means that the last
management server's connection to the node was successful. Connection is established every
2 minutes.
Offline - the storage node is unavailable.
Withdrawn - the storage node was registered on another management server. As a result, it
is not possible to control the node from the current management server.
IP - the IP address of the machine where the storage node is installed.
Indexing - the indexing activity deduplicates the data saved to the deduplicating vault during a
backup. Indexing always runs after a backup is completed. To learn more about indexing, see
"How deduplication works" (p. 226).
Archives - the total number of archives stored in all the vaults managed by the storage node.
Backups - the total number of backups stored within the archives in all the vaults managed by
the storage node.
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Idle - indexing is not running. You can start the indexing by clicking the Run indexing link.
Running - indexing is running. You can stop the indexing by clicking the Stop link. Since
indexing is a resource-consuming operation, you may want to stop it in order to allocate
more resources to other processes which are more important at the moment. We
recommend you to stop the indexing only if you absolutely need to, and to re-run the
indexing as soon as possible. The longer you delay the indexing, the more data will not be
deduplicated in the vault and the more disk space will be occupied.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Compacting - the compacting task deletes from the deduplication data store the blocks which
are no longer referred to. To learn more about compacting, see the "How deduplication works"
(p. 226) section.
Idle - compacting is not running. You can start the compacting by clicking the Run
compacting link.
Running - compacting is running. You can stop the compacting by clicking the Stop link.
Compacting schedule - the compacting task scheduling parameters. Click the Compacting
schedule link to re-schedule the compacting task. Only the time events (daily (p. 79), weekly (p.
81), and monthly (p. 83) schedules) are available for setting up. The preset is: Start the task every
1 week on Sunday at 03:00:00 AM.
Statistics
This tab provides you with information about the original and backed data sizes on all the managed
vaults of the selected storage node.
Vaults
This tab displays a list of vaults managed by the selected storage node. To update the list of vaults
with the most recent information from the management server, click
Refresh.
Indexing
This tab lets you examine the current status of indexing for the deduplicating vaults of the storage
node and review the date and time of the last run.
7.5.6.4
Configuring a storage node by using Acronis Administrative
Template
The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup Storage Node 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. 391).
Parameters related to compacting
As backups are deleted from a deduplicating vault, its deduplication data store (p. 226) may contain
unused data blocks (items) that are no longer referred to from any backup. The storage node
processes the data store to delete the unused items. This operation is called compacting. Compacting
is performed by the compacting task.
Every time the compacting task starts, the storage node determines whether to perform compacting.
To do this, the storage node:
1. Checks the size of the backed-up data that has been deleted from the vault since the last
compacting.
2. Uses the Compacting Trigger Rough Estimation Threshold parameter to determine whether this
size, relative to the size of the remaining backed up data, is significant.
3. If so, uses the Compacting Trigger Threshold parameter to determine whether the deduplication
data store contains a significant number of unused items. If so, the storage node performs
compacting.
The parameters are the following.
Compacting Trigger Rough Estimation Threshold
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Description: Specifies the relative size of the backed-up data that remains in a deduplicating vault,
below which checking for unused items is performed (see the Compacting Trigger Threshold
parameter).
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 100
Default value: 90
The Compacting Trigger Rough Estimation Threshold parameter enables you to skip the check
for unused items (and hence skip compacting) when the content of the vault did not change
significantly.
The larger the value of this parameter, the more often the check for unused items will be
performed. The value 100 means that the check will be performed each time the compacting
task starts.
How it works. Assume that the parameter value is 90 and the vault has 100 GB of backed up data.
It does not matter whether this data has duplicates. Then, you delete a few backups and the
backed-up data size becomes equal to 80 GB. In this case:
The size of the deleted data is 20 GB, and the size of the remaining data is 80 GB. The ratio of the
deleted to remaining data is thus 20 GB / 80 GB = 0.25, or 25 percent.
The storage node calculates the relative size of the remaining data as 100 percent – 25 percent =
75 percent.
Because this relative size is less than 90 percent, the storage node starts checking for unused
items.
Compacting Trigger Threshold
Description: Specifies the percentage of used items in the deduplication data store below which
compacting occurs.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 100
Default value: 90
Since compacting is a resource-consuming operation, it should occur only when the number of
unused items is significant.
The Compacting Trigger Threshold parameter enables you to set up a balance between the extra
space required to store unused items and the compacting frequency. The larger the value of this
parameter, the fewer unused items are allowed in the data store, but compacting will likely be
more frequent.
The check is performed only after checking the percentage of the remaining backed up data in
the vault (see the Compacting Trigger Rough Estimation Threshold).
Other parameters
Log Cleanup Rules
Specifies how to clean up the storage node log.
This parameter has the following settings:
Max Size
Description: Specifies the maximum size of the storage node log folder, in kilobytes.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 2147483647
Default value: 1048576 (that is, 1 GB)
Percentage To Keep
Description: Specifies the percentage of the maximum log size to keep on cleanup.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 100
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Default value: 95
Client Connection Limit
Description: Specifies the maximum number of simultaneous connections to the storage node by
the agents that perform backup, recovery, or operations with archives (such as validation,
replication, or cleanup).
Possible values: Any integer number between 1 and 2147483647
Default value: 10
Acronis Backup agents connect to the storage node to access its managed vaults during backup,
recovery, or to perform an operation with an archive. The Client Connection Limit parameter
determines the maximum number of such connections that the storage node can handle
simultaneously.
When this limit is reached, the storage node will use the backup queue (see the next parameter)
for the agents that are awaiting connection.
See also the Fast Operation Connection Limit parameter.
Backup Queue Limit
Description: Specifies the maximum number of agents in the storage node's backup queue.
Possible values: Any integer number between 1 and 2147483647
Default value: 50
The backup queue is a list of agents that are awaiting connection to the storage node for backup,
recovery, or an operation with an archive (see the previous parameter). This list also includes the
agents that are currently connected to the storage node for these purposes.
If an agent tries to establish such connection when the number of agents in the backup queue is
equal to the value in Backup Queue Limit, the storage node does not put the agent in the queue.
In this case, the connection of the agent to the storage node fails. The corresponding task stops
with the Error status.
See also the Fast Operation Queue Limit parameter.
Fast Operation Connection Limit
Description: Specifies the maximum number of simultaneous connections to the storage node for
purposes other than backup, recovery, and operations with archives.
Possible values: Any integer number between 1 and 2147483647
Default value: 20
Components of Acronis Backup may connect to the storage node for viewing the contents of a
vault and for other fast operations. The Fast Operation Connection Limit parameter determines
the maximum number of such connections that the storage node can handle simultaneously.
When this limit is reached, the storage node will use the queue called the fast operations queue
(see the next parameter) for the components that are awaiting connection.
See also the Client Connection Limit parameter.
Fast Operation Queue Limit
Description: Specifies the maximum number of components of Acronis Backup in the fast
operations queue (see the previous parameter).
Possible values: Any integer number between 1 and 2147483647
Default value: 100
The fast operations queue is a list of components that are awaiting connection for fast
operations such as viewing the contents of a vault.
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When the number of components in this queue is equal to the value in Fast Operation Queue
Limit and another component tries to establish a connection, the storage node does not put the
component in the queue. In this case, the corresponding operation fails.
See also the Backup Queue Limit parameter.
Vault Metadata Databases Path
Description: Specifies the path to the folder where vault databases, also called metadata
databases, are stored.
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: Empty string
An empty string means the folder %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application
Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\ASN\VaultMetadataDatabases (in Windows XP and Server
2003) or %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\ASN\VaultMetadataDatabases (in
Windows Vista and later versions of Windows).
A vault database contains information about archives and backups stored in the vault. When you
create or attach a vault, the storage node places the database for that vault to the folder
determined by this parameter.
Changing this parameter does not affect the currently existing vault databases. If you want these
databases to be moved to the new folder, detach (p. 174) the corresponding vaults and then
attach (p. 180) them to the same storage node.
Deduplication Databases path
Description: Specifies the path where deduplication databases are stored.
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: Empty string
An empty string means that the path must be entered manually.
A deduplication database contains the hash values of all data items stored in a vault—except for
those that cannot be deduplicated. When you create a deduplicating vault, the storage node
places the deduplication database for that vault to the folder determined by this parameter. For
better performance, place the database on a disk drive other than the disk drive used for storing
backups.
Changing this parameter does not affect the currently existing deduplication databases.
Check Hash Value On Server Side
Description: Specifies whether to check the hash values of data blocks that are sent to a
deduplicating vault
Possible values: Enabled or Disabled
Default value: Disabled
When sending a data block to a deduplicating vault, the agent also sends that block’s fingerprint
known as the hash value.
The Check Hash Value On Server Side parameter determines whether the storage node must
ensure that the hash value matches the data block. Such check puts an additional load on the
storage node.
Normally, such check is not necessary. You can set this parameter to Enabled to make the
deduplication process more secure.
If the check reveals a mismatch between the data block and its hash value, the backup operation
fails.
Vault Warnings and Limits
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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.
This parameter contains the following settings:
Vault Free Space Warning Limit
Description: Specifies the amount of free space in a managed vault, in megabytes, below
which a warning is recorded in the storage node's log.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 2147483647
Default value: 200
A vault's free space is the amount of free space on the medium—such as a disk
volume—that stores the vault.
When the amount of free space in a vault is equal to the value in
Vault Free Space Warning Limit or less, a warning is recorded in the storage node's log,
indicating the vault in question. You can view storage node warnings in the Dashboard.
Vault Free Space Warning Percentage
Description: Specifies the amount of free space in a managed vault, as a percentage of its
total size, below which a warning is recorded in the storage node's log.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 100
Default value: 10
The total size of a vault is the vault's free space plus the size of all archives that are
contained in the vault.
For example, suppose that two vaults, Vault A and Vault B, are both stored on a disk
volume. Suppose further that the size of the archives in Vault A is 20 GB and the size of
the archives in Vault B is 45 GB.
If the volume has 5 GB of free space, then the total size of Vault A is
20 GB + 5 GB = 25 GB, and that of Vault B is 45 GB + 5 GB = 50 GB, regardless of the size
of the volume.
The percentage of free space in a vault is the vault's free space divided by the vault's
total size. In the previous example, Vault A has 5 GB / 25 GB = 20% of free space, and
Vault B has 5 GB / 50 GB = 10% of free space.
When the percentage of free space in a vault is equal to the value in
Vault Free Space Warning Percentage or less, a warning is recorded in the storage
node's log, indicating the vault in question. You can view storage node warnings in the
Dashboard.
Note: The parameters Vault Free Space Warning Limit and Vault Free Space Warning Percentage are
independent of each other: a warning will be recorded every time that either of the thresholds is reached.
Vault Free Space Error Limit
Description: Specifies the amount of free space in a managed vault, in megabytes, below
which an error is recorded in the storage node's log and any backup to the vault becomes
prohibited.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 2147483647
Default value: 50
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.
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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: Any integer number between 0 and 2147483647
Default value: 20
If the amount of free space on the volume containing a managed vault's database is less
than the value in Vault Database Free Space Warning Limit, a warning is recorded in the
storage node's log, indicating the vault in question. You can view storage node warnings
in the Dashboard.
The database is stored on the storage node in a local folder whose name is specified by
the by the Vault Metadata Database Path parameter.
Vault Database Free Space Error Limit
Description: Specifies the amount of free space on the volume containing a managed
vault's database, in megabytes, below which an error is recorded in the storage node's
log and any backup to the vault becomes prohibited.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 2147483647
Default value: 10
If the amount of free space on the disk containing a managed vault's database is less
than the value of Vault Database Free Space Error Limit, an error is recorded in the
storage node's log. Backups performed to the vault will keep failing until the amount of
free space is above the limit.
You can view storage node errors in the Dashboard.
The database is stored on the storage node in a local folder whose name is specified by
the Vault Metadata Database Path parameter.
7.5.6.5
Configuring a storage node by using Windows registry
Cataloging
The following parameter enables or disables cataloging on a storage node. The parameter is useful
when updating or loading the data catalog takes a long time.
The parameter is a string value that should be manually added to the corresponding Catalog key in
the registry. If this parameter is missing in the registry, cataloging is enabled on the storage node.
Enabled
Possible values: 0 (disables cataloging) or 1 (enables cataloging)
Registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\ASN\Configuration\Catalog\Enabled
If cataloging is disabled, the storage node will not catalog backups in the managed vaults.
Therefore, the Data view and Data catalog will not display this data.
The preferred indexing algorithm
By default, a storage node is configured to use the newest indexing algorithm whenever possible.
You can change this behavior by using the PreferedDedupIndex parameter.
Possible values: 0 (use the most recent algorithm), 1 (use the pre-Update 6 algorithm), or 2 (use the
Update 6 algorithm)
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Registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\ASN\Configuration\StorageNode\PreferedDedupInd
ex
Default value: 0
The parameter applies to the deduplication databases that are created after the parameter has been
changed. For existing databases, the corresponding algorithm is selected automatically.
Memory allocation settings
When the Acronis Storage Node Service is started, it allocates a certain amount of memory for itself
to keep the index and other data. By default, the storage node is configured to consume 80 percent
of RAM, but leave at least 2 GB of RAM for the operating system and other applications. You can
change this behavior by using the DatastoreIndexCacheMemoryPercent and
DatastoreIndexReservedMemory parameters.
The amount of allocated memory is calculated based on the following rule:
Allocated memory = DatastoreIndexCacheMemoryPercent percents, but not more than total
available RAM minus DatastoreIndexReservedMemory
This rule ensures a balance between the storage node performance and the operating system
memory requirements, for systems with RAM ranging from 8 to 64 and more gigabytes. If the server
has plenty of RAM, the storage node takes most of the memory for better performance. If the server
lacks RAM (less than 10 GB with the default parameter values), the storage node reserves the fixed
amount of memory for the operating system.
DatastoreIndexCacheMemoryPercent
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 100, in percents
Registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\ASN\Configuration\StorageNode\DatastoreIndexCac
heMemoryPercent
Default value: 80%
To apply the change, restart the Acronis Storage Node Service.
DatastoreIndexReservedMemory
Possible values: 0 up to RAM size, in megabytes
Registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\ASN\Configuration\StorageNode\DatastoreIndexRes
ervedMemory
Default value: 2048 MB
To apply the change, restart the Acronis Storage Node Service.
Parameters for writing to tapes (p. 192)
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7.5.7
Deduplication
This section describes deduplication, a mechanism designed to eliminate data repetition by storing
identical data in archives only once.
Starting with v11.7, Acronis Backup uses a new deduplication algorithm. The information in this
section is effective for the case when v11.7 agents back up to deduplicating vaults created on v11.7
storage nodes. When a new agent backs up to an old vault or an old agent backs up to a new vault,
the old deduplication algorithm is used. To apply the new deduplication algorithm to old backups,
you need to import the backups into a newly created vault.
7.5.7.1
Overview
Deduplication is the process of minimizing storage space taken by the data by detecting data
repetition and storing the identical data only once.
Deduplication may also reduce network load: if, during a backup, a data is found to be a duplicate of
an already stored one, its content is not transferred over the network.
Acronis Backup will deduplicate backups saved to a managed vault if you enable deduplication during
the vault creation. A vault where deduplication is enabled is called a deduplicating vault.
The deduplication is performed on data blocks. The block size varies from 1 B to 256 KB for both
disk-level and file-level backups.
Acronis Backup performs deduplication in two steps:
Deduplication at source
Performed on a managed machine during backup. The agent uses the storage node to determine
what data can be deduplicated and does not transfer the data blocks whose duplicates are
already present in the vault.
Deduplication at target
Performed in the vault after a backup is completed. The storage node analyzes the vault's
contents 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.
Deduplication database
Acronis Backup Storage Node maintains the deduplication database, which contains the hash values
of all data blocks stored in the vault—except for those that cannot be deduplicated, such as
encrypted files.
The deduplication database is stored in the storage node local folder. You can specify the database
path when creating the vault. To minimize access time to the database, store it on a directly attached
drive rather than on a mounted network volume. For more recommendations, see "Deduplication
best practices." (p. 228)
The size of the deduplication database is about 0.05 percent of the total size of unique data stored in
the vault. In other words, each terabyte of new (non-duplicate) data adds about 0.5 GB to the
database.
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If the database is corrupted or the storage node is lost, while the vault retains its contents, the new
storage node rescans the vault and re-creates the vault database and then the deduplication
database.
7.5.7.2
How deduplication works
Deduplication at source
When performing a backup to a deduplicating vault, Acronis Backup Agent calculates a fingerprint of
each data block. Such a fingerprint is often called a hash value.
Before sending the data block to the vault, the agent queries the deduplication database to
determine whether the block's hash value is the same as that of an already stored block. If so, the
agent sends only the hash value; otherwise, it sends the block itself. The storage node saves the
received data blocks in a temporary file.
Some data, such as encrypted files or disk blocks of a non-standard size, cannot be deduplicated. The
agent always transfers such data to the vault without calculating the hash values. For more
information about restrictions of deduplication, see Deduplication restrictions (p. 230).
Once the backup process is completed, the vault contains the resulting backup and the temporary
file with the unique data blocks. The temporary file will be processed on the next stage. The backup
(TIB file) contains hash values and the data that cannot be deduplicated. Further processing of this
backup is not needed. You can readily recover data from it.
Deduplication at target
After a backup to a deduplicating vault is completed, the storage node runs the indexing activity. This
activity deduplicates the data in the vault as follows:
1. It moves the data blocks from the temporary file to a special file within the vault, storing
duplicate items there only once. This file is called the deduplication data store.
2. It saves the hash values and the links that are necessary to "assemble" the deduplicated data to
the deduplication database.
3. After all the data blocks have been moved, it deletes the temporary file.
As a result, the data store contains a number of unique data blocks. Each block has one or more
references from the backups. The references are contained in the deduplication database. The
backups remained untouched. They contain hash values and the data that cannot be deduplicated.
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The following diagram illustrates the result of deduplication at target.
The indexing activity may take considerable time to complete. You can view this activity's state on
the management server, by selecting the corresponding storage node and clicking View details (p.
217). You can also manually start or stop this activity in that window.
If you back up a large amount of unique data, the indexing activity may fail due to insufficient RAM on the
storage node. The backups will continue to run. You can add more RAM to the storage node, or delete
unnecessary backups and run compacting. After the next backup, the indexing will run again.
Compacting
After one or more backups or archives have been deleted from the vault—either manually or during
cleanup—the data store may contain blocks which are no longer referred to from any archive. Such
blocks are deleted by the compacting task, which is a scheduled task performed by the storage node.
By default, the compacting task runs every Sunday night at 03:00. You can re-schedule the task by
selecting the corresponding storage node, clicking View details (p. 217), and then clicking
Compacting schedule. You can also manually start or stop the task on that tab.
Because deletion of unused blocks is resource-consuming, the compacting task performs it only
when a sufficient amount of data to delete has accumulated. The threshold is determined by the
Compacting Trigger Threshold (p. 218) configuration parameter.
7.5.7.3
When deduplication is most effective
The following are cases when deduplication produces the maximum effect:
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When backing up in the full backup mode similar data from different sources. Such is the case
when you back up operating systems and applications deployed from a single source over the
network.
When performing incremental backups of similar data from different sources, provided that the
changes to the data are also similar. Such is the case when you deploy updates to these systems
and apply the incremental backup.
When performing incremental backups of data that does not change itself, but changes its
location. Such is the case when multiple pieces of data circulate over the network or within one
system. Each time a piece of data moves, it is included in the incremental backup which becomes
sizeable while it does not contain new data. Deduplication helps to solve the problem: each time
an item appears in a new place, a reference to the item is saved instead of the item itself.
Deduplication and incremental backups
In case of random changes to the data, deduplication at incremental backup will not produce much
effect because:
The deduplicated items that have not changed are not included in the incremental backup.
The deduplicated items that have changed are not identical anymore and therefore will not be
deduplicated.
Deduplication and database backups
Deduplication is not very effective for backing up a database on a regular basis. This is because
changes to the database are usually unique and, therefore, cannot be deduplicated. We recommend
backing up databases to a non-deduplicating vault.
7.5.7.4
Deduplication best practices
Deduplication is a complex process that depends on many factors.
The most important factors that influence deduplication speed are:
The speed of access to the deduplication database
The RAM capacity of the storage node
The number of deduplicating vaults created on the storage node.
To increase deduplication performance, follow the recommendations below.
Place the deduplication database and deduplicating vault on separate physical
devices
To increase the speed of access to a deduplication database, the database and the vault must be
located on separate physical devices.
It is best to allocate dedicated devices for the vault and the database. If this is not possible, at least
do not place a vault or database on the same disk with the operating system. The reason is that the
operating system performs a large number of hard disk read/write operations, which significantly
slows down the deduplication.
Selecting a disk for a deduplication database
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To minimize access time to the database, store it on a directly attached drive rather than on a
mounted network volume. The network latency may significantly reduce deduplication
performance.
The disk space required for a deduplication database can be estimated by using the following
formula:
S = (U / 2184) * 2
Here,
S is disk size, in GB
U is the planned amount of unique data in the deduplication data store, in GB
2 reflects the fact that the disk must have twice as much free space as the database occupies.
For example, if the planned amount of unique data in the deduplication data store is U=5 TB, the
deduplication database will require a minimum of free space, as shown below:
S = (5*1024 / 2184) * 2 = 4.7 GB
Selecting a disk for a deduplicating vault
For the purpose of data loss prevention, we recommend using RAID 10, 5 or 6. RAID 0 is not
recommended since it not fault tolerant. RAID 1 is not recommended because of relatively low speed.
There is no preference to local disks or SAN, both are good.
128 MB of RAM per 1 TB of unique data
It is not necessary to follow this recommendation if you do not experience a deduplication
performance problem. However, if the deduplication is too slow, adding more RAM to the storage
node may significantly raise the deduplication speed.
Only one deduplicating vault on each storage node
It is highly recommended that you create only one deduplicating vault on a storage node. Otherwise,
the whole available RAM volume may be distributed in proportion to the number of the vaults.
64-bit operating system
The storage node must be installed in a 64-bit operating system. The machine with the storage node
should not run applications that require much system resources; for example, Database
Management Systems (DBMS) or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.
Multi-core processor with at least 2.5 GHz clock rate
We recommend that you use a processor with the number of cores not less than 4 and the clock rate
not less than 2.5 GHz.
Sufficient free space in the vault
Indexing of a backup requires as much free space as the backed-up data occupies immediately after
saving it to the vault. Without a compression or deduplication at source, this value is equal to the size
of the original data backed up during the given backup operation.
High-speed LAN
1-Gbit LAN is recommended. It will allow the software to perform 5-6 backups with deduplication in
parallel, and the speed will not reduce considerably.
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Back up a typical machine before backing up several machines with similar contents
When backing up several machines with similar contents, it is recommended that you back up one
machine first and wait until the end of the backed-up data indexing. After that, the other machines
will be backed up faster owing to the efficient deduplication. Because the first machine's backup has
been indexed, most of the data is already in the deduplication data store.
Back up different machines at different times
If you back up a large number of machines, spread out the backup operations over time. To do this,
create several backup plans with various schedules.
Use fast cataloging
Indexing of a backup starts after its cataloging has been completed. To reduce the overall time
required for backup processing, switch automatic cataloging (p. 104) to the fast mode. You can start
full cataloging manually outside of the backup window.
Configure alert notifications
It is recommended that you configure the "Vaults" alert notification (p. 388) in the management
server options. This can help you to promptly react in out-of-order situations. For example, a timely
reaction to a "There is a vault with low free space" alert can prevent an error when next backing up
to the vault.
7.5.7.5
Deduplication restrictions
Common restrictions
Deduplication cannot be performed if you protected the archive with a password. Data blocks of
password-protected archives are stored in the backups as they would be in a non-deduplicating
vault.
If you want to protect an archive while still allowing it to be deduplicated, leave the archive
non-password-protected and encrypt the deduplicating vault itself with a password. You can do this
when creating the vault.
Disk-level backup
Deduplication of disk blocks is not performed 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. This allows for block-level deduplication.
Other examples of allocation unit sizes allowing for block-level deduplication include 8 KB, 16 KB, and 64 KB.
File-level backup
Deduplication of a file is not performed if the file is encrypted and the In archives, store encrypted
files in decrypted state check box in the backup options is cleared (it is cleared by default).
Deduplication and NTFS data streams
In the NTFS file system, a file may have one or more additional sets of data associated with it—often
called alternate data streams.
When such file is backed up, so are all its alternate data streams. However, these streams are never
deduplicated—even when the file itself is.
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8 Operations with archives and backups
8.1
Validating archives and backups
Validation is an operation that checks the possibility of data recovery from a backup.
Validation of a file backup imitates recovery of all files from the backup to a dummy destination.
Validation of a disk or volume backup calculates a checksum for every data block saved in the backup.
Both procedures are resource-intensive.
Validation of an archive will validate all the archive's backups. A vault (or a location) validation will
validate all the archives stored in this vault (location).
While successful validation means high probability of successful recovery, it does not check all factors
that influence the recovery process. If you back up the operating system, only a test recovery in a
bootable environment to a spare hard drive can guarantee success of the recovery. At least ensure
that the backup can be successfully validated using the bootable media.
Limitation
You cannot validate archives and backups in Acronis Cloud Storage (p. 407). However, an initial
seeding backup (p. 411) is automatically validated immediately after its creation.
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 vault 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 Creating a backup plan (p. 50).
To access the Validation page, first select a validation object: a vault, an archive, or a backup.
To select a vault, click the Vaults icon in the Navigation pane and select the vault by expanding
the vaults tree in the Vaults view or directly in the Navigation pane.
To select an archive, select a vault, and then in the Vault view select the Archive view tab and
click the archive name.
To select a backup, select an archive in the Archive view, expand the archive by clicking the
expand button to the left of the archive name, and then click the backup.
After selecting the validation object, select Validate from the context menu. The Validation page will
be opened with the pre-selected object as a source. All you need to do is to select when to validate
and (optionally) provide a name for the task.
To create a validation task, perform the following steps.
What to validate
Validate
Choose an object to validate:
Archive (p. 238) - in this case, you need to specify the archive.
Backup (p. 233) - specify the archive first. Then, select the desired backup in this archive.
Vault (p. 233) - select a vault (or other location), to validate archives from.
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Credentials (p. 234)
[Optional] Provide credentials for accessing the source if the task account does not have
enough privileges to access it.
When to validate
Start validation (p. 235)
Specify when and how often to perform validation.
Task parameters
Task name
[Optional] Enter a unique name for the validation task. A conscious name lets you quickly
identify the task among the others.
Task's credentials (p. 235)
[Optional] The validation task will run on behalf of the user who is creating the task. You can
change the task credentials if necessary.
Comments
[Optional] Enter comments on the task.
After you configure all the required settings, click OK to create the validation task.
8.1.1
Archive selection
To specify an archive to validate
1. Enter the full path to the archive location in the Path field, or select the required location in the
tree (p. 130).
When operating on a machine booted with bootable media:
To access a managed vault, type the following string in the Path field:
bsp://node_address/vault_name/
To access an unmanaged centralized vault, type the full path to the vault's folder.
2. In the table to the right of the tree, select the archive. The table displays the names of the
archives contained in each 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. Click OK.
8.1.2
Backup selection
To specify a backup to validate
1. In the upper pane, select a backup by its creation date/time.
The bottom part of the window displays the selected backup content, assisting you to find the
right backup.
2. Click OK.
8.1.3
Vault selection
To select a vault or a location
1. Enter the full path to the vault (location) in the Path field or select the desired location in the
tree.
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To select a centralized vault (either managed or unmanaged), expand the Centralized group
and click the vault.
If you cannot access a managed vault (for example, when using bootable media), select the
Storage nodes group, enter the storage node name in the Path box (by using the format
bsp:///), and then click the arrow button.
To select a personal vault, expand the Personal group and click the appropriate vault.
To select a network share, expand the Network folders group, select the required networked
machine and then click the shared folder. If the network share requires access credentials,
the program will ask for them.
To select a folder stored on NFS share, expand the NFS folders group and click the folder.
To select a local folder on the machine, expand the Local folders group and click the required
folder.
To select FTP or SFTP server, expand the corresponding group and click the appropriate
folder on the server.
Note According to the original FTP specification, credentials required for access to FTP servers are
transferred through a network as plaintext. This means that the user name and password can be
intercepted by an eavesdropper using a packet sniffer.
To select a locally attached tape device, expand the Tape drives group, then click the
required device.
Note Tape devices can only be used with Acronis Backup Advanced.
To assist you with choosing the right vault, the table displays the names of the archives
contained in each vault 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.
2. Click OK.
8.1.4
Access credentials for source
Specify the credentials required for access to the location where the backup archive is stored.
To specify credentials
1. Select one of the following:
Use the task credentials
The software will access the location using the credentials of the task account specified in the
Task parameters section.
Use the following credentials
The software will access the location using the credentials you specify. Use this option if the
task account does not have access permissions to the location. You might need to provide
special credentials for a network share or a storage node vault.
Specify:
User name. When entering the name of an Active Directory user account, be sure to also
specify the domain name (DOMAIN\Username or Username@domain).
Password. The password for the account.
2. Click OK.
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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.
8.1.5
When to validate
As validation is a resource-intensive operation, it makes sense to schedule validation to the managed
machine's off-peak period. On the other hand, if you prefer to be immediately informed whether the
data is not corrupted and can be successfully recovered, consider starting validation right after the
task creation.
Choose one of the following:
Now - to start the validation task right after its creation, that is, after clicking OK on the
Validation page.
Later - to start the one-time validation task, at the date and time you specify.
Specify the appropriate parameters as follows:
Date and time - the date and time when to start the task.
The task will be started manually (do not schedule the task) - select this check box, if you
wish to start the task manually later.
On schedule - to schedule the task. To learn more about how to configure the scheduling
parameters, please see the Scheduling (p. 77) section.
8.1.6
Task credentials
Provide credentials for the account under which the task will run.
To specify credentials
1. Select one of the following:
Use current user credentials
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. 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, see the Owners and credentials (p. 29)
section.
To learn more about operations available depending on the user privileges, see the User privileges on
a managed machine (p. 31) section.
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8.2
Exporting archives and backups
The export operation creates a copy of an archive or a self-sufficient part copy of an archive in the
location you specify. The original archive remains untouched.
The export operation can be applied to:
A single archive - an exact archive copy will be created.
Your choice of backups belonging to the same archive - the resulting archive will contain only the
specified backups. Consolidation is performed as required, so the resulting archive may contain
full, incremental and differential backups.
An entire vault that can be exported by using the command line interface. For more information,
please refer to Acronis Backup Command Line Reference.
A single backup - an archive consisting of a single full backup will be created. The export of an
incremental or a differential backup is performed using consolidation of the preceding backups
up to the nearest full backup.
Usage scenarios
Export enables you to separate a specific backup from a chain of incremental backups for fast
recovery, writing onto removable or detachable media or other purposes.
Example. When backing up data to a remote location through an unstable or low-bandwidth network
connection (such as backing up through WAN using VPN access), you may want to save the initial full
backup to a detachable media. Then, send the media to the remote location. There, the backup will
be exported from the media to the target storage. Subsequent incremental backups, which are
usually much smaller, can be transferred over the network.
By exporting a managed vault to a detachable media, you obtain a portable unmanaged vault that
can be used in the following scenarios:
Keeping an off-site copy of your vault or of the most important archives.
Recovery of the storage node itself.
Physical transportation of a vault to a distant branch office.
Recovery without access to the storage node in case of networking problems or failure of the
storage node.
The resulting archive's name
By default, the exported archive inherits the name of the original archive. Because having multiple
archives of the same names in the same location is not advisable, the following actions are disabled
with the default archive name:
Exporting part of an archive to the same location.
Exporting an archive or part of an archive to the same location twice.
Exporting an archive or part of an archive to a location where an archive of the same name
exists.
In any of the above cases, provide an archive name that is unique to the destination folder or vault. If
you need to redo the export using the same archive name, first delete the archive that resulted from
the previous export operation.
The resulting archive's options
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The exported archive inherits the options of the original archive, including encryption and the
password. When exporting a password-protected archive, you are prompted for the password. If the
original archive is encrypted, the password is used to encrypt the resulting archive.
Source and destination locations
When the console is connected to a managed machine, you can export an archive or part of an
archive to and from any location accessible to the agent residing on the machine. These include
personal vaults, locally attached tape devices, removable media and, in Acronis Backup Advanced,
managed and unmanaged centralized vaults.
When the console is connected to a management server, two export methods are available:
Export from a managed vault. The export is performed by the storage node that manages the
vault. The destination can be a network share or a local folder of the storage node.
Export from an unmanaged centralized vault. The export is performed by the agent installed on
the managed machine you specify. The destination can be any location accessible to the agent,
including a managed vault.
Operations with an export task
An export task starts immediately after you complete its configuration. An export task can be
stopped or deleted in the same way as any other task.
Once the export task is completed, you can run it again at any time. Before doing so, delete the
archive that resulted from the previous task run if the archive still exists in the destination vault.
Otherwise the task will fail. You cannot edit an export task to specify another name for the
destination archive (this is a limitation).
Tip. You can implement the staging scenario manually, by regularly running the archive deletion task followed
by the export task.
Different ways to create an export task
Using the Export page is the most general way to create an export task. Here, you can export any
backup, or archive you have permission to access.
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.
To access the Export page first select a validation object: an archive or a backup.
1. Select a vault. For this click the Vaults icon in the Navigation pane and select the vault expanding
the vaults tree in the Vaults view or directly in the Navigation pane.
2. To select an archive, select a vault, and then in the Vault view select the Archive view tab and
click the archive name.
3. To select a backup, select an archive in the Archive view, expand the archive by clicking the
expand button to the left of archive name, and then click the backup.
After selecting the validation object, select Export from the context menu. The Export page will be
opened with the pre-selected 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.
What to export
Export
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Select the type of objects to export:
Archive - in this case, you need to specify the archive only.
Backups - you need to specify the archive first, and then select the desired backup(s) in this
archive.
Browse
Select the Archive (p. 238) or the Backups (p. 238).
Show access credentials (p. 239)
[Optional] Provide credentials for accessing the source if the task account does not have
enough privileges to access it.
Where to export
Browse (p. 239)
Specify the path to the location where the new archive will be created.
Be sure to provide a distinct name and comment for the new archive.
Full cataloging/Fast cataloging
Not available under bootable media or for locations that do not support cataloging
Select whether full or fast cataloging will be performed on the exported backups. For more
information about the cataloging, see "Backup cataloging" (p. 104).
Show access credentials (p. 240)
[Optional] Provide credentials for the destination if the task credentials do not have enough
privileges to access it.
After you have performed all the required steps, click OK to start the export task.
As a result, the program shows the Execution state of the task in the Backup plans and tasks view.
When the task ends the Task Information window shows the final state of the task execution.
8.2.1
Archive selection
To specify an archive to export
1. Enter the full path to the archive location in the Path field, or select the required location in the
tree (p. 130).
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 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. Click OK.
8.2.2
Backup selection
To specify a backup(s) to export
1. At the top of the window, select the respective check box(es).
To ensure that you choose the right backup, click on the backup and look at the bottom table
that displays the volumes contained in the selected backup.
To obtain information on a volume, right-click it and then select Information.
2. Click OK.
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8.2.3
Access credentials for source
Specify credentials required for access to the location where the source archive, or the backup is
stored.
To specify credentials
1. Select one of the following:
Use the current user credentials
The software 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
task account does not have access permissions to the location. You might need to provide
special credentials for a network share or a storage node vault.
Specify:
User name. When entering the name of an Active Directory user account, be sure to also
specify the domain name (DOMAIN\Username or Username@domain).
Password. The password for the account.
2. Click OK.
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.
8.2.4
Destination selection
Specify a destination where the exported object will be stored. Exporting backups to the same
archive is not allowed.
1. Selecting the export destination
Enter the full path to the destination in the Path field, or select the required destination in the tree.
To export data to a centralized vault (either managed or unmanaged), expand the Centralized
group and click the vault.
If you cannot access a managed vault (for example, when working under bootable media), select
the Storage nodes group, enter the storage node name in the Path box in the format
bsp:///, and then click the green "go" button.
To export data to a personal vault, expand the Personal 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. If the network share requires access
credentials, the program will ask for them.
To export data to a local folder on the machine, expand the Local folders group and click the
required folder.
Note for Linux users: To specify a Common Internet File System (CIFS) network share which is mounted on a
mount point such as /mnt/share, select this mount point instead of the network share itself.
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To export data to an FTP or SFTP server, type the server name or address in the Path field as
follows:
ftp://ftp_server:port _number or sftp://sftp_server:port number
If the port number is not specified, port 21 is used for FTP and port 22 is used for SFTP.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
After entering access credentials, the folders on the server become available. Click the
appropriate folder on the server.
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.
Note According to the original FTP specification, credentials required for access to FTP servers are
transferred through a network as plaintext. This means that the user name and password can be
intercepted by an eavesdropper using a packet sniffer.
To export data to a locally attached tape device, expand the Tape drives group, then click the
required device.
Note Tape devices can only be used with Acronis Backup Advanced.
If the console is connected to the management server and a managed vault is selected as a source
location, the folder tree contains:
Local folders group to export data onto the hard drives that are local to the storage node.
Network folders group to export data to a network share. If the network share requires access
credentials, the program will ask for them.
2. Using the archives table
To assist you with choosing the right destination, the table on the right displays the names of the
archives contained in each location you select in the tree.
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. Naming the new archive
By default, the exported archive inherits the name of the original archive. Because having multiple
archives of the same names in the same location is not advisable, the following actions are disabled
with the default archive name:
Exporting part of an archive to the same location.
Exporting an archive or part of an archive to the same location twice.
Exporting an archive or part of an archive to a location where an archive of the same name
exists.
In any of the above cases, provide an archive name that is unique to the destination folder or vault. If
you need to redo the export using the same archive name, first delete the archive that resulted from
the previous export operation.
8.2.5
Access credentials for destination
Specify credentials required for access to the location where the resulting 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:
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Use the current user credentials
The software will access the destination using the credentials of the current user.
Use the following credentials
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
The software will access the destination using the credentials you specify. Use this option if
the task account does not have access permissions to the destination.
Specify:
User name. When entering the name of an Active Directory user account, be sure to also
specify the domain name (DOMAIN\Username or Username@domain).
Password. The password for the account.
2. Click OK.
According to the original FTP specification, credentials required for access to FTP servers are transferred
through a network as plaintext. This means that the user name and password can be intercepted by an
eavesdropper using a packet sniffer.
8.3
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.
Mounting volumes in the read/write mode enables you to modify the backup content, that is, save,
move, create, delete files or folders, and run executables consisting of one file. In this mode, the
software creates an incremental backup containing the changes you make to the backup content.
Please be aware that none of the subsequent backups will contain these changes.
You can mount volumes if the disk backup is stored in a local folder (except optical disks), Acronis
Secure Zone, or on a network share.
Usage scenarios
Sharing: mounted images can be easily shared to networked users.
Offline virus clean: if a machine is attacked, the administrator shuts it down, boots with bootable
media and creates an image. Then, the administrator mounts this image in read/write mode,
scans and cleans it with an antivirus program, and finally recovers the machine.
Error check: if recovery failed due to a disk error, mount the image in the read/write mode. Then,
check the mounted disk for errors with the chkdsk /r command.
"Band aid" database recovery solution: mount up an image that contains an SQL database from
a recently failed machine. This will provide access to the database until the failed machine is
recovered.
To mount an image, perform the following steps.
Source
Archive (p. 242)
Specify the path to the archive location and select the archive containing disk backups.
Backup (p. 242)
Select the backup.
Access credentials (p. 242)
[Optional] Provide credentials for the archive location.
Mount settings
Volumes (p. 243)
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Select volumes to mount and configure the mount settings for every volume: assign a letter
or enter the mount point, choose the read/write or read only access mode.
When you complete all the required steps, click OK to mount the volumes.
8.3.1
Archive selection
To select an archive
1. Enter the full path to the location in the Path field, or select the desired folder in the folders tree:
If the archive is stored in a personal vault located in a local folder, Acronis Secure Zone, or on
a network share, expand the Personal group and click the required vault.
If the archive is stored in a local folder on the machine, expand the Local folders group and
click the required folder.
Mounting is not available if the archive is stored on optical media such as CD, DVD, or Blu-ray
Discs (BD).
If the archive is stored on a network share, expand the Network folders group, select the
required networked machine, and then click the shared folder. If the network share requires
access credentials, the program will ask for them.
Note for Linux users: To specify a Common Internet File System (CIFS) network share which is mounted
on a mount point such as /mnt/share, select this mount point instead of the network share itself.
If the archive is stored on an NFS share, expand the NFS folders group and click the folder.
Access to NFS shares is available only in Linux and under Linux-based bootable media.
2. In the table to the right of the tree, select the archive. The table displays the names of the
archives contained in each vault/folder you select.
While you are reviewing the location content, archives can be added, deleted or modified by
another user or by the program itself according to scheduled operations. Use the Refresh button
to refresh the list of archives.
3. Click OK.
8.3.2
Backup selection
To select a backup:
1. Select one of the backups by its creation date/time.
2. To assist you with choosing the right backup, the bottom table displays the volumes contained in
the selected backup.
To obtain information on a volume, right-click it and then click Information.
3. Click OK.
8.3.3
Access credentials
To specify credentials
1. Select one of the following:
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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.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Specify:
User name. When entering the name of an Active Directory user account, be sure to also
specify the domain name (DOMAIN\Username or Username@domain).
Password. The password for the account.
2. Click OK.
According to the original FTP specification, credentials required for access to FTP servers are transferred
through a network as plaintext. This means that the user name and password can be intercepted by an
eavesdropper using a packet sniffer.
8.3.4
Volume selection
Select the volumes to mount and configure the mounting parameters for each of the selected
volumes as follows:
1. Select the check box for each volume you need to mount.
2. Click on the selected volume to set its mounting parameters.
Access mode - choose the mode you want the volume to be mounted in:
Read only - enables exploring and opening files within the backup without committing
any changes.
Read/write - with this mode, the program assumes that the backup content will be
modified, and creates an incremental backup to capture the changes.
Assign letter (in Windows) - Acronis Backup will assign an unused letter to the mounted
volume. If required, select another letter to assign from the drop-down list.
Mount point (in Linux) - specify the directory where you want the volume to be mounted.
3. If several volumes are selected for mounting, click on every volume to set its mounting
parameters, described in the previous step.
4. Click OK.
8.3.5
Managing mounted images
Once a volume is mounted, you can browse files and folders contained in the backup using a file
manager and copy the desired files to any destination. Thus, if you need to take out only a few files
and folders from a volume backup, you do not have to perform the recovery procedure.
Exploring images
Exploring mounted volumes lets you view and modify (if mounted in the read/write mode) the
volume's content.
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.
To unmount an image, select it in the table and click
To unmount all the mounted volumes, click
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Unmount.
Unmount all.
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8.4
Operations available in vaults
By using vaults, you can easily access archives and backups and perform archive management
operations.
To perform operations with archives and backups
1. In the Navigation pane, select the vault whose archives you need to manage.
2. In the vault view, select the Archive view tab. This tab displays all archives stored in the selected
vault.
3. Proceed as described in:
8.4.1
Operations with archives (p. 244)
Operations with backups (p. 245)
Operations with archives
To perform any operation with an archive
1. In the Navigation pane, select the vault that contains archives.
2. On the Archive view tab of the vault, select the archive. If the archive is protected with a
password, you will be asked to provide it.
3. Perform operations by clicking the corresponding buttons on the toolbar. These operations can
also be accessed from the '[Archive name]' actions item of the main menu.
The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with archives stored in a vault.
To
Do
Validate an archive
Click
Validate.
The Validation (p. 232) 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. 236) 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. Select one or more archives you want to delete.
2. Click
Delete.
The program duplicates your selection in the Backups deletion (p. 246) window
that has check boxes for each archive and each backup. Review the selection and
make corrections if need be (select the check boxes for the desired archives), then
confirm the deletion.
Delete all archives in the Please be aware that if filters have been applied to the vaults list, you see only a
vault
part of the vault content. Be sure that the vault does not contain archives you need
to retain before starting the operation.
Click
Delete all.
The program duplicates your selection in the new window that has check boxes for
each archive and each backup. Review the selection and correct if need be, then
confirm the deletion.
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8.4.2
Operations with backups
To perform any operation with a backup
1. In the Navigation pane, select the vault that contains archives.
2. On the Archive view tab of the vault, select the archive. Then, expand the archive and click the
backup to select it. If the archive is protected with a password, you will be asked to provide it.
3. Perform operations by clicking the corresponding buttons on the toolbar. These operations can
also be accessed from the '[Backup name]' actions item of the main menu.
The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with backups.
To
Do
View backup content in
a separate window
Click
Recover
Click
View content.
In the Backup Content window, examine the backup content.
Recover.
The Recover data (p. 127) page will be opened with the pre-selected backup as a
source.
Convert a disk/volume
backup to a virtual
machine
Right-click the disk backup, then select Convert to VM.
Validate a backup
Click
The Recover data (p. 127) page will be opened with the pre-selected backup as a
source. Select the location and the type of new virtual machine and then proceed as
with regular disk or volume recovery.
Validate.
The Validation (p. 232) 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. 236) page will be opened with the pre-selected backup as a source.
The export of a backup creates a new archive with a self-sufficient copy of the
backup in the location you specify.
Convert a backup to full
Click
Convert to full backup to replace the incremental or differential backup
with a full backup for the same point in time. See "Converting a backup to full" (p.
246) for more information.
Delete a single or
multiple backups
Select one of the backups you want to delete, then click
Delete all archives and
backups in the vault
Please be aware that if filters have been applied to the vaults list, you see only a part
of the vault content. Be sure that the vault does not contain archives you need to
retain before starting the operation.
Delete.
The program duplicates your selection in the Backups deletion (p. 246) window that
has check boxes for each archive and each backup. Review the selection and correct
if need be (select the check boxes for the desired backups), then confirm the
deletion.
Click
Delete all.
The program duplicates your selection in the Backups deletion (p. 246) window that
has check boxes for each archive and each backup. Review the selection and correct
if need be, then confirm the deletion.
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8.4.3
Converting a backup to full
When the chain of incremental backups in an archive becomes long, conversion of an incremental
backup to a full one increases the reliability of your archive. You may also want to convert a
differential backup if there are incremental backups that depend on it.
During the conversion, the selected incremental or differential backup is replaced with a full backup
for the same point in time. The previous backups in the chain are not changed. All subsequent
incremental and differential backups up to the nearest full backup are also updated. The new backup
versions are created first and only after that are the old ones deleted. Therefore, the location must
have enough space to temporarily store both the old and the new versions.
Example
You have the following backup chain in your archive:
F1 I2 I3 I4 D5 I6 I7 I8 F9 I10 I11 D12 F13
Here F means full backup, I -incremental, D - differential.
You convert to full the I4 backup. The I4, D5, I6, I7, I8 backups will be updated, while I10 I11 D12 will
remain unchanged, because they depend on F9.
Tips on usage
Conversion does not create a copy of a backup. To obtain a self-sufficient copy of the backup on a
flash drive or removable media, use the export (p. 236) operation.
When you mount an image (p. 241) in the read/write mode, the software creates an incremental
backup containing the changes you make to the backup content. The subsequent backups do not
contain these changes. Naturally, if you convert any of the subsequent backups to full, none of these
changes will appear in the resulting full backup.
Limitations
Conversion is not allowed for the following backups:
Backups stored on tapes, CD/DVD, or in Acronis Cloud Storage.
Backups that have simplified names (p. 72).
Backups of Microsoft Exchange Server data.
8.4.4
Deleting archives and backups
The Backups deletion window displays the same tab as for the vaults view, but with check boxes for
each archive and backup. The archive or backup you have chosen to delete has the check mark.
Review the archive or backup that you have selected to delete. If you need to delete other archives
and backups select the respective check boxes, then click Delete selected and confirm the deletion.
What happens if I delete a backup that is a base of an incremental or differential backup?
To preserve archive consistency, the program will consolidate the two backups. For example, you
delete a full backup but retain the next incremental one. The backups will be combined into a single
full backup which will be dated the incremental backup date. When you delete an incremental or
differential backup from the middle of the chain, the resulting backup type will be incremental.
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Please be aware that consolidation is just a method of deletion but not an alternative to deletion.
The resulting backup will not contain data that was present in the deleted backup and was absent
from the retained incremental or differential backup.
There should be enough space in the vault for temporary files created during consolidation. Backups
resulting from consolidation always have maximum compression.
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9 Bootable media
Bootable media
Bootable media is physical media (CD, DVD, USB flash drive or other removable media supported by
a machine BIOS as a boot device) that boots on any PC-compatible machine and enables you to run
Acronis Backup Agent either in a Linux-based environment or Windows Preinstallation Environment
(WinPE), without the help of an operating system. Bootable media is most often used to:
recover an operating system that cannot start
access and back up the data that has survived in a corrupted system
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 machine can be booted into the above environments either with physical media, or using the
network boot from Acronis PXE Server, Windows Deployment Services (WDS) or Remote Installation
Services (RIS). These servers with uploaded bootable components can be thought of as a kind of
bootable media too. You can create bootable media or configure the PXE server or WDS/RIS using
the same wizard.
Linux-based bootable media
Linux-based media contains Acronis Backup Bootable Agent based on Linux kernel. The agent can
boot and perform operations on any PC-compatible hardware, including bare metal and machines
with corrupted or non-supported file systems. The operations can be configured and controlled
either locally or remotely using the management console.
A list of hardware supported by Linux-based media is available in the following Acronis Knowledge
Base article: https://kb.acronis.com/content/55310.
PE-based bootable media
PE-based bootable media contains a minimal Windows system called Windows Preinstallation
Environment (WinPE) and Acronis Plug-in for WinPE, that is, a modification of Acronis Backup Agent
that can run in the preinstallation environment.
WinPE proved to be the most convenient bootable solution in large environments with
heterogeneous hardware.
Advantages:
Using Acronis Backup in Windows Preinstallation Environment provides more functionality than
using Linux-based bootable media. Having booted PC-compatible hardware into WinPE, you can
use not only Acronis Backup Agent, but also PE commands and scripts and other plug-ins you've
added to the PE.
PE-based bootable media helps overcome some Linux-related bootable media issues such as
support for certain RAID controllers or certain levels of RAID arrays only. Media based on WinPE
2.x and later enable dynamic loading of the necessary device drivers.
Limitations:
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Bootable media based on WinPE versions earlier than 4.0 cannot boot on machines that use
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).
When a machine is booted with a PE-based bootable media, you cannot select optical media
such as CD, DVD, or Blu-ray Discs (BD) as a backup destination.
9.1
How to create bootable media
Acronis offers a dedicated tool for creating bootable media, Acronis Bootable Media Builder.
Bootable Media Builder does not require a license if installed together with an agent. To use a media
builder on a machine without an agent, you need to enter the license key or have at least one license
on the license server. The license may be either available or assigned.
To enable creating physical media, the machine must have a CD/DVD recording drive or allow a flash
drive to be attached. To enable PXE or WDS/RIS configuration, the machine must have a network
connection. Bootable Media Builder can also create an ISO image of a bootable disk to burn it later
on a blank disk.
The following are instructions for creating bootable media.
9.1.1
Linux-based bootable media
To create a Linux-based bootable media
1. Start the Bootable Media Builder either from the management console, by selecting Tools >
Create Bootable Media, or as a separate component.
2. Select Bootable media type: Default (Linux-based media).
Select the way volumes and network resources will be handled—called the media style:
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.
3. Follow the wizard steps to specify the following:
a. [Optional] The parameters of the Linux kernel. Separate multiple parameters with spaces.
For example, to be able to select a display mode for the bootable agent each time the media
starts, type: vga=ask
For a list of parameters, see Kernel parameters (p. 250).
b. The Acronis bootable components to be placed on the media.
You can select 32-bit and/or 64-bit components. The 32-bit components can work on 64-bit
hardware. However, you need 64-bit components to boot a machine that uses Unified
Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).
To use the media on different types of hardware, select both types of components. When
booting a machine from the resulting media, you will be able to select 32-bit or 64-bit
components on the boot menu.
c. [Optional] The timeout interval for the boot menu plus the component that will
automatically start on timeout.
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operating system (if present) or the Acronis component.
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If you set, say, 10 sec. for the bootable agent, the agent will launch 10 seconds after the
menu is displayed. This enables unattended onsite operation when booting from a PXE
server or WDS/RIS.
d. [Optional] Remote logon settings:
User name and password to be entered on the console side at the connection to the
agent. If you leave these boxes empty, the connection will be enabled without specifying
credentials.
e. [Optional] Network settings (p. 252):
f.
TCP/IP settings to be assigned to the machine network adapters.
[Optional] Network port (p. 253):
The TCP port that the bootable agent listens for incoming connection.
g. Licenses to be used:
If Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux is not installed on the machine, specify the license
key or the license server with licenses. The licenses will not get assigned or reassigned. They
determine which functionality to enable for the created media. Without a license, you can
create media only for recovery from the cloud storage.
If Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux is installed on the machine, the media inherits its
functionality.
h. The type of media to create. You can:
i.
Create CD, DVD or other bootable media such as removable USB flash drives if the
hardware BIOS allows for boot from such media
Build an ISO image of a bootable disc to burn it later on a blank disc
Upload the selected components to Acronis PXE Server
Upload the selected components to a WDS/RIS.
Path to the media ISO file or the name or IP and credentials for PXE or WDS/RIS.
9.1.1.1
Kernel parameters
This window lets you specify one or more parameters of the Linux kernel. They will be automatically
applied when the bootable media starts.
These parameters are typically used when experiencing problems while working with the bootable
media. Normally, you can leave this field empty.
You can also 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.
noapic
Disables Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC). You may want to use this
parameter when experiencing problems with a particular hardware configuration.
vga=ask
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Prompts for the video mode to be used by the bootable media's graphical user interface.
Without the vga parameter, the video mode is detected automatically.
vga=mode_number
Specifies the video mode to be used by the bootable media's graphical user interface. The mode
number is given by mode_number in the hexadecimal format—for example: vga=0x318
Screen resolution and the number of colors corresponding to a mode number may be different
on different machines. We recommend using the vga=ask parameter first to choose a value for
mode_number.
quiet
Disables displaying of startup messages when the Linux kernel is loading, and starts the
management console after the kernel is loaded.
This parameter is implicitly specified when creating the bootable media, but you can remove this
parameter while in the boot menu.
Without this parameter, all startup messages will be displayed, followed by a command prompt.
To start the management console from the command prompt, run the command: /bin/product
nousb
Disables loading of the USB (Universal Serial Bus) subsystem.
nousb2
Disables USB 2.0 support. USB 1.1 devices still work with this parameter. This parameter allows
you to use some USB drives in the USB 1.1 mode if they do not work in the USB 2.0 mode.
nodma
Disables direct memory access (DMA) for all IDE hard disk drives. Prevents the kernel from
freezing on some hardware.
nofw
Disables the FireWire (IEEE1394) interface support.
nopcmcia
Disables detection of PCMCIA hardware.
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. You may want
to use this parameter when the bootable media fails to start, which may be caused by the BIOS.
pci=biosirq
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Uses PCI BIOS calls to get the interrupt routing table. You may want to use this parameter if the
kernel is unable to allocate interrupt requests (IRQs) or discover secondary PCI buses on the
motherboard.
These calls might not work properly on some machines. But this may be the only way to get the
interrupt routing table.
9.1.1.2
Network settings
While creating Acronis bootable media, you have an option to pre-configure network connections
that will be used by the bootable agent. The following parameters can be pre-configured:
IP address
Subnet mask
Gateway
DNS server
WINS server.
Once the bootable agent starts on a machine, the configuration is applied to the machine’s network
interface card (NIC). If the settings have not been pre-configured, the agent uses DHCP auto
configuration. You also have the ability to configure the network settings manually when the
bootable agent is running on the machine.
Pre-configuring multiple network connections
You can pre-configure TCP/IP settings for up to ten network interface cards. To ensure that each NIC
will be assigned the appropriate settings, create the media on the server for which the media is
customized. When you select an existing NIC in the wizard window, its settings are selected for
saving on the media. The MAC address of each existing NIC is also saved on the media.
You can change the settings, except for the MAC address; or configure the settings for a non-existent
NIC, if need be.
Once the bootable agent starts on the server, it retrieves the list of available NICs. This list is sorted
by the slots the NICs occupy: the closest to the processor on top.
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
non-assigned NIC.
You can customize bootable media for any machine, and not only for the machine where the media
is created. To do so, configure the NICs according to their slot order on that machine: NIC1 occupies
the slot closest to the processor, NIC2 is in the next slot and so on. When the bootable agent starts
on that machine, it will find no NICs with known MAC addresses and will configure the NICs in the
same order as you did.
Example
The bootable agent could use one of the network adapters for communication with the management
console through the production network. Automatic configuration could be done for this connection.
Sizeable data for recovery could be transferred through the second NIC, included in the dedicated
backup network by means of static TCP/IP settings.
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9.1.1.3
Network port
While creating bootable media, you have an option to pre-configure the network port that the
bootable agent listens for incoming connection. The choice is available between:
the default port
the currently used port
the new port (enter the port number).
If the port has not been pre-configured, the agent uses the default port number (9876.) This port is
also used as default by the Acronis Backup Management Console.
9.1.2
WinPE-based bootable media
Bootable Media Builder provides three methods of integrating Acronis Backup with WinPE:
Adding the Acronis Plug-in to the existing PE ISO. This comes in handy when you have to add the
plug-in to the previously configured PE ISO that is already in use.
Creating the PE ISO with the plug-in from scratch.
Adding the Acronis Plug-in to a WIM file for any future purpose (manual ISO building, adding
other tools to the image and so on).
Bootable Media Builder supports WinPE distributions that are based on any the following kernels:
Windows Vista (PE 2.0)
Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 (PE 2.1)
Windows 7 (PE 3.0) with or without the supplement for Windows 7 SP1 (PE 3.1)
Windows 8 (PE 4.0)
Windows 8.1 (PE 5.0)
Bootable Media Builder supports both 32-bit and 64-bit WinPE distributions. The 32-bit WinPE
distributions can also work on 64-bit hardware. However, you need a 64-bit distribution to boot a
machine that uses Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).
PE images based on WinPE 4 and later require approximately 1 GB of RAM to work.
9.1.2.1
Preparation: WinPE 2.x and 3.x
To be able to create or modify PE 2.x or 3.x images, install Bootable Media Builder on a machine
where Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) is installed. If you do not have a machine with AIK,
prepare it as follows.
To prepare a machine with AIK
1. Download and install Windows Automated Installation Kit.
Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows Vista (PE 2.0):
http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C7D4BC6D-15F3-4284-9123-67983
0D629F2&displaylang=en
Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 (PE 2.1):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=94bb6e34-d890-4932-81a5-5b50c
657de08&DisplayLang=en
Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows 7 (PE 3.0):
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=696DD665-9F76-4177-A811-39C26
D3B3B34&displaylang=en
Automated Installation Kit (AIK) Supplement for Windows 7 SP1 (PE 3.1):
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5188
You can find system requirements for installation by following the above links.
[Optional] Burn the WAIK to DVD or copy to a flash drive.
Install the Microsoft .NET Framework from this kit (NETFXx86 or NETFXx64, depending on your
hardware).
Install Microsoft Core XML (MSXML) 5.0 or 6.0 Parser from this kit.
Install Windows AIK from this kit.
Install Bootable Media Builder on the same machine.
It is recommended that you familiarize yourself with the help documentation supplied with Windows
AIK. To access the documentation, select Microsoft Windows AIK -> Documentation from the start
menu.
9.1.2.2
Preparation: WinPE 4.0 and WinPE 5.0
To be able to create or modify PE 4 or 5 images, install Bootable Media Builder on a machine where
Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) is installed. If you do not have a machine with ADK,
prepare it as follows.
To prepare a machine with ADK
1. Download the setup program of Assessment and Deployment Kit.
Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows 8 (PE 4.0):
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30652.
Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows 8.1 (PE 5.0):
http://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=39982.
You can find system requirements for installation by following the above links.
2. Install Assessment and Deployment Kit on the machine.
3. Install Bootable Media Builder on the same machine.
9.1.2.3
Adding Acronis Plug-in to WinPE
To add Acronis Plug-in to WinPE ISO:
1. When adding the plug-in to the existing WinPE ISO, unpack all files of your WinPE ISO to a
separate folder on the hard disk.
2. Start the Bootable Media Builder either from the management console, by selecting Tools >
Create Bootable Media, or as a separate component.
3. If Agent for Windows is not installed on the machine, specify the license key or the license server
with licenses. The licenses will not get assigned or reassigned. They determine which
functionality to enable for the created media. Without a license, you can create media only for
recovery from the cloud storage.
If Agent for Windows is installed on the machine, the media inherits its functionality, including
deduplication.
4. Select Bootable media type: Windows PE.
When creating a new PE ISO:
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[Optional] To create a 64-bit bootable media, select the Create x64 media check box, if
available. A 64-bit media is required to boot a machine that uses Unified Extensible Firmware
Interface (UEFI).
The software runs the appropriate script and proceeds to the next window.
When adding the plug-in to the existing PE ISO:
Select Use WinPE files located in the folder I specify.
Click Add and specify the path to the necessary *.inf file for a corresponding SCSI, RAID, SATA
controller, network adapter, tape drive or other device.
Specify path to the folder where the WinPE files are located.
5. [Optional] Select whether to enable or disable remote connections to a machine booted from the
media. If enabled, specify the user name and password to be entered on the console side at the
connection to the agent. If you leave these boxes empty, the connection will be disabled.
6. Specify network settings (p. 252) for the machine network adapters or choose DHCP auto
configuration.
7. [Optional] Specify the Windows drivers to be added to Windows PE.
Once you boot a machine into Windows PE, the drivers can help you access the device where the
backup archive is located. Add 32-bit drivers if you use a 32-bit WinPE distribution or 64-bit
drivers if you use a 64-bit WinPE distribution.
To add the drivers:
8.
9.
10.
11.
Repeat this procedure for each driver you want to be included in the resulting WinPE boot
media.
Choose whether you want to create ISO or WIM image or upload the media on a server (Acronis
PXE Server, WDS or RIS).
Specify the full path to the resulting image file including the file name, or specify the server and
provide the user name and password to access it.
Check your settings in the summary screen and click Proceed.
Burn the .ISO to CD or DVD using a third-party tool or copy to a flash drive.
Once a machine boots into WinPE, Acronis Backup starts automatically.
To create a PE image (ISO file) from the resulting WIM file:
replace the default boot.wim file in your Windows PE folder with the newly created WIM file. For
the above example, type:
copy c:\AcronisMedia.wim c:\winpe_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim
use the Oscdimg tool. For the above example, type:
oscdimg -n -bc:\winpe_x86\etfsboot.com c:\winpe_x86\ISO
c:\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.iso
(Do not copy and paste this example. Type the command manually, otherwise it will fail.)
For more information on customizing Windows PE, see the Windows Preinstallation Environment
User’s Guide (Winpe.chm).
9.2
Connecting to a machine booted from media
Once a machine boots from bootable media, the machine terminal displays a startup window with
the IP address(es) obtained from DHCP or set according to the pre-configured values.
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Configuring network settings
To change the network settings for a current session, click Configure network in the startup window.
The Network Settings window that appears will allow you to configure network settings for each
network interface card (NIC) of the machine.
Changes made during a session will be lost after the machine reboots.
Adding VLANs
In the Network Settings window, you can add virtual local area networks (VLANs). Use this
functionality if you need access to a backup location that is included in a specific VLAN.
VLANs are mainly used to divide a local area network into segments. A NIC that is connected to an
access port of the switch always has access to the VLAN specified in the port configuration. A NIC
connected to a trunk port of the switch can access the VLANs allowed in the port configuration only if
you specify the VLANs in the network settings.
To enable access to a VLAN via a trunk port
1. Click Add VLAN.
2. Select the NIC that provides access to the local area network that includes the required VLAN.
3. Specify the VLAN identifier.
After you click OK, a new entry appears in the list of network adapters.
If you need to remove a VLAN, click the required VLAN entry, and then click Remove VLAN.
Local connection
To operate directly on the machine booted from bootable media, click Manage this machine locally
in the startup window.
Remote connection
To connect a management console to a remote machine booted from bootable media, select
Connect > Manage a remote machine in the console menu, and then specify one of the machine's IP
addresses. Provide the user name and password if these were configured when creating the bootable
media.
9.3
Working under bootable media
Operations on a machine booted with bootable media are very similar to backup and recovery under
the operating system. The difference is as follows:
1. Under a Windows-style bootable media, a volume has the same drive letter as in Windows.
Volumes that do not have drive letters in Windows (such as the System Reserved volume) are
assigned free letters in order of their sequence on the disk.
If the bootable media cannot detect Windows on the machine or detects more than one of them,
all volumes, including those without drive letters, are assigned letters in order of their sequence
on the disk. This way, the volume letters may differ from those seen in Windows. For example,
the D: drive under the bootable media 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...).
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3. Backups created using bootable media have simplified file names (p. 72). Standard names are
assigned to the backups only if these are added to an existing archive with standard file naming,
or if the destination does not support simplified file names.
4. The Linux-style bootable media cannot write a backup to an NTFS-formatted volume. Switch to
the Windows style if you need to do so.
5. You can switch the bootable media between the Windows style and the Linux style by selecting
Tools > Change volume representation.
6. There is no Navigation tree in the media GUI. Use the Navigation menu item to navigate
between views.
7. Tasks cannot be scheduled; in fact, tasks are not created at all. If you need to repeat the
operation, configure it from scratch.
8. The log lifetime is limited to the current session. You can save the entire log or the filtered log
entries to a file.
9. Centralized vaults are not displayed in the folder tree of the Archive window.
To access a managed vault, type the following string in the Path field:
bsp://node_address/vault_name/
To access an unmanaged centralized vault, type the full path to the vault's folder.
After entering access credentials, you will see a list of archives located in the vault.
9.3.1
Setting up a display mode
For a machine booted from media, a display video mode is detected automatically based on the
hardware configuration (monitor and graphics card specifications). If, for some reason, the video
mode is detected incorrectly, do the following:
1. In the boot menu, press F11.
2. Add to the command prompt the following command: vga=ask, and then proceed with booting.
3. From the list of supported video modes, choose the appropriate one by typing its number (for
example, 318), and then press ENTER.
If you do not wish to follow this procedure every time you boot from media on a given hardware
configuration, re-create the bootable media with the appropriate mode number (in our example,
vga=0x318) typed in the Kernel parameters window (see the Bootable Media Builder (p. 249) section
for details).
9.3.2
Configuring iSCSI and NDAS devices
This section describes how to configure Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) devices and
Network Direct Attached Storage (NDAS) devices when working under bootable media.
These devices are connected to the machine through a network interface and appear as if they were
locally-attached devices. On the network, an iSCSI device is identified by its IP address, and an NDAS
device is identified by its device ID.
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.
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2. Click Configure iSCSI/NDAS devices (in a Linux-based media) or Run the iSCSI Setup (in a
PE-based media).
3. Specify the IP address and port of the iSCSI device's host, and the name of the iSCSI initiator.
4. If the host requires authentication, specify the user name and password for it.
5. Click OK.
6. Select the iSCSI device from the list, and then click Connect.
7. If prompted, specify the user name and password to access the iSCSI device.
To add an NDAS device
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
In a Linux-based bootable media, run the management console.
Click Configure iSCSI/NDAS devices.
In NDAS devices, click Add device.
Specify the 20-character device ID.
If you want to allow writing data onto the device, specify the five-character write key. Without
this key, the device will be available in the read-only mode.
6. Click OK.
9.4
List of commands and utilities available in
Linux-based bootable media
Linux-based bootable media contains the following commands and command line utilities, which you
can use when running a command shell. To start the command shell, press CTRL+ALT+F2 while in the
bootable media's management console.
Acronis command-line utilities
acrocmd (only in 64-bit media)
acronis
asamba
Linux commands and utilities
busybox
init
reboot
cat
insmod
rm
cdrecord
iscsiadm
rmmod
chmod
kill
route
chroot
kpartx
scp
cp
ln
scsi_id
dd
ls
sed
df
lspci
sg_map26
dmesg
lvm
sh
dmraid
mdadm
sleep
e2fsck
mkdir
ssh
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e2label
mke2fs
sshd
echo
mknod
strace
egrep
mkswap
swapoff
fdisk
more
swapon
fxload
mount
sysinfo
gawk
mtx
tar
gpm
mv
tune2fs
grep
pccardctl
umount
growisofs
ping
uuidgen
gunzip
pktsetup
vconfig
halt
poweroff
vi
hexdump
ps
zcat
hotplug
raidautorun
ifconfig
readcd
9.5
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is a modification of the bootable agent (p. 431), residing on the
system disk in Windows, or on the /boot partition in Linux and configured to start at boot time on
pressing F11. It eliminates the need for a separate media or network connection to start the
bootable rescue utility.
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is especially useful for mobile users. If a failure occurs, reboot the
machine, wait for the prompt "Press F11 for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager…" to appear, and hit
F11. The program will start and you can perform recovery.
You can also back up using Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, while on the move.
On machines with the GRUB boot loader installed, you select the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager
from the boot menu instead of pressing F11.
Activate
Activation enables the boot time prompt "Press F11 for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager…" (if you
do not have the GRUB boot loader) or adds the "Acronis Startup Recovery Manager" item to GRUB's
menu (if you have GRUB).
The system disk (or, the /boot partition in Linux) should have at least 100 MB of free space to activate Acronis
Startup Recovery Manager.
Unless you use the GRUB boot loader and it is installed in the Master Boot Record (MBR), Acronis
Startup Recovery Manager activation overwrites the MBR with its own boot code. Thus, you may
need to reactivate third-party boot loaders if they are installed.
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Under Linux, when using a boot loader other than GRUB (such as LILO), consider installing it to a
Linux root (or boot) partition boot record instead of the MBR before activating Acronis Startup
Recovery Manager. Otherwise, reconfigure the boot loader manually after the activation.
Do not activate
Disables boot time prompt "Press F11 for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager…" (or, the menu item in
GRUB). If Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is not activated, you will need one of the following to
recover the system when it fails to boot:
boot the machine from a separate bootable rescue media
use network boot from Acronis PXE Server or Microsoft Remote Installation Services (RIS).
9.6
Acronis PXE Server
Acronis PXE Server allows for booting machines to Acronis bootable components through the
network.
Network booting:
eliminates the need to have a technician onsite to install the bootable media into the system that
must be booted
during group operations, reduces the time required for booting multiple machines as compared
to using physical bootable media.
Bootable components are uploaded to Acronis PXE Server using Acronis Bootable Media Builder. To
upload bootable components, start the Bootable Media Builder (either from the management
console, by selecting Tools > Create bootable media or as a separate component) and follow the
step-by-step instructions described in the "Bootable Media Builder (p. 249)" section.
Booting multiple machines from the Acronis PXE Server makes sense if there is a Dynamic Host
Control Protocol (DHCP) server on your network. Then the network interfaces of the booted
machines will automatically obtain IP addresses.
Limitation:
Acronis PXE Server does not support UEFI boot loader.
9.6.1
Acronis PXE Server Installation
To install Acronis PXE Server
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Run the Acronis Backup Advanced setup program.
Click Install Acronis Backup.
Accept the terms of the license agreement.
Select the I want to manually select the Acronis components… check box.
In the components tree, under Other components, select the PXE Server check box.
Follow the onscreen instructions.
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.
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9.6.2
Setting up a machine to boot from PXE
For bare metal, it is enough that the machine’s BIOS supports network booting.
On a machine that has an operating system on the hard disk, the BIOS must be configured so that the
network interface card is either the first boot device, or at least prior to the Hard Drive device. The
example below shows one of reasonable BIOS configurations. If you don’t insert bootable media, the
machine will boot from the network.
In some BIOS versions, you have to save changes to BIOS after enabling the network interface card so
that the card appears in the list of boot devices.
If the hardware has multiple network interface cards, make sure that the card supported by the BIOS
has the network cable plugged in.
9.6.3
Work across subnets
To enable the Acronis PXE Server to work in another subnet (across the switch), configure the switch
to relay the PXE traffic. The PXE server IP addresses are configured on a per-interface basis using IP
helper functionality in the same way as DHCP server addresses. For more information please refer to:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/257579.
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10 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 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. In such case
with the help of Acronis Disk Director Lite, the user has the possibility to recreate the necessary disk
configuration so that the volume image can be recovered exactly “as it was” or with any alteration of
the disk or volume structure the user might consider necessary.
All operations on disks and volumes involve a certain risk of data damage. Operations on system, bootable or
data volumes must be carried out very carefully to avoid potential problems with the booting process or hard
disk data storage.
Operations with hard disks and volumes take a certain amount of time, and any power loss, unintentional
turning off of the machine or accidental pressing of the Reset button during the procedure could result in
volume damage and data loss.
All operations on volumes of dynamic disks in Windows XP require Acronis Managed Machine Service to be run
under an account with administrator's rights.
Please take all necessary precautions (p. 262) to avoid possible data loss.
10.1 Supported file systems
Acronis Disk Director Lite supports the following file systems:
FAT 16/32
NTFS
If it is necessary to perform an operation on a volume with a different file system, use the full version
of Acronis Disk Director. It provides more tools and utilities to manage disks and volumes with the
following file systems:
FAT 16/32
NTFS
Ext2
Ext3
HFS+
HFSX
ReiserFS
JFS
Linux SWAP
10.2 Basic precautions
To avoid any possible disk and volume structure damage or data loss, please take all necessary
precautions and follow these simple rules:
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1. Back up the disk on which volumes will be created or managed. Having your most important data
backed up to another hard disk, network share or removable media will allow you to work on
disk volumes being reassured that your data is safe.
2. Test your disk to make sure it is fully functional and does not contain bad sectors or file system
errors.
3. Do not perform any disk/volume operations while running other software that has low-level disk
access. Close these programs before running Acronis Disk Director Lite.
With these simple precautions, you will protect yourself against accidental data loss.
10.3 Running Acronis Disk Director Lite
You can run Acronis Disk Director Lite in Windows or under bootable media.
Limitations.
Acronis Disk Director Lite is not available under Windows 8/8.1, Windows Server 2012/2012 R2,
Windows 10, and Windows Server 2016.
Disk management operations under bootable media may work incorrectly if storage spaces are
configured on the machine.
Running Acronis Disk Director Lite under Windows
If you run Acronis Backup Management Console, and connect it to a managed machine, the Disk
management view will be available in the Navigation tree of the console, with which you can start
Acronis Disk Director Lite.
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
non-Windows machine. To do so, boot the machine from a bootable media (p. 431) created with the
Acronis Bootable Media Builder; run the management console and then click Disk management.
10.4 Choosing the operating system for disk management
On a machine with two or more operating systems, representation of disks and volumes depends on
which operating system is currently running.
A volume may have a different letter in different Windows operating systems. For example, volume
E: might appear as D: or L: when you boot another Windows operating system installed on the same
machine. (It is also possible that this volume will have the same letter E: under any Windows OS
installed on the machine.)
A dynamic disk created in one Windows operating system is considered as a Foreign Disk in another
Windows operating system or might be unsupported by this operating system.
When you need to perform a disk management operation on such machine, it is necessary to specify
for which operating system the disk layout will be displayed and the disk management operation will
be performed.
The name of the currently selected operating system is shown on the console toolbar after “The
current disk layout is for:”. Click the OS name to select another operating system in the Operating
System Selection window. Under bootable media, this window appears after clicking Disk
management. The disk layout will be displayed according to the operating system you select.
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10.5 "Disk management" view
Acronis Disk Director Lite is controlled through the Disk management view of the console.
The top part of the view contains a disks and volumes table enabling data sorting and columns
customization and toolbar. The table presents the numbers of the disks, as well as assigned letter,
label, type, capacity, free space size, used space size, file system, and status for each volume. The
toolbar comprises of icons to launch the Undo, Redo and Commit actions intended for pending
operations (p. 277).
The graphic panel at the bottom of the view also graphically depicts all the disks and their volumes as
rectangles with basic data on them (label, letter, size, status, type and file system).
Both parts of the view also depict all unallocated disk space that can be used in volume creation.
Starting the operations
Any operation can be launched:
From the volume or disk context menu (both in the table and the graphic panel)
From the Disk management menu of the console
From the Operations bar on the Actions and Tools pane
Note that the list of available operations in the context menu, the Disk management menu, and the
Operations bar depends on the selected volume or disk type. The same is true for unallocated space as well.
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.
10.6 Disk operations
Acronis Disk Director Lite includes the following operations that can be performed on disks:
Disk Initialization (p. 265) - initializes the new hardware added to the system
Basic disk cloning (p. 265) - transfers complete data from the source basic MBR disk to the target
Disk conversion: MBR to GPT (p. 267) - converts an MBR partition table to GPT
Disk conversion: GPT to MBR (p. 268) - converts a GPT partition table to MBR
Disk conversion: Basic to Dynamic (p. 268) - converts a basic disk to dynamic
Disk conversion: Dynamic to Basic (p. 269) - converts a dynamic disk to basic
The full version of Acronis Disk Director will provide more tools and utilities for working with disks.
Acronis Disk Director Lite must obtain exclusive access to the target disk. This means no other disk management
utilities (like Windows Disk Management utility) can access it at that time. If you receive a message stating that
the disk cannot be blocked, close the disk management applications that use this disk and start again. If you
cannot determine which applications use the disk, close them all.
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10.6.1 Disk initialization
If you add any new disk to your machine, Acronis Disk Director Lite will notice the configuration
change and scan the added disk to include it to the disk and volume list. If the disk is still not
initialized or, possibly, has a file structure unknown to the machine system, that means that no
programs can be installed on it and you will not be able to store any files there.
Acronis Disk Director Lite will detect that the disk is unusable by the system and needs to be
initialized. The Disk management view will show the newly detected hardware as a gray block with a
grayed icon, thus indicating that the disk is unusable by the system.
If you need to initialize a disk:
1. Select a disk to initialize.
2. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Initialize in the context menu. You will be
forwarded to the Disk Initialization window, that will provide the basic hardware details such as
the disk’s number, capacity and state to aid you in the choice of your possible action.
3. In the window, you will be able to set the disk partitioning scheme (MBR or GPT) and the disk
type (basic or dynamic). The new disk state will be graphically represented in the Disk
Management view of the console immediately.
4. By clicking OK, you'll add a pending operation of the disk initialization.
(To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 277) it. Exiting the program without
committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.)
After the initialization, all the disk space remains unallocated and so still impossible to be used for
program installation or file storage. To be able to use it, proceed normally to the Create volume
operation.
If you decide to change the disk settings it can be done later using the standard Acronis Disk Director Lite disk
tools.
10.6.2 Basic disk cloning
Sometimes it is necessary to transfer all the disk data onto a new disk. It can be a case of expanding
the system volume, starting a new system layout or disk evacuation due to a hardware fault. In any
case, the reason for the Clone basic disk operation can be summed up as the necessity to transfer all
the source disk data to a target disk exactly as it is.
Acronis Disk Director Lite allows the operation to be carried out to basic MBR disks only.
To plan the Clone basic disk operation:
1. Select a disk you want to clone.
2. Select a disk as target for the cloning operation.
3. Select a cloning method and specify advanced options.
The new volume structure will be graphically represented in the Disk management view
immediately.
It is advisable that you deactivate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (p. 429) (ASRM), if it is active, before
cloning a system disk. Otherwise the cloned operating system might not boot. You can activate the ASRM again
after the cloning is completed. If deactivation is not possible, choose the As is method to clone the disk.
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10.6.2.1
Selecting source and target disks
The program displays a list of partitioned disks and asks the user to select the source disk, from
which data will be transferred to another disk.
The next step is selection of a disk as target for the cloning operation. The program enables the user
to select a disk if its size will be sufficient to hold all the data from the source disk without any loss.
If there is some data on the disk that was chosen as the target, the user will receive a warning: “The
selected target disk is not empty. The data on its volumes will be overwritten.”, meaning that all
the data currently located on the chosen target disk will be lost irrevocably.
10.6.2.2
Cloning method and advanced options
The Clone basic disk operation usually means that the information from the source disk is
transferred to the target “As is”. So, if the destination disk is the same size and even if it is larger, it is
possible to transfer all the information there exactly as it is stored at the source.
But with the wide range of available hardware it is normal that the target disk would differ in size
from the source. If the destination is larger, then it would be advisable to resize the source disk
volumes to avoid leaving unallocated space on the target disk by selecting the Proportionally resize
volumes option. The option to Clone basic disk “as is” remains, but the default method of cloning
will be carried out with proportional enlargement of all the source disk volumes so that no
unallocated space remains on the target disk.
If the destination is smaller, then the As is option of cloning will be unavailable and proportional
resizing of the source disk volumes will be mandatory. The program analyzes the target disk to
establish whether its size will be sufficient to hold all the data from the source disk without any loss.
If such transfer with proportional resizing of the source disk volumes is possible, but without any
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.
(To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 277) it. Exiting the program without
committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.)
Using advanced options
When cloning a disk comprising of a system volume, you need to retain an operating system
bootability on the target disk volume. It means that the operating system must have the system
volume information (e.g. volume letter) matched with the disk NT signature, which is kept in the
MBR disk record. But two disks with the same NT signature cannot work properly under one
operating system.
If there are two disks having the same NT signature and comprising of a system volume on a machine, at the
startup the operating system runs from the first disk, discovers the same signature on the second one,
automatically generates a new unique NT signature and assigns it to the second disk. As a result, all the
volumes on the second disk will lose their letters, all paths will be invalid on the disk, and programs won't find
their files. The operating system on that disk will be unbootable.
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You have the following two alternatives to retain system bootability on the target disk volume:
1. Copy NT signature – to provide the target disk with the source disk NT signature matched with
the Registry keys also copied on the target disk.
2. Leave NT signature – to keep the old target disk signature and update the operating system
according to the signature.
If you need to copy the NT signature:
1. Select the Copy NT signature check box. You receive the warning: “If there is an operating
system on the hard disk, uninstall either the source or the target hard disk drive from your
machine prior to starting the machine again. Otherwise, the OS will start from the first of the two,
and the OS on the second disk will become unbootable.” The Turn off the machine after the
cloning operation check box is selected and disabled automatically.
2. Click Finish to add the pending operation.
3. Click Commit on the toolbar and then click Proceed in the Pending Operations window.
4. Wait until the operation is finished.
5. Wait until the machine is turned off.
6. Disconnect either the source or the target hard disk drive from the machine.
7. Start up the machine.
If you need to leave an NT signature:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Click to clear the Copy NT signature check box, if necessary.
Click to clear the Turn off the machine after the cloning operation check box, if necessary.
Click Finish to add the pending operation.
Click Commit on the toolbar and then click Proceed in the Pending Operations window.
Wait until the operation is finished.
10.6.3 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.
You will receive a warning window, stating that you are about to convert MBR into GPT.
3. By clicking OK, you'll add a pending operation of MBR to GPT disk conversion.
(To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 277) it. Exiting the program without
committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.)
Please note: A GPT-partitioned disk reserves the space in the end of the partitioned area necessary for the
backup area, which stores copies of the GPT header and the partition table. If the disk is full and the volume size
cannot be automatically decreased, the conversion operation of the MBR disk to GPT will fail.
The operation is irreversible. If you have a primary volume, belonging to an MBR disk, and convert the disk first
to GPT and then back to MBR, the volume will be logical and will not be able to be used as a system volume.
If you plan to install an OS that does not support GPT disks, the reverse conversion of the disk to
MBR is also possible through the same menu items the name of the operation will be listed as
Convert to MBR.
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Dynamic disk conversion: MBR to GPT
Acronis Disk Director Lite does not support direct MBR to GPT conversion for dynamic disks. However
you can perform the following conversions to reach the goal using the program:
1. MBR disk conversion: dynamic to basic (p. 269) using the Convert to basic operation.
2. Basic disk conversion: MBR to GPT using the Convert to GPT operation.
3. GPT disk conversion: basic to dynamic (p. 268) using the Convert to dynamic operation.
10.6.4 Disk conversion: GPT to MBR
If you plan to install an OS that does not support GPT disks, conversion of the GPT disk to MBR is
possible. The name of the operation will be listed as Convert to MBR.
If you need to convert a GPT disk to MBR:
1. Select a GPT disk to convert to MBR.
2. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Convert to MBR in the context menu.
You will receive a warning window, stating that you are about to convert GPT into MBR.
You will be explained the changes that will happen to the system after the chosen disk is
converted from GPT to MBR. E.g. if such conversion will stop a disk from being accessed by the
system, the operating system will stop loading after such conversion or some volumes on the
selected GPT disk will not be accessible with MBR (e.g. volumes located more than 2 TB from the
beginning of the disk) you will be warned here about such damage.
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. 277) it. Exiting the program without
committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.)
10.6.5 Disk conversion: basic to dynamic
You would want to convert a basic disk to dynamic in the following cases:
If you plan to use the disk as part of a dynamic disk group.
If you want to achieve additional disk reliability for data storage.
If you need to convert a basic disk to dynamic:
1. Select the basic disk to convert to dynamic.
2. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Convert to dynamic in the context menu. You
will receive a final warning about the basic disk being converted to dynamic.
3. If you click OK in this warning window, the conversion will be performed immediately and if
necessary, your machine will be restarted.
Please note: A dynamic disk occupies the last megabyte of the physical disk to store the database, including
the four-level description (Volume-Component-Partition-Disk) for each dynamic volume. If during the
conversion to dynamic it turns out that the basic disk is full and the size of its volumes cannot be decreased
automatically, the basic disk to dynamic conversion operation will fail.
Should you decide to revert your dynamic disks back to basic ones, e.g. if you want to start using an
OS on your machine that does not support dynamic disks, you can convert your disks using the same
menu items, though the operation now will be named Convert to basic.
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System disk conversion
Acronis Disk Director Lite does not require an operating system reboot after basic to dynamic
conversion of the disk, if:
1. There is a single Windows 2008/Vista operating system installed on the disk.
2. The machine runs this operating system.
Basic to dynamic conversion of the disk, comprising of system volumes, takes a certain amount of time, and any
power loss, unintentional turning off of the machine or accidental pressing of the Reset button during the
procedure could result in bootability loss.
In contrast to Windows Disk Manager the program ensures bootability of an offline operating
system on the disk after the operation.
10.6.6 Disk conversion: dynamic to basic
You would want to convert dynamic disks back to basic ones, e.g. if you want to start using an OS on
your machine that does not support dynamic disks.
If you need to convert a dynamic disk to basic:
1. Select the dynamic disk to convert to basic.
2. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Convert to basic in the context menu. You will
receive a final warning about the dynamic disk being converted to basic.
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. if such a conversion will stop the disk from being
accessed by the system, the operating system will stop loading after such conversion, or if the
disk you want to convert to basic contains any volumes of the types that are only supported by
dynamic disks (all volume types except Simple volumes), then you will be warned here about the
possible damage to the data involved in the conversion.
Please note, the operation is unavailable for a dynamic disk containing Spanned, Striped, or RAID-5
volumes.
3. If you click OK in this warning window, the conversion will be performed immediately.
After the conversion the last 8Mb of disk space is reserved for the future conversion of the disk from
basic to dynamic.
In some cases the possible unallocated space and the proposed maximum volume size might differ
(e.g. when the size of one mirror establishes the size of the other mirror, or the last 8Mb of disk
space are reserved for the future conversion of the disk from basic to dynamic).
System disk conversion
Acronis Disk Director Lite does not require an operating system reboot after dynamic to basic
conversion of the disk, if:
1. There is a single Windows 2008/Vista operating system installed on the disk.
2. The machine runs this operating system.
Dynamic to basic conversion of the disk, comprising of system volumes, takes a certain amount of time, and any
power loss, unintentional turning off of the machine or accidental pressing of the Reset button during the
procedure could result in bootability loss.
In contrast to Windows Disk Manager the program ensures:
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safe conversion of a dynamic disk to basic when it contains volumes with data for simple and
mirrored volumes
in multiboot systems, bootability of a system that was offline during the operation
10.6.7 Changing disk status
Changing disk status is effective for Windows Vista SP1, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 operating
systems and applies to the current disk layout (p. 263).
One of the following disk statuses always appears in the graphical view of the disk next to the disk's
name:
Online
The online status means that a disk is accessible in the read-write mode. This is the normal disk
status. If you need a disk to be accessible in the read-only mode, select the disk and then change
its status to offline by selecting Change disk status to offline from the Operations menu.
Offline
The offline status means that a disk is accessible in the read-only mode. To bring the selected
offline disk back to online, select Change disk status to online from the Operations menu.
If the disk has the offline status and the disk's name is Missing, this means that the disk cannot
be located or identified by the operating system. It may be corrupted, disconnected, or powered
off. For information on how to bring a disk that is offline and missing back online, please refer to
the following Microsoft knowledge base article:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732026.aspx.
10.7 Volume operations
Acronis Disk Director Lite includes the following operations that can be performed on volumes:
Create Volume (p. 270) - Creates a new volume with the help of the Create Volume Wizard.
Change Letter (p. 275) - Changes the selected volume letter
Delete Volume (p. 274) - Deletes the selected volume.
Set Active (p. 275) - Sets the selected volume Active so that the machine will be able to boot with
the OS installed there.
Change Label (p. 275) - Changes the selected volume label
Format Volume (p. 276) - Formats a volume giving it the necessary file system
The full version of Acronis Disk Director will provide more tools and utilities for working with
volumes.
Acronis Disk Director Lite must obtain exclusive access to the target volume. This means no other disk
management utilities (like Windows Disk Management utility) can access it at that time. If you receive a
message stating that the volume cannot be blocked, close the disk management applications that use this
volume and start again. If you can not determine which applications use the volume, close them all.
10.7.1 Creating a volume
You might need a new volume to:
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Recover a previously saved backup copy in the “exactly as was” configuration;
Store collections of similar files separately — for example, an MP3 collection or video files on a
separate volume;
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Store backups (images) of other volumes/disks on a special volume;
Install a new operating system (or swap file) on a new volume;
Add new hardware to a machine.
In Acronis Disk Director Lite the tool for creating volumes is the Create volume Wizard.
10.7.1.1
Types of dynamic volumes
Simple Volume
A volume created from free space on a single physical disk. It can consist of one region on the
disk or several regions, virtually united by the Logical Disk Manager (LDM). It provides no
additional reliability, no speed improvement, nor extra size.
Spanned Volume
A volume created from free disk space virtually linked together by the LDM from several physical
disks. Up to 32 disks can be included into one volume, thus overcoming the hardware size
limitations, but if at least one disk fails, all data will be lost, and no part of a spanned volume may
be removed without destroying the entire volume. So, a spanned volume provides no additional
reliability, nor a better I/O rate.
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. Access to the data on a striped volume is usually
faster than access to the same data on a single physical disk, because the I/O is spread across
more than one disk.
Striped volumes are created for improved performance, not for their better reliability - they do
not contain redundant information.
Mirrored Volume
A fault-tolerant volume, also sometimes called RAID 1, whose data is duplicated on two identical
physical disks. All of the data on one disk is copied to another disk to provide data redundancy.
Almost any volume can be mirrored, including the system and boot volumes, and if one of the
disks fails, the data can still be accessed from the remaining disks. Unfortunately, the hardware
limitations on size and performance are even more severe with the use of mirrored volumes.
Mirrored-Striped Volume
A fault-tolerant volume, also sometimes called RAID 1+0, combining the advantage of the high
I/O speed of the striped layout and redundancy of the mirror type. The evident disadvantage
remains inherent with the mirror architecture - a low disk-to-volume size ratio.
RAID-5
A fault-tolerant volume whose data is striped across an array of three or more disks. The disks do
not need to be identical, but there must be equally sized blocks of unallocated space available on
each disk in the volume. Parity (a calculated value that can be used to reconstruct data in case of
failure) is also striped across the disk array. And it is always stored on a different disk than the
data itself. If a physical disk fails, the portion of the RAID-5 volume that was on that failed disk
can be re-created from the remaining data and the parity. A RAID-5 volume provides reliability
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and is able to overcome the physical disk size limitations with a higher than mirrored
disk-to-volume size ratio.
10.7.1.2
Create volume wizard
The Create volume wizard lets you create any type of volume (including system and active), select a
file system, label, assign a letter, and also provides other disk management functions.
Its pages will enable you to enter operation parameters, proceeding step-by-step further on and
return to any previous step if necessary to change any previously selected options. To help you with
your choices, each parameter is supplemented with detailed instructions.
If you want to create a volume:
Run the Create volume wizard by selecting Create volume on the Wizards bar, or right-click any
unallocated space and select Create volume in the appearing context menu.
Select the type of volume being created
At the first step you have to specify the type of volume you want to create. The following types of
volume are available:
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.
After you click the Next button, you will proceed forward to the next wizard page: Select destination
disks (p. 272).
Select destination disks
The next wizard page will prompt you to choose the disks, whose space will be used for the volume
creation.
To create a basic volume:
Select a destination disk and specify the unallocated space to create the basic volume on.
To create a Simple/Spanned volume:
Select one or more destination disks to create the volume on.
To create a Mirrored volume:
Select two destination disks to create the volume on.
To create a Striped volume:
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To create a RAID-5 volume:
Select three destination disks to create the volume on.
After you choose the disks, the wizard will calculate the maximum size of the resulting volume,
depending on the size of the unallocated space on the disks you chose and the requirements of the
volume type you have previously decided upon.
If you are creating a dynamic volume and select one or several basic disks, as its destination, you will
receive a warning that the selected disk will be converted to dynamic automatically.
If need be, you will be prompted to add the necessary number of disks to your selection, according to
the chosen type of the future volume.
If you click the Back button, you will be returned to the previous page: Select the type of volume
being created (p. 272).
If you click the Next button, you will proceed to the next page: Set the volume size (p. 273).
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.
The maximum value normally includes the most possible unallocated space. But in some cases the
possible unallocated space and the proposed maximum volume size might differ (e.g. when the size
of one mirror establishes the size of the other mirror, or the last 8Mb of the disk space is reserved for
the future conversion of the disk from basic to dynamic).
For basic volumes if some unallocated space is left on the disk, you also will be able to choose the
position of the new volume on the disk.
If you click the Back button, you will be returned to the previous page: Select destination disks (p.
272).
If you click the Next button, you will proceed to the next page: Set the volume options (p. 273).
Set the volume options
On the next wizard page you can assign the volume Letter (by default - the first free letter of the
alphabet) and, optionally, a Label (by default – none). Here you will also specify the File system and
the Cluster size.
The wizard will prompt you to choose one of the Windows file systems: FAT16 (disabled, if the
volume size has been set at more than 2 GB), FAT32 (disabled, if the volume size has been set at
more than 2 TB), NTFS or to leave the volume Unformatted.
In setting the cluster size you can choose between any number in the preset amount for each file
system. Note, the program suggests the cluster size best suited to the volume with the chosen file
system.
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If you are creating a basic volume, which can be made into a system volume, this page will be
different, giving you the opportunity to select the volume Type — Primary (Active Primary) or
Logical.
Typically Primary is selected to install an operating system to a volume. Select the Active (default)
value if you want to install an operating system on this volume to boot at machine startup. If the
Primary button is not selected, the Active option will be inactive. If the volume is intended for data
storage, select Logical.
A Basic disk can contain up to four primary volumes. If they already exist, the disk will have to be converted into
dynamic, otherwise or Active and Primary options will be disabled and you will only be able to select the Logical
volume type. The warning message will advise you that an OS installed on this volume will not be bootable.
If you use characters when setting a new volume label that are unsupported by the currently installed operation
system, you will get the appropriate warning and the Next button will be disabled. You will have to change the
label to proceed with the creation of the new volume.
If you click the Back button, you will be returned to the previous page: Set the volume size (p. 273).
If you click the Finish button, you will complete the operation planning.
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.
10.7.2 Delete volume
This version of Acronis Disk Director Lite has reduced functionality because it is mainly a tool for
preparing bare-metal systems for recovering previously saved volume images. The features of resizing
the existing volumes and creating the new volumes, using free space from the existing ones, exist on
the full version of the software, so with this version deleting an existing volume sometimes might be
the only way to free the necessary disk space without changing the existing disk configuration.
After a volume is deleted, its space is added to unallocated disk space. It can be used for creation of a
new volume or to change another volume's type.
If you need to delete a volume:
1. Select a hard disk and a volume to be deleted.
2. Select Delete volume or a similar item in the Operations sidebar list, or click the Delete the
selected volume icon on the toolbar.
If the volume contains any data, you will receive the warning, that all the information on this volume will be
lost irrevocably.
3. By clicking OK in the Delete volume window, you'll add the pending operation of volume
deletion.
(To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 277) it. Exiting the program without
committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.)
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10.7.3 Set active volume
If you have several primary volumes, you must specify one to be the boot volume. For this, you can
set a volume to become active. A disk can have only one active volume, so if you set a volume as
active, the volume, which was active before, will be automatically unset.
If you need to set a volume active:
1. Select a primary volume on a basic MBR disk to set as active.
2. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Mark as active in the context menu.
If there is no other active volume in the system, the pending operation of setting active volume
will be added.
Please note, that due to setting the new active volume, the former active volume letter might be changed
and some of the installed programs might stop running.
3. If another active volume is present in the system, you will receive the warning that the previous
active volume will have to be set passive first. By clicking OK in the Warning window, you'll add
the pending operation of setting active volume.
Please note: even if you have the Operating System on the new active volume, in some cases the machine
will not be able to boot from it. You will have to confirm your decision to set the new volume as active.
(To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 277) it. Exiting the program without
committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.)
The new volume structure will be graphically represented in the Disk management view
immediately.
10.7.4 Change volume letter
Windows operating systems assign letters (C:, D:, etc) to hard disk volumes at startup. These letters
are used by applications and operating systems to locate files and folders in the volumes.
Connecting an additional disk, as well as creating or deleting a volume on existing disks, might
change your system configuration. As a result, some applications might stop working normally or
user files might not be automatically found and opened. To prevent this, you can manually change
the letters that are automatically assigned to the volumes by the operating system.
If you need to change a letter assigned to a volume by the operating system:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Select a volume to change a letter.
Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Change letter in the context menu.
Select a new letter in the Change Letter window.
By clicking OK in the Change Letter window, you'll add a pending operation to volume letter
assignment.
(To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 277) it. Exiting the program without
committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.)
The new volume structure will be graphically represented in the Disk management view
immediately.
10.7.5 Change volume label
The volume label is an optional attribute. It is a name assigned to a volume for easier recognition. For
example, one volume could be called SYSTEM — a volume with an operating system, or PROGRAM —
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an application volume, DATA — a data volume, etc., but it does not imply that only the type of data
stated with the label could be stored on such a volume.
In Windows, volume labels are shown in the Explorer disk and folder tree: LABEL1(C:), LABEL2(D:),
LABEL3(E:), etc. LABEL1, LABEL2 and LABEL3 are volume labels. A volume label is shown in all
application dialog boxes for opening and saving files.
If you need to change a volume label:
1. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Change label.
2. Enter a new label in the Change label window text field.
3. By clicking OK in the Change label window, you'll add the pending operation of changing the
volume label .
If when setting a new volume label you use characters that are unsupported by the currently installed
operating system, you will get the appropriate warning and the OK button will be disabled. You will have to
use only supported characters to proceed with changing the volume label.
(To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 277) it. Exiting the program without
committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.)
The new label will be graphically represented in the Disk Management view of the console
immediately.
10.7.6 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.
You will be forwarded to the Format Volume window, where you will be able to set the new file
system options. You can choose one of the Windows file systems: FAT16 (disabled, if the Volume
Size is more than 2 GB), FAT32 (disabled, if the Volume Size is more than 2 TB) or NTFS.
In the text window you will be able to enter the volume label, if necessary: by default this
window is empty.
In setting the cluster size you can choose between any number in the preset amount for each
file system. Note, the program suggests the cluster size best suited to the volume with the
chosen file system.
3. If you click OK to proceed with the Format Volume operation, you'll add a pending operation of
formatting a volume.
(To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 277) it. Exiting the program without
committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.)
The new volume structure will be graphically represented in the Disk management view.
If you set a 64K cluster size for FAT16/FAT32 or an 8KB-64KB cluster size for NTFS, Windows can mount the
volume, but some programs (e.g. Setup programs) might calculate its disk space incorrectly.
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10.8 Pending operations
All operations, which were prepared by the user in manual mode or with the aid of a wizard, are
considered pending until the user issues the specific command for the changes to be made
permanent. Until then, Acronis Disk Director Lite will only demonstrate the new volume structure
that will result from the operations that have been planned to be performed on disks and volumes.
This approach enables you to control all planned operations, double-check the intended changes,
and, if necessary, cancel operations before they are executed.
To prevent you from performing any unintentional change on your disk, the program will first display
the list of all pending operations.
The Disk management view contains the toolbar with icons to launch the Undo, Redo and Commit
actions intended for pending operations. These actions might also be launched from the Disk
management menu of the console.
All planned operations are added to the pending operation list.
The Undo action lets you undo the latest operation in the list. While the list is not empty, this action
is available.
The Redo action lets you reinstate the last pending operation that was undone.
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.
Quitting Acronis Disk Director Lite without committing the pending operations effectively cancels
them, so if you try to exit Disk management without committing the pending operations, you will
receive the appropriate warning.
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11 Protecting applications with disk-level backup
This section describes how to use a disk-level backup to protect applications running on Windows
servers.
This information is valid for both physical and virtual machines, no matter if the virtual machines are
backed up at a hypervisor level or from inside a guest OS.
Disk-level backup can potentially protect any VSS-aware application; however, Acronis has tested the
protection for the following applications:
Microsoft Exchange Server
Microsoft SQL Server
Active Directory (Active Directory Domain Services)
Microsoft SharePoint
Using a disk backup of an application server
A disk or volume backup stores a disk or a volume file system as a whole. Therefore, it stores all of
the information necessary for the operating system to boot. It also stores all application files,
including database files. You can use this backup in various ways depending on the situation.
In case of disaster, you can recover the entire disk to ensure that both the operating system and
applications are up and running.
If the operating system is intact, you may need to revert an application database to a previous
state. To do this, recover the database files and then use the native tools of the application to
make the application acknowledge the database.
You may need to extract only a certain data item, for example a PDF document from a Microsoft
SharePoint server backup. In this case, you can temporarily mount a backed-up volume to the
application server file system and use the native tools of the application to extract the item.
11.1 Backing up an application server
To protect an application server, create a backup plan or use the Backup now feature as described in
the "Backup" (p. 50) section.
Applications that use databases require a few simple measures to ensure the application data
consistency within a disk backup.
Back up entire machines
Databases may be stored on more than one disk or volume. To ensure that all necessary files are
included in a backup, back up the entire machine. This also ensures that the application will remain
protected if you add more databases or relocate the log files in the future.
If you are sure that the databases and their associated files are always on the same volumes, you
may want to back up only these volumes. Or you may want to create separate backup plans for the
system volume and for the volumes that store the data. In both cases, make sure that all of the
volumes containing the necessary files are included in the backup. For instructions on how to find out
the database paths, refer to "Locating database files" (p. 280).
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If the application databases are located on a number of machines, back up all of the machines on the
same schedule. For example, include all of the SQL servers belonging to a SharePoint farm in a
centralized backup plan running on a fixed schedule.
Use Volume Shadow Copy (VSS)
Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) should be used to ensure consistency of the database
files in the backup. Without VSS, the files would be in a crash-consistent state; that is, after the
recovery, the system would be in the same state as if the power were disconnected at the moment
when backup began. While such backups are good enough for most applications, applications that
use databases may not be able to start from a crash-consistent state.
A VSS provider notifies VSS-aware applications that the backup is about to start. This ensures that all
database transactions are completed by the time Acronis Backup takes the data snapshot. This, in
turn, ensures the consistent state of the databases in the resulting backup.
Acronis Backup can use various VSS providers. For Microsoft products, Microsoft Software Shadow
Copy Provider is the best choice.
Using VSS on a physical machine
On a physical machine, using VSS is configurable. This also applies to a virtual machine that is backed
up from inside the guest OS. You may need to enable using VSS manually if the factory preset was
changed from the default value.
You also need to make sure that VSS writers for the respective application are turned on. In Windows
Small Business Server 2003, the Exchange writer is turned off by default. For instructions on how to
turn it on, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/838183/.
To enable using VSS by default in any backup plan created on a machine:
1. Connect the console to the machine.
2. On the top menu, select Options > Default backup and recovery options > Default backup
options > Volume Shadow Copy Service.
3. Click Use Volume Shadow Copy Service.
4. In the Snapshot provider list, click Software - System provider.
When the console is connected to the management server, you can set the same default setting for
all of the registered machines.
Using VSS on a virtual machine
When backing up a virtual machine at a hypervisor level, using VSS is not configurable.
VSS is always used for Hyper-V virtual machines if Hyper-V Integration Services are installed in the
guest system.
VSS is never used for VMware ESX(i) virtual machines. If you want to back up databases in a
consistent state, install Agent for Windows in the guest system and enable the Volume Shadow Copy
Service option as you do on a physical machine.
Truncating transaction logs
Active Directory normally uses circular logging. Logs of other VSS-aware applications (except for
Microsoft SQL Server) can be truncated by using the Enable VSS Full backup option (p. 124). This
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option is effective on a physical machine and on a virtual machine where Agent for Windows is
installed.
Other available solutions include:
1. Truncating the logs manually or by using a script. For more information, see "Truncating
transaction logs" (p. 283)
2. For Microsoft Exchange Server, using the dedicated Agent for Exchange.
3. For Microsoft SQL Server, using Agent for SQL.
Application-specific recommendations
See "Best practices when backing up application servers" (p. 286).
11.1.1 Locating database files
This section describes how to find application database files.
We recommend that you find out the database file paths and store them in a safe place. This will
save you time and effort when you will recover the application data.
11.1.1.1
SQL Server database files
SQL Server databases have three types of files:
Primary data files - have the .mdf extension by default. Every database has one primary data file.
Log files - have the .ldf extension by default. Every database has a least one log file.
Secondary data files - have the .ndf extension by default. Secondary data files are optional. Some
databases may not have them at all, while other databases may have several secondary data
files.
Make sure that all of the volumes containing the above files are included in the backup. For example,
if your databases are located in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\ and
log files are located in F:\TLs\, you need to back up both volumes C:\ and F:\.
Determining paths to all database files of an instance by using Transact-SQL
The following Transact-SQL script can be used "as is" to determine paths to all database files of an
instance.
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Create Table ##temp
(
DatabaseName sysname,
Name sysname,
physical_name nvarchar(500),
size decimal (18,2),
FreeSpace decimal (18,2)
)
Exec sp_msforeachdb '
Use [?];
Insert Into ##temp (DatabaseName, Name, physical_name, Size, FreeSpace)
Select DB_NAME() AS [DatabaseName], Name, physical_name,
Cast(Cast(Round(cast(size as decimal) * 8.0/1024.0,2) as decimal(18,2)) as
nvarchar) Size,
Cast(Cast(Round(cast(size as decimal) * 8.0/1024.0,2) as decimal(18,2)) Cast(FILEPROPERTY(name, ''SpaceUsed'') * 8.0/1024.0 as decimal(18,2)) as
nvarchar) As FreeSpace
From sys.database_files'
Select * From ##temp
drop table ##temp
Determining locations of database files by using SQL Server Management Studio
Default locations
SQL Server database files are in their default locations unless you have customized the paths
manually. To find out the default locations of database files:
1. Run Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the necessary instance.
2. Right-click the instance name and select Properties.
3. Open the Database Settings page and view the paths specified in the Database default locations
section.
Custom locations
If SQL Server database file locations were customized, proceed as follows.
1. In Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, expand the necessary instance.
2. Right-click the database, and then click Properties. This will open the Database Properties dialog
box.
3. In the Select a page pane, click Files and view the paths specified in the Database files section.
11.1.1.2
Exchange Server database files
Exchange databases have three types of files:
Database file (.edb)
Contains message headers, message text, and standard attachments.
An Exchange 2003/2007 database uses two files: .edb for text data and .stm for MIME data.
Transaction log files (.log)
Contains the history of changes made to the database. Only after a change has been securely
logged, it is then written to the database file. This approach guarantees a reliable recovery of the
database in a consistent state in case of a sudden database interruption.
Each log file is 1024 KB in size (or 5120 KB in Exchange 2003). When an active log file is full,
Exchange closes it and creates a new log file.
Checkpoint file (.chk)
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Tracks how far Exchange has progressed in writing logged information to the database file.
To find out the database file and log file paths, proceed as follows.
Exchange 2010
Execute the following commands by using Exchange Management Shell:
Get-MailboxDatabase | Format-List -Property Name, EdbFilePath, LogFolderPath
Exchange 2007
Execute the following commands by using Exchange Management Shell:
To obtain database file paths:
Get-MailboxDatabase | Format-List -Property Name, EdbFilePath, StorageGroup
To obtain log file paths:
Get-MailboxDatabase | ForEach { Get-StorageGroup $_.StorageGroupName | Format-List
-Property Name, LogFolderPath }
Exchange 2003
1. Start Exchange System Manager.
2. Click Administrative Groups.
Note: If Administrative Groups does not appear, it may not be turned on. To turn on Administrative Groups,
right-click Exchange Organization, and then click Properties. Click to select the Display Administrative
Groups check box.
3. To find out transaction log location, do the following:
a. Right-click the storage group, and then click Properties.
b. On the General tab you will see transaction log location.
4. To find out database file location (*.edb) do the following:
a. Expand the required storage group.
b. Right-click the database, and then click Properties.
c. On the Database tab you will see database file location and database streaming file location.
11.1.1.3
Active Directory database files
An Active Directory database consists of the following files:
1.
2.
3.
4.
NTDS.dit (database file)
Edb.chk (checkpoint file)
Edb*.log (transaction logs)
Res1.log and Res2.log (two reserve log files)
The files are typically located in the %systemroot%\NTDS folder (such as C:\Windows\NTDS) of a
domain controller. However, their location is configurable. The database files and the transaction
logs may be stored on different volumes. Make sure that both volumes are included in the backup.
To determine the current location of the database files and transaction logs, examine the DSA
Database file and Database log files path values in the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NTDS\Parameters
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11.1.1.4
SharePoint database files
SharePoint stores content, auxiliary SharePoint services' data and farm configuration in Microsoft
SQL Server databases.
To find database files in SharePoint 2010 or later
1. Open Central Administration site.
2. Select Upgrade and Migration > Review database status. You will see the SQL instance and
database name for all of the databases.
3. Use Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio to identify the files of the necessary database. For
detailed instructions, refer to "SQL Server database files" (p. 280).
To find the content database files in SharePoint 2007
1.
2.
3.
4.
Open Central Administration site.
Select Application Management > Content Databases.
Select a web application.
Selecta database. In the opened page you will see the database server and database name. Write
them down or copy to a text file.
5. Repeat step 4 for other databases of the web application.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 for other web applications.
7. Use Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio to identify the database files. For detailed
instructions, refer to "SQL Server database files" (p. 280).
To find the configuration or service database files in SharePoint 2007
1. Open Central Administration site.
2. Select Application Management > Create or configure this farm's shared services.
3. Right-click a shared services provider and select Edit properties. In the opened page you will see
the database server and database name. Write them down or copy to a text file.
4. Repeat step 3 for other shared services providers.
5. Use Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio to identify the database files. For detailed
instructions, refer to "SQL Server database files" (p. 280).
11.1.2 Truncating transaction logs
This section describes how to truncate transaction logs when protecting Microsoft Exchange and
Microsoft SQL servers by using disk backups.
The recommendations for SQL servers also apply to SQL servers included in a Microsoft SharePoint
farm. Active Directory databases normally use circular logging, so they do not need log truncation.
11.1.2.1
Transaction log truncation for SQL Server
Acronis Backup does not truncate transaction logs after creating a disk-level backup.
If you want to truncate transaction logs, there are two options:
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Switch the databases to the Simple Recovery Model. When using Simple Recovery, you cannot
back up the transaction log. Therefore, a database can be recovered only to a point in time of a
backup created by Acronis Backup (to be exact, to the moment of taking a snapshot). The backup
interval should be short enough to prevent the loss of significant amounts of data.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Back up transaction logs by using the native backup engine of Microsoft SQL Server. A database
can be recovered to any point in time by applying transaction logs after a recovery from a backup
created by Acronis Backup.
In both cases, transaction logs will be truncated automatically.
To switch the database to the Simple Recovery Model
1. Run Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the instance.
2. Right-click the database, and then click Properties. This will open the Database Properties dialog
box.
3. In the Select a page pane, click Options.
4. In the Recovery Model list, click Simple.
To back up transaction logs by using Transact-SQL
Refer to the following article:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms186865(v=sql.90).aspx.
11.1.2.2
Transaction log truncation for Exchange Server
About Microsoft Exchange Server log
Before committing a transaction to a database file, Exchange logs it to a transaction log file. To track
which of the logged transactions have been committed to the database, Exchange uses checkpoint
files. Once the transactions are committed to the database and tracked by the checkpoint files, the
log files are no longer needed by the database.
If log files are not deleted, they will eventually consume all the available disk space and the Exchange
databases will be taken offline until the log files are purged from the disk. Using circular logging is not
a best practice for a production environment. When circular logging is enabled, Exchange overwrites
the first log file after its data has been committed to the database, and you can recover data only up
until the last backup.
We recommend that you delete the log files after backing up an Exchange server, because log files
are backed up along with other files. Therefore, after a recovery you will be able to roll the database
back or forward.
For more information about transaction logging see
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb331958.aspx.
Log truncation by using the Enable VSS Full backup option
The easiest method of log truncation is to use the Enable VSS Full backup (p. 124) backup option
(Options > Default backup and recovery options > Default backup options > Volume Shadow Copy
Service > Enable VSS Full backup). It is recommended in most cases.
If enabling this option is undesirable (for example, you need to keep logs of another VSS-aware
application running on the machine), follow the recommendations below.
Log truncation of offline databases
After normal shutdown the database state is considered consistent and the database files are
self-contained. This means that you can delete all the log files of the database or the storage group.
To delete transaction log files:
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1. Dismount the database (in Exchange 2010) or all databases of the storage group (in Exchange
2003/2007). For more information, see:
Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123903
Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123587.aspx
Exchange 2007: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124936(v=exchg.80)
Exchange 2003: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996179(v=exchg.65)
2. Delete all the log files of the database or the storage group.
3. Mount the dismounted database or databases.
For more information, see:
Exchange 2007: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998871(v=exchg.80).aspx
Exchange 2003: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa995829(v=exchg.65)
Log truncation of online databases
This method is good for the databases that are in constant use and cannot be dismounted. If a
database is in use, you can safely delete only those transaction log files whose data has been
committed to the database. Do not delete log files whose data has not been committed to the
database, they are essential to recover the database consistency from unexpected shutdown.
To delete the committed transaction logs
1. Determine which logs have been committed to the database by using the Eseutil tool:
a. Execute the eseutil /mk command, where the is a path to the checkpoint file of the required database or the storage
group.
b. Look at the Checkpoint field in the output. For example, you should see something like
this:
CheckPoint: (0x60B, 7DF, 1C9)
The first number 0x60B is the hexadecimal log generation number of the current log file. This
means that all the log files with lesser numbers have been committed to the database.
2. Delete all the log files whose numbers are less than the number of the current log file. For
example, you can safely delete Enn0000060A.log, Enn00000609.log and the lesser files.
Log truncation after a backup
You can automate the above truncation procedure by using a script. If you add the script to the
Post-backup command (p. 118), the logs will be truncated immediately after a backup.
This method assumes that you have scripting skills and are familiar with Acronis Backup
command-line utility (acrocmd). For detailed information about acrocmd see the Command-Line
Reference.
The script should contain the following steps:
1. Mount the volumes containing the necessary database files by using the mount command.
Template:
acrocmd mount --loc= --credentials=, --arc= --volume= --letter=
Example:
acrocmd mount --loc=\\bkpsrv\backups --credentials=user1,pass1 --arc=my_arc
--volume=1-1 --letter=Z
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2. In the mounted volumes, determine which logs have been committed to the database by using
the Eseutil tool. The procedure is described in step 1 of "Log truncation of online databases"
above.
3. In the respective online database or storage group, delete all the log files whose numbers are
less than the number of the current log file in the backup.
4. Unmount the mounted volumes by using the umount command.
11.1.3 Best practices when backing up application servers
11.1.3.1
Exchange Server backup
If you are not using Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP2 or later, it is recommended that you
periodically check the consistency of the Exchange database files.
In Exchange, consistency check is performed by running Eseutil /K. It verifies the page-level
integrity of all Exchange databases and checksums of all database pages and log files. The process of
verification can be time consuming. For information about using Eseutil /K, see:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123956(v=exchg.80).
You can perform the consistency check before or after a backup.
Before a backup. This ensures that you do not back up the damaged Exchange database files.
a. Dismount the databases.
b. Run Eseutil /K and review the verification results.
c. If the databases are consistent, mount them again and run the backup. Otherwise, repair the
damaged databases.
Refer to the "Transaction log truncation for Exchange Server" (p. 284) section for more
information about mounting and dismounting databases.
After a backup. The advantage of this method is that you do not have to dismount the databases
that are in constant use. However, the consistency check in the backup is much slower than the
consistency check of the on-disk databases.
Mount (p. 241) volumes (containing the required database files) from the disk backup in the
"Read only" mode and run Eseutil /K.
If a checksum mismatch or file header damage is detected, repair the damaged databases and
then perform the backup again.
Tip. Acronis offers a dedicated product for backing up Microsoft Exchange – Acronis Backup Advanced for
Exchange. When you use this product, Agent for Exchange automatically checks consistency of the databases
being backed up and skips the databases with a checksum mismatch or file header damage. As opposed to this
agent, Eseutil /K verifies the pages of all Exchange databases that are present on the server.
11.1.3.2
Active Directory backup
Active Directory services use a database located on the file system of a domain controller. If the
domain has two or more domain controllers, the information stored in the database is constantly
replicated between them.
Volumes to back up
To back up Active Directory, back up the following volumes of a domain controller:
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The volumes where the Active Directory database and the transaction logs (p. 282) are located
The volume with the SYSVOL folder. The default location of this folder is %SystemRoot%\SYSVOL.
To determine the current location of this folder, examine the Sysvol value in the following
registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters
Considerations for backup
When setting up and performing Active Directory backup, make sure that:
You perform a backup at least monthly. If your domain has only one domain controller, we
recommend creating a backup at least daily.
Your most up-to-date backup is no older than half the tombstone lifetime. Depending on the
operating system where your domain has been created, the default tombstone lifetime is 60
days or 180 days. It does not matter whether the latest backup is full or incremental; you can
perform a successful recovery from either one.
You create an additional backup upon any of the following events:
The Active Directory database and/or transaction logs were moved to a different location.
An operating system on the domain controller was upgraded, or a service pack was installed.
A hotfix that changes the Active Directory database was installed.
The tombstone lifetime was changed administratively.
The reason for this additional backup is that a successful recovery of Active Directory from the
previous backups might not be possible.
11.1.3.3
SharePoint data backup
A Microsoft SharePoint farm consists of front-end Web servers and Microsoft SQL servers.
A front-end Web server is a host where SharePoint services are running. Some front-end Web servers
may be identical to each other (for example, the front-end Web servers that run a Web server). You
do not have to back up all identical front-end Web servers but only unique ones.
To protect SharePoint databases, you need to back up all of the Microsoft SQL servers and all of the
unique Web Front End servers belonging to the farm. The backups should be done with the same
schedule. This is needed because the configuration database must be synchronized with other
databases. For example, if the content database contains the data about a site while the latest
backup of the configuration database does not, the site will be orphaned after the configuration
database is recovered.
If you have Acronis Backup Advanced, the easiest way to back up a SharePoint farm is to create a
centralized backup plan as described in the "Creating a centralized backup plan" (p. 348) section, or
use the Back up now feature as described in the "Back up now" (p. 347) section. In Acronis Backup,
you must specify the identical schedule when creating a backup plan (p. 50) for every server
belonging to the farm.
11.2 Recovering SQL Server data
In case of a disaster, you can recover an entire SQL Server by restoring all its disks from a disk backup.
If you followed the recommendations outlined in the "Backing up an application server" (p. 278)
section, all of the SQL Server services will be up and running without additional actions. The server
data will be reverted to the state that it was at the time of backup.
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To bring a backed-up database back to production, recover the database files from a disk backup. For
details, see "Recovering SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 288).
If you only need temporary access to the backed-up databases for data mining or data extraction,
mount a disk backup and access the required data. For details, see "Accessing SQL Server databases
from a disk backup" (p. 288).
11.2.1 Recovering SQL Server databases from a disk backup
This section describes how to recover SQL Server databases from a disk backup.
For the instructions how to find out the database paths, refer to "SQL Server database files" (p. 280).
To recover SQL Server databases
1.
2.
3.
4.
Connect the console to the machine on which you are going to perform the operation.
Navigate to the vault containing the disk backup with the SQL Server database files.
Click the Data view tab. In the Show list, click Folders/files.
Select the required SQL Server database files and click Recover. By default, the data will be
reverted to the state of the latest backup. If you need to select another point in time to revert
the data to, use the Versions list.
5. On the recovery page under What to recover section:
a. In Data paths, select Custom.
b. In Browse, specify a folder where the files will be recovered to.
Note: We recommend that you recover the SQL server database files to a folder local to the SQL Server,
since all of the SQL Server versions earlier than SQL Server 2012 do not support databases located on
network shares.
c. Leave the rest of the settings "as is" and click OK to proceed with recovery.
6. After the recovery is complete, attach the databases according to the instructions described in
the "Attaching SQL Server databases" (p. 289) section.
Details. If for any reason you did not recover all of the SQL Server database files, you will not be
able to attach the database. However, the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio will inform
you about all the paths and names of the missing files and it will help you to identify what
particular files the database consists of.
11.2.2 Accessing SQL Server databases from a disk backup
If you want to access the SQL Server databases for data mining or other short-term purposes, you
can use the Mount image operation instead of recovery. Just mount volumes (containing the
required database files) from a disk backup (image) in the "Read/write" mode and you are free to
attach databases, modify database files and work with them as if they were on a physical disk.
You can mount volumes if the disk backup is stored in a local folder (except optical media such as CD,
DVD, or Blu-ray Discs), Acronis Secure Zone, or on a network share.
To attach databases contained in a disk backup to SQL Server
1.
2.
3.
4.
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Connect the console to the SQL Server where Agent for Windows is installed.
In the main menu, select Actions > Mount image.
In the What to mount section, select the source archive and specify the backup.
In the Mount settings section:
a. In Mount for, select All users that share this machine.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
5.
6.
7.
8.
b. Select the volume(s) containing the SQL Server database files. For the instructions on how to
find out the database paths, refer to "SQL Server database files" (p. 280).
c. Choose the Read/write access mode.
d. Specify drive letters that will be assigned to the mounted volumes.
After the volumes are mounted, use instructions from the "Attaching SQL Server databases" (p.
289) section to attach the databases directly from the mounted volumes.
Perform the required operations with the newly attached databases.
After the necessary operations are completed, detach the database from the instance by using
Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio. To do this, right-click the database and select Tasks >
Detach.
Unmount the mounted volumes:
a. In the main menu, select Navigation > Mounted images.
b. Select the image and click Unmount.
Details. When mounting an image in the "Read/write" mode, Acronis Backup creates a new
incremental backup. We strongly recommend deleting this incremental backup.
11.2.3 Attaching SQL Server databases
This section describes how to attach a database in SQL Server by using SQL Server Management
Studio. Only one database can be attached at a time.
Attaching a database requires any of the following permissions: CREATE DATABASE, CREATE ANY
DATABASE, or ALTER ANY DATABASE. Normally, these permissions are granted to the sysadmin role
of the instance.
To attach a database
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Run Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.
Connect to the required SQL Server instance, and then expand the instance.
Right click Databases and click Attach.
Click Add.
In the Locate Database Files dialog box, find and select the .mdf file of the database.
In the Database Details section, make sure that the rest of database files (.ndf and .ldf files) are
found.
Details. SQL Server database files may not be found automatically, if:
They are not in the default location, or they are not in the same folder as the primary
database file (.mdf). Solution: Specify the path to the required files manually in the Current
File Path column.
You have recovered an incomplete set of files that make up the database. Solution: Recover
the missing SQL Server database files from the backup.
7. When all of the files are found, click OK.
11.3 Recovering Exchange Server data
In case of disaster, you can recover an entire Exchange Server by restoring all its disks from a disk
backup. All of the Exchange Server services will be up and running without any additional actions, if
you follow the recommendations outlined in the "Backing up an application server" (p. 278) section.
The server data will be reverted to the state that it was at the time of backup.
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By using Acronis Backup, you can recover Exchange database files from a disk backup. To bring a
database online, mount it. For details, see "Mounting Exchange Server databases" (p. 290).
If you need to perform granular recovery of individual mailboxes or their items, mount the restored
database either as a recovery database (RDB) in Exchange 2010, or to a recovery storage group (RSG)
in Exchange 2003/2007. For details, see "Granular recovery of mailboxes" (p. 291).
11.3.1 Recovering Exchange Server database files from a disk
backup
This section describes how to use Acronis Backup to recover Exchange Server database files from a
disk backup.
For instructions on how to find out the database paths, refer to "Exchange Server database files" (p.
281).
To recover Exchange Server databases
1.
2.
3.
4.
Connect the console to the machine on which you are going to perform the operation.
Navigate to the vault containing the disk backup with the Exchange data files.
Click the Data view tab. In the Show list, click Folders/files.
Select the required Exchange database files and click Recover. By default, the data will be
reverted to the state of the latest backup. If you need to select another point in time to revert
the data to, use the Versions list.
5. On the recovery page under What to recover section:
a. In Data paths, select Custom.
b. In Browse, specify a folder where the database files will be recovered to.
6. Leave the rest of the settings "as is" and click OK to proceed with recovery.
11.3.2 Mounting Exchange Server databases
After recovering the database files, you can bring the databases online by mounting them. Mounting
is performed by using Exchange Management Console, Exchange System Manager, or Exchange
Management Shell.
The recovered databases will be in a Dirty Shutdown state. A database that is in a Dirty Shutdown
state can be mounted by the system if it is recovered to its original location (that is, information
about the original database is present in Active Directory). When recovering a database to an
alternate location (such as a new database or as the recovery database), the database cannot be
mounted until you bring it to a Clean Shutdown state by using the Eseutil /r command.
specifies the log file prefix for the database (or storage group that contains the database) into
which you need to apply the transaction log files.
The account you use to attach a database must be delegated an Exchange Server Administrator role
and a local Administrators group for the target server.
For details about how to mount databases, see the following articles:
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Exchange 2016: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998871.aspx
Exchange 2013: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998871(v=EXCHG.150).aspx
Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998871(v=EXCHG.141).aspx
Exchange 2007: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998871(v=EXCHG.80).aspx
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Exchange 2003: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124040.aspx
11.3.3 Granular recovery of mailboxes
RDB (RSG) is a special administrative database (storage group) in Exchange Server. It lets you extract
data from the mounted mailbox database. The extracted data can be copied or merged to the
existing mailboxes without disturbing user access to the current data.
For more information about RDB and RSG, refer to the following articles:
Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876954
Exchange 2007: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124039(v=exchg.80)
Exchange 2003: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123631(v=exchg.65)
To recover a mailbox
1. If a RDB/RSG does not exist, create it as described in the following articles:
Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee332321
Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee332351
Exchange 2007: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997694(v=exchg.80)
Exchange 2003: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124427(v=exchg.65)
2. Recover the database files to the RDB/RSG folder structure. For information about recovering
database files, see "Recovering Exchange Server database files from a disk backup" (p. 290).
3. Mount the recovery database. For information about mounting databases, see "Mounting
Exchange Server databases" (p. 290).
4. Proceed as described in the following articles:
Exchange 2007: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997694(v=exchg.80)
Exchange 2003: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998109(v=exchg.65)
11.4 Recovering Active Directory data
Active Directory recovery differs depending on the type of recovery required.
This section considers the following disaster scenarios:
A domain controller is lost but other domain controllers are still available. See “Recovering a
domain controller (other DCs are available)” (p. 291).
All domain controllers are lost (or there was only one). See “Recovering a domain controller (no
other DCs are available)” (p. 292).
The Active Directory database is corrupted and the Active Directory service does not start. See
“Restoring the Active Directory database” (p. 293).
Certain information is accidentally deleted from Active Directory. See “Restoring accidentally
deleted information” (p. 294).
11.4.1 Recovering a domain controller (other DCs are available)
When one of the several domain controllers (DCs) is lost, the Active Directory service is still available.
Therefore, other domain controllers will contain data that is newer than the data in the backup.
In these cases, a type of recovery known as nonauthoritative restore is usually performed.
Nonauthoritative restore means that the recovery will not affect the current state of Active
Directory.
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Steps to perform
If the domain has other domain controllers, you can perform nonauthoritative restore of a lost
domain controller in either of these ways:
Recover a domain controller from a backup by using a bootable media. Ensure that there is no
USN rollback problem (p. 294).
Recreate a domain controller by installing the operating system and making the machine a new
domain controller (by using the dcpromo.exe tool).
Both operations are followed by automatic replication. Replication makes the domain controller
database up-to-date. Just ensure that the Active Directory service has started successfully. Once
replication completes, the domain controller will be up and running again.
Recovery vs. re-creation
Re-creation does not require having a backup. Recovery is normally faster than re-creation. However,
recovery is not possible in the following cases:
All available backups are older than the tombstone lifetime. Tombstones are used during
replication to ensure that an object deleted on one domain controller becomes deleted on other
domain controllers. Thus, proper replication is not possible after the tombstones have been
deleted.
The domain controller held a Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) role, and you have
assigned that role to a different domain controller (seized the role). In this case, restoring the
domain controller would lead to two domain controllers holding the same FSMO role within the
domain and cause a conflict.
Recovering a domain controller that holds a FSMO role
Some domain controllers hold unique roles known as Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) roles
or operations manager roles. For the description of FSMO roles and their scopes (domain-wide or
forest-wide), see Microsoft Help and Support article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324801.
Before recreating a domain controller that held the PDC Emulator role, you must seize that role.
Otherwise, you will not be able to add the recreated domain controller to the domain. After
recreating the domain controller, you can transfer this role back. For information about how to seize
and transfer FSMO roles, see Microsoft Help and Support article
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255504.
To view which FSMO roles are assigned to which domain controller, you can connect to any live
domain controller by using the Ntdsutil tool as described in Microsoft Help and Support article
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/234790. Follow the steps in the “Using the NTDSUTIL Tool” section
of that article:
For the Windows Server 2003 operating system, follow all steps as they are given.
For the Windows Server 2008 operating systems, in the step asking you to type
domain management, type roles instead. Follow other steps as they are given.
11.4.2 Recovering a domain controller (no other DCs are available)
If all domain controllers are lost, nonauthoritative restore in fact becomes authoritative: the objects
restored from the backup are the newest available. Replication of Active Directory data cannot take
place because there are no live domain controllers. This means that:
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Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Re-creation of the domain controller is not an option.
Even a backup with an expired tombstone lifetime can be used.
You need to recover the volumes that store Active Directory database files (p. 282). If these volumes
store other valuable data except Active Directory, copy this data to a different location before the
recovery.
To recover a domain controller when no other domain controllers are available
1. Ensure that the newest available backup is used for recovery. This is important because all
changes made to Active Directory objects after the backup will be lost.
2. Recover the domain controller from the backup by using a bootable media.
3. Restart the domain controller. Ensure that the Active Directory service has started successfully.
11.4.3 Restoring the Active Directory database
If the Active Directory database files are corrupted but the domain controller is able to start in
normal mode, you can restore the database in one of the following ways.
Re-promoting the domain controller
This method of restoring the database is available only if the domain has other domain controllers. It
does not require having a backup.
To restore the database, use the Dcpromo tool to demote the domain controller with the corrupted
database, and then to promote that domain controller again.
To re-promote the domain controller, run the following commands:
dcpromo /forceremoval
dcpromo /adv
Recovering the database from a backup
This method of restoring the database can be used regardless of whether the domain has other
domain controllers.
To restore the database, recover the Active Directory database files (p. 282). In addition, if you have
made any changes to Group Policy Objects (GPOs) since backup, you also need to recover the SYSVOL
folder (p. 286).
To recover the Active Directory database from a backup
1. Restart the domain controller and press F8 during startup.
2. On the Advanced Boot Options screen, select Directory Services Restore Mode.
3. [Optional] Create a copy of the current Active Directory database files in case the changes need
to be undone.
4. Change the original account of the Acronis agent service to the Directory Services Restore Mode
(DSRM) Administrator account:
a. Open the Services snap-in.
b. In the list of services, double-click Acronis Managed Machine Service.
c. On the Log On tab, in This account, specify the user name and password that you use to log
on to Directory Services Restore Mode, and then click Apply.
d. On the General tab, click Start. After the service starts, click OK.
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5.
6.
7.
8.
Details. This change is needed because the Acronis agent service on a domain controller runs
under a domain user account, but domain user accounts are unavailable in Directory Services
Restore Mode.
Start Acronis Backup and recover the database files from the backup. If necessary, also recover
the SYSVOL folder.
Details. For paths to these files and folders, see "Active Directory backup" (p. 286). The recovery
procedure is similar to the one described in "Recovering Exchange Server database files (p. 290).
If the domain has other domain controllers, ensure that a USN rollback problem will not occur (p.
294).
Restart the domain controller in normal mode. Ensure that the Active Directory service has
started successfully.
Change the account for the Acronis agent service back to the original one, as described in step 4.
11.4.4 Restoring accidentally deleted information
If the domain has other domain controllers, you can use the Ntdsutil tool to perform an
authoritative restore of certain entries only. For example, you can restore an unintentionally deleted
user account or computer account.
To restore accidentally deleted information
1. Perform steps 1–5 from "Restoring the Active Directory database" (p. 293) to restart the domain
controller into Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) and to restore the Active Directory
database.
2. Without exiting DSRM, run the following command:
Ntdsutil
3. At the tool's command prompt, run the following commands:
activate instance ntds
authoritative restore
4. At the tool's command prompt, run the restore subtree or restore object command with
the necessary parameters.
For example, the following command restores the Manager user account in the Finance
organizational unit of the example.com domain:
restore object cn=Manager,ou=Finance,dc=example,dc=com
For more information about using the Ntdsutil tool, refer to its documentation.
Details. Other objects will be replicated from other domain controllers when you restart the
domain controller. This way, you will restore the unintentionally deleted objects and keep the
other objects up-to-date.
5. Restart the domain controller in normal mode. Ensure that the Active Directory service has
started successfully and that the restored objects have become available.
6. Change the account for the Acronis agent service back to the original one, as described in step 4
from "Restoring the Active Directory database" (p. 293).
11.4.5 Avoiding a USN rollback
If the domain has two or more domain controllers and you need to recover one of the controllers or
its database, consider taking action against a USN rollback.
A USN rollback is unlikely to occur when you recover an entire domain controller from a VSS-based
disk-level backup.
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A USN rollback is highly probable if any of the following is true:
A domain controller was recovered partially: not all disks or volumes were recovered or only the
Active Directory database was recovered.
A domain controller was recovered from a backup created without VSS. For example, the backup
was created by using bootable media or the Use VSS option (p. 124) was disabled or the VSS
provider malfunctioned.
The following information will help you avoid a USN rollback by taking a few simple steps.
Replication and USNs
Active Directory data is constantly replicated between the domain controllers. At any given moment,
the same Active Directory object may have a newer version on one domain controller and an older
version on another. To prevent conflicts and loss of information, Active Directory tracks object
versions on each domain controller and replaces the outdated versions with the up-to-date version.
To track object versions, Active Directory uses numbers called Update Sequence Numbers (USNs).
Newer versions of Active Directory objects correspond to higher USNs. Each domain controller keeps
the USNs of all other domain controllers.
USN rollback
After you perform a nonauthoritative restore of a domain controller or of its database, the current
USN of that domain controller is replaced by the old (lower) USN from the backup. But the other
domain controllers are not aware of this change. They still keep the latest known (higher) USN of that
domain controller.
As a result, the following issues occur:
The recovered domain controller reuses older USNs for new objects; it starts with the old USN
from the backup.
The other domain controllers do not replicate the new objects from the recovered domain
controller as long as its USN remains lower than the one they are aware of.
Active Directory starts having different objects that correspond to the same USN, i.e. becomes
inconsistent. This situation is called a USN rollback.
To avoid a USN rollback, you need to notify the domain controller about the fact that it has been
recovered.
To avoid a USN rollback
1. Immediately after recovering a domain controller or its database, boot the recovered domain
controller and press F8 during startup.
2. On the Advanced Boot Options screen, select Directory Services Restore Mode, and log on to
Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM).
3. Open Registry Editor, and then expand the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NTDS\Parameters
4. In that registry key, examine the DSA Previous Restore Count value. If this value is present, write
down its setting. Do not add the value if it is absent.
5. Add the following value to that registry key:
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Value type: DWORD (32-bit) Value
Value name: Database restored from backup
Value data: 1
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6. Restart the domain controller in normal mode.
7. [Optional] After the domain controller restarts, open Event Viewer, expand Application and
Services Logs, and then select the Directory Services log. In the Directory Services log, look for a
recent entry for Event ID 1109. If you find this entry, double-click it to ensure that the
InvocationID attribute has changed. This means that the Active Directory database has been
updated.
8. Open Registry Editor and verify that the setting in the DSA Previous Restore Count value has
increased by one as compared with step 4. If the DSA Previous Restore Count value was absent
in step 4, verify that it is now present and that its setting is 1.
If you see a different setting (and you cannot find the entry for Event ID 1109), ensure that the
recovered domain controller has current service packs, and then repeat the entire procedure.
For more details about USNs and USN rollback, see the following Microsoft Technet article:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/virtual_active_directory_domain_controller_virtualizatio
n_hyperv.aspx.
11.5 Recovering SharePoint data
Different SharePoint servers and databases are recovered in different way.
To recover separate disks or volumes of a front-end Web server, you can either create a recovery
task (p. 127) in Acronis Backup graphical user interface or boot the server from the bootable
media (p. 248) and configure recovery.
In the same way, you can recover an SQL server.
Content databases can be recovered by using Agent for SQL or Agent for Windows. For details,
see "Recovering a content database" (p. 296).
Configuration and service databases are recovered as files. For details, see "Recovering
configuration and service databases" (p. 298).
You can also recover individual SharePoint items (such as sites, lists, document libraries and
others). For details, see "Recovering individual items" (p. 299).
11.5.1 Recovering a content database
This topic describes the recovery of a content database to the original SharePoint farm by using
Acronis Backup.
The recovery to a non-original farm is a more complicated procedure. Its steps vary depending on the
farm configuration and other parameters of the production environment.
Recovering a content database by using Agent for SQL
This method allows you to recover a database from a single-pass backup of a machine running SQL
Server.
To recover a content database
1. Connect the console to the machine where you need to recover the database to. Agent for SQL
must be installed on the machine.
2. Recover the database to an instance, as described in the "Recovering SQL databases to
instances" (p. 306) section.
3. If you have recovered the database to a non-original SQL server of the original SharePoint farm,
attach the recovered database to the farm. To do this, run the following command on a front-end
Web server:
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In SharePoint 2010 or later:
Mount-SPContentDatabase -DatabaseServer
-WebApplication
In SharePoint 2007:
stsadm.exe -o addcontentdb -url -databasename -databaseserver
Recovering a content database by using Agent for Windows
This method allows you to recover a database from a disk-level backup of a machine running SQL
Server.
To recover a content database to the original SQL server
1. If the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service is running, stop the service and wait for a few
minutes for any running stored procedures to complete. Do not restart the service until you have
recovered all the databases that you need to recover.
2. If you are recovering the database to the original location on the disk, do the following:
a. Bring the destination database offline.
b. Recover the database files as described in "Recovering SQL Server databases from a disk
backup" (p. 288), except for the database attachment step (the database is already attached).
c. Bring the recovered database online.
If you are recovering the database to another location on the disk, recover the database files as
described in "Recovering SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 288), including the
database attachment step.
3. Start the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service.
To recover a content database to another SQL server of the original farm
1. Remove from the SharePoint farm the database that you will later recover. To do this, run the
following command on a front-end Web server:
In SharePoint 2010 or later:
Dismount-SPContentDatabase
If you have multiple content databases that have the same name, you must use the content database GUID
in this command instead of using the content database name. To retrieve the GUID of the content database,
run the Get-SPContentDatabase cmdlet with no arguments.
In SharePoint 2007:
stsadm -url –o deletecontentdb –databasename
2. Recover the database files as described in "Recovering SQL Server databases from a disk backup"
(p. 288), including the database attachment step.
3. Attach the recovered database to the SharePoint farm. To do this, run the following command on
a front-end Web server:
In SharePoint 2010 or later:
Mount-SPContentDatabase -DatabaseServer
-WebApplication
In SharePoint 2007:
stsadm.exe -o addcontentdb -url -databasename -databaseserver
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11.5.2 Recovering configuration and service databases
Configuration and service databases must be synchronized with other databases. Hence, it is
recommended to recover configuration and service databases either along with content databases or
to the latest point in time (if content databases do not need recovery).
The configuration database contains hostnames of the farm's servers. Therefore, you can recover the
configuration database only to the original SharePoint farm. Service databases can be recovered to a
non-original farm.
To recover the configuration database
1. On the server that is running the Central Administration site, in the Services snap-in, stop the
services listed in the table below.
2. On the server that is running the Central Administration site, run the following command:
iisreset /stop
3. Recover the database files as described in "Recovering SQL Server databases from a disk backup"
(p. 288).
4. Start the SharePoint services that were stopped earlier.
SharePoint 2007 services
Microsoft Single Sign-On Service
Office Document Conversions
Launcher Service
SharePoint 2010 serivces
SharePoint 2010
Administration
SharePoint 2010 Timer
Office Document Conversions Load SharePoint 2010 Tracing
Balancer Service
Office SharePoint Server Search
Windows SharePoint Services
Administration
Windows SharePoint Services
Search
Windows SharePoint Services
Timer
Windows SharePoint Services
Tracing
Windows SharePoint Services VSS
Writer
SharePoint 2010 User Code
Host
SharePoint 2010 VSS Writer
World Wide Web Publishing
Service
SharePoint 2013 services
SharePoint Administration
SharePoint Timer
SharePoint Tracing
SharePoint User Code Host
SharePoint VSS Writer
World Wide Web Publishing
Service
SharePoint Server Search
SharePoint Server Search 14
SharePoint Foundation Search
V4
Web Analytics Data Processing
Service
Web Analytics Web Service
To recover a service database
1. Stop the services associated with the database you want to recover. To do so:
a. Open Central Administration site.
b. Do one of the following:
In SharePoint 2010 or later, select System Settings > Manage services on server.
In SharePoint 2007, select Operations > Services on server.
c. To change the server on which you want to stop the service, in the Server list, click Change
Server, and then click the required server name.
d. By default, only configurable services are displayed. To view all services, in the View list, click
All.
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e. To stop a service, click Stop in the Action column of the relevant service.
f. Click OK to stop the service.
2. Recover the database files as described in "Recovering SQL Server databases from a disk backup"
(p. 288).
3. Start the services associated with the database, similarly to step 1.
11.5.3 Recovering individual items
Use one of the following three methods of recovering individual SharePoint items:
Using Acronis SharePoint Explorer. This tool allows you to recover SharePoint items from
single-pass disk and application backups (p. 301), from an attached database, or from database
files.
To use the tool, you need a working SharePoint farm. You must also purchase an Acronis Backup
license that supports SharePoint backups.
To access Acronis SharePoint Explorer, click Extract SharePoint Data on the Tools menu of
Acronis Backup Management Console. For information about the tool, see its documentation:
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ASPE/.
Attaching the content database to a non-original SharePoint farm (for example, to a SharePoint
recovery farm).
It is necessary to attach the content database to a non-original SharePoint farm because each
object in a farm must have a unique ID. So, you will not be able to attach the database to the
original farm.
Recovering from an unattached database. The method is not available for SharePoint 2007.
This method allows you to recover only the following types of items: sites, lists, or document
libraries.
To recover SharePoint items via attaching the content database to a farm
1. Attach the content database to an SQL Server instance as described in steps 1-5 of "Accessing
SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 288).
2. Attach the content database to a non-original SharePoint farm. To do this:
a. Make sure that you are performing this procedure under a farm administrator account that is
a member of the db_owner role of the database. If not, add the account to this role by using
Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.
b. Run the following command on a front-end Web server:
In SharePoint 2010 or later:
Mount-SPContentDatabase -DatabaseServer
-WebApplication
In SharePoint 2007:
stsadm.exe -o addcontentdb -url -databasename
-databaseserver
3. Open the SharePoint site and select the document to download.
4. After the downloading is complete, detach the content database from the SharePoint farm.
5. Detach the database and unmount the previously mounted volume as described in steps 7-8 of
"Accessing SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 288).
To recover SharePoint items from an unattached database
1. Attach the content database to an SQL Server instance as described in steps 1-5 of "Accessing
SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 288).
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2. Recover the data as described in http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh269602.
3. Detach the database and unmount the previously mounted volume as described in steps 7-8 of
"Accessing SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 288).
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12 Protecting Microsoft SQL Server with single-pass
backup
This section describes how to use single-pass disk and application backups to protect Microsoft SQL
Server data.
A single-pass backup operation creates an application-aware disk backup which enables browsing
and recovery of the backed-up application data without recovering the entire disk or volume. The
disk or volume can also be recovered as a whole. This means that a single solution and a single
backup plan can be used for both the disaster recovery and data protection purposes. The
application logs can be truncated after the backup, if necessary.
The single-pass backup functionality becomes available by installing Acronis Backup Agent for SQL.
Without this agent, you can protect your SQL Server data by using disk-level backup. For a detailed
description of this method, see the "Protecting applications with disk-level backup" (p. 278) section.
Protecting Microsoft SharePoint
A Microsoft SharePoint farm consists of front-end Web servers and machines with Microsoft SQL
Server. This means that the information presented in this section also applies to protecting Microsoft
SharePoint data.
For the recommendations specific to backing up the machines with SharePoint data, see the
"SharePoint data backup" (p. 287) section.
For information about recovering SharePoint data, see the "Recovering SharePoint data" (p. 296)
section.
12.1 General information
12.1.1 Agent for SQL
Single-pass backup of Microsoft SQL Server data becomes available by using Acronis Backup Agent
for SQL.
Backup
During a disk backup, Agent for SQL adds Microsoft SQL Server metadata to the resulting backup file.
By using this metadata, Acronis Backup detects and catalogues SQL Server databases. After the
backup is successfully completed, the agent truncates the SQL Server transaction log if the
corresponding option in the backup plan has been set.
Recovery
The agent enables you to recover SQL databases directly to a running SQL Server instance. You can
make a database available to users immediately, or perform additional operations before making it
available.
The agent can also extract database files from a single-pass backup to a folder on a file system. These
files can be used for data mining or auditing. In case of emergency, you can attach these database
files to a SQL Server instance that is not managed by the agent.
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Mounting databases
By using the agent, you can temporarily attach a backed-up database to a running SQL Server
instance and use third-party tools to get various objects from this database.
12.1.2 Supported operating systems
Agent for SQL can be installed in the following operating systems:
Windows Server 2003/2003 R2 – Standard and Enterprise editions (x86, x64)
Windows Small Business Server 2003/2003 R2
Windows Server 2008 – Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter editions (x86, x64)
Windows Small Business Server 2008
Windows 7 – all editions except for the Starter and Home editions (x86, x64)
Windows Server 2008 R2 – Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, and Foundation editions
Windows MultiPoint Server 2010/2011/2012
Windows Small Business Server 2011 – all editions
Windows 8/8.1 – all editions except for the Windows RT editions (x86, x64)
Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 – all editions
Windows Storage Server 2003/2008/2008 R2/2012/2012 R2
Windows 10 – Home, Pro, Education, and Enterprise editions
12.1.3 Supported Microsoft SQL Server versions
Agent for SQL supports the following versions of Microsoft SQL Server:
Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
Microsoft SQL Server 2012
Microsoft SQL Server 2014
12.1.4 Permissions for SQL Server backup and recovery
Permissions required for a single-pass backup
To successfully perform a single-pass backup of a machine that is running Microsoft SQL Server, the
account under which the backup plan runs must be a member of the Backup Operators or
Administrators group on the machine.
Also, this account must be granted the sysadmin role on each of the instances installed on the
machine.
If you create a backup plan while you are logged on as a regular user, such as a member of the Users
group, you need to specify the credentials for the account that has the above privileges. To access
this setting, click Plan's credentials on the Create backup plan (p. 50) page.
A backup plan created by a member of the Administrators group runs under the agent service
account by default. The same applies to a centralized backup plan deployed from the management
server. That's why it is advisable to assign the agent the permissions required for single-pass backup.
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Granting the permissions to the agent
During installation, the setup program includes the agent service account in the Backup Operators
group. If you choose to create a new account for the agent, this account is also included in the
Administrators group. Therefore, the agent always has the required privileges in Windows.
To grant the agent the sysadmin role in SQL Server, you are asked to specify the sysadmin
credentials for each Microsoft SQL instance installed on the machine. If you do not specify the
credentials during installation, you can grant the agent the sysadmin role later in any of the following
ways:
By clicking Tools > Provide SQL Server credentials when Acronis Backup Management Console is
connected to the machine.
By using SQL Server Management Studio.
By running a T-SQL script.
You must also grant explicitly the agent the sysadmin role after a new Microsoft SQL Server instance
is installed on the machine.
To grant the agent service account the sysadmin role on an instance by means of a T-SQL script
1. Create a text file with the following contents:
Create Login [\Acronis Agent User] From Windows
Exec master..sp_addsrvrolemember @loginame = '\Acronis Agent
User',@rolename = 'sysadmin'
Acronis Agent User is the account created for the agent by default. If you specified an
existing account during the agent installation, replace Acronis Agent User with the user name
of the existing account.
The file can have any extension.
2. At the command prompt, run the following command:
sqlcmd -S \ -i
If you do not want to grant the sysadmin role to the agent, you must specify credentials in every
backup plan as described at the beginning of this section.
Permissions required for recovering a Microsoft SQL Server database
When recovering a database to an instance, you need to specify credentials for this instance. The
prompt for the credentials appears after you select the destination instance on the Recover data (p.
127) page.
12.1.5 What else you need to know about single-pass backup
Single-pass backup is performed at a disk level. This results in the following peculiarities for this
backup type:
Databases located on network shares cannot be backed up.
Databases cannot be recovered to any point in time, but only to a point in time when the data
snapshot was taken. If you back up transaction logs by using the SQL Server backup and restore
component, you can further apply these logs to reach the desired recovery point.
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Filegroups are backed up and recovered as a whole database. An individual file cannot be
recovered so that the database is operational.
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12.2 Installation of Agent for SQL
Agent for SQL can only be installed on a machine running Microsoft SQL Server. Remote installation
of the agent is not possible.
The agent is included in the setup program of Acronis Backup Advanced.
The agent is installed with Agent for Windows (p. 12) or on a machine where Agent for Windows is
already installed.
Licenses required
Agent for SQL requires one of the following licenses:
Acronis Backup Advanced for SQL
Acronis Backup Advanced for SharePoint
Acronis Backup for Windows Server Essentials
Acronis Backup Advanced for VMware / Hyper-V / RHEV / Citrix XenServer / Oracle VM
Acronis Backup Advanced Universal License
Each of these licenses enables you to install Agent for Windows on the same machine. If Agent for
Windows is already installed, you can install Agent for SQL by using one of the add-on licenses:
Acronis Backup Advanced for SQL Add-On
Acronis Backup Advanced for SharePoint Add-On.
To use the product in the trial mode, you do not need licenses.
Installation
Install the agent in the same way as Agent for Windows. For detailed step-by-step instructions, refer
to the "Interactive installation of Acronis Backup Advanced" section of the installation
documentation.
Credentials for Microsoft SQL instances
During the installation, you are asked to specify the sysadmin credentials for each Microsoft SQL
instance installed on the machine. These credentials are required to grant the sysadmin role to the
agent service account.
You can skip entering the credentials and grant the agent the sysadmin role later in any of the
following ways:
By clicking Tools > Provide SQL Server credentials when Acronis Backup Management Console is
connected to the machine.
By using SQL Server Management Studio.
By running a T-SQL script.
For more information, see "Permissions for SQL Server backup and recovery" (p. 302) in the product
Help or the User Guide.
12.3 Backing up Microsoft SQL server
To protect a Microsoft SQL server, create a backup plan or use the Backup now feature as described
in the "Backup" (p. 50) section.
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Follow these recommendations to ensure that a single-pass backup is successful.
Back up entire machines. This will allow you to recover both the operating system and any SQL
database present on a machine.
Databases may be stored on more than one disk or volume. To ensure that all necessary files are
included in a backup, back up the entire machine. This also ensures that the SQL Server will
remain protected if you add more databases or relocate the log files in the future.
If you do not want to back up an entire machine, select the volumes carefully.
If you are sure that the databases and their associated files are always on the same volumes, you
may want to back up only these volumes. Or, you may want to create separate backup plans for
the system volume and for the volumes that store the data.
You can also exclude files and folders (p. 55) if you are sure they do not belong to Microsoft SQL
Server.
In any case, make sure that all of the volumes containing the necessary files are included in the
backup. If, for example, the log file of a database is not included in the backup, you will not be
able to recover this database. Recovery of the operating system may not be possible if you did
not back up boot and system volumes or excluded critical system files.
For instructions on how to find out the database paths, refer to "SQL Server database files" (p.
280).
Use Volume Shadow Copy (VSS).
Make sure that the Volume Shadow Copy Service (p. 124) backup option is set to Use Volume
Shadow Copy Service and that the selected snapshot provider is not Software - Acronis VSS
Provider. The best choice is Software - System provider.
12.3.1 Single-pass backup settings
The settings described in this section relate to single-pass backup. These settings are grouped in the
Single-pass disk and application backup section of the Create backup plan (p. 50) or Back up now
page.
Single-pass backup
This setting enables single-pass disk and application backup.
To access the following settings, click Show task failure handling, log truncation.
Error handling
The Ignore application backup errors and continue the task check box determines the
software behavior when it fails to collect application metadata during a backup. For example,
this happens if a database is corrupted, or the application service is stopped, or using VSS is
disabled in the backup options, or the account under which the backup runs does not have
permissions to access a database.
By default, Acronis Backup fails the backup.
If you select the check box, the backup will continue. The event log will contain an entry
about each of the databases for which the metadata is not collected. If no metadata is
collected at all, you will obtain an ordinary disk-level backup.
The following setting is available only if Agent for SQL is installed on the machine.
Log truncation
If the setting is enabled, the Microsoft SQL Server log will be truncated after each full,
incremental or differential backup. The truncation occurs only if the single-pass backup was
successful.
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Leave the setting disabled if you use a third-party application, such as the SQL Server backup
and restore component, for backing up the SQL Server data.
Log truncation and ignoring application errors are mutually exclusive. This prevents truncating
the Microsoft SQL log if the application metadata is not collected.
12.4 Recovering Microsoft SQL Server data
This section describes only the steps and settings that are specific for recovering SQL databases from
a single-pass backup. The common settings of a recovery task are described in the "Creating a
recovery task" (p. 127) section.
You have two options for SQL database recovery:
Recover the databases to instances (p. 306).
Extract the database files to folders (p. 308).
12.4.1 Recovering SQL databases to instances
Within a single recovery task, you can recover multiple databases. The databases are automatically
mapped to their original instances. You can select a target instance for each database, if necessary.
System databases are recovered in the same way as user databases. When recovering the master
database, the software automatically restarts the destination instance in the single-user mode. After
the recovery completes, the software restarts the instance and recovers other databases (if any).
Other things to consider when recovering a system database:
A system database can only be recovered to an instance of the same version as the original
instance.
A system database is always recovered in the "ready to use" state.
Because the master database records information about all databases of the instance, you may
need to perform additional actions after the database is recovered. For details, see "Actions after
a master database recovery" (p. 307).
To recover databases to instances
On the Recover data page:
1. Under What to recover, click Select data and select the databases.
2. If the console is connected to the management server, select the registered machine where you
want to recover the databases. Otherwise, skip this step.
3. Select Recover the databases to instances.
4. Acronis Backup tries to specify the target instances for the selected databases by taking the
original paths from the backup. If the target instance is not selected for some database or if you
want to recover the database to another instance, specify the target instance manually.
If your current account does not have enough privileges to access the target SQL Server instance,
you will be asked to provide the credentials.
5. If the target instance contains a database that has the same name as the one being recovered,
the software displays a warning: The target database already exists. You have the following
options:
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Overwrite existing database
This is the default setting that fits most situations. The database in the target instance will be
overwritten with the database from the backup.
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Rename the recovered database
This setting lets you retain the existing database. A recovered database will have the
following name: -Recovered. If a database with this name
already exists, the recovered database will be named as follows: -Recovered ().
Examples: MyDatabase-Recovered, MyDatabase-Recovered (2).
6. For each database being recovered, you can select its state after recovery. To do so, click the
icon to the left of the database name, and then select one of the following values:
Ready to use (RESTORE WITH RECOVERY) (by default)
After the recovery completes, the database will be ready for use. Users will have full access
to it. The software will roll back all uncommitted transactions of the recovered database that
are stored in the transaction logs. You will not be able to recover additional transaction logs
from the native Microsoft SQL backups.
Non-operational (RESTORE WITH NORECOVERY)
After the recovery completes, the database will be non-operational. Users will have no
access to it. The software will keep all uncommitted transactions of the recovered database.
You will be able to recover additional transaction logs from the native Microsoft SQL backups
and thus reach the necessary recovery point.
Read-only (RESTORE WITH STANDBY)
After the recovery completes, users will have read-only access to the database. The software
will undo any uncommitted transactions. However, it will save the undo actions in a
temporary standby file so that the recovery effects can be reverted.
This value is primarily used to detect the point in time when a SQL Server error occurred.
7. You can change the paths to where the database files will be saved. To access these settings, click
the icon to the left of the database name.
8. Under How to recover, select whether to use Acronis Active Restore (p. 307) during recovery.
9. Specify other settings of the recovery task as appropriate.
12.4.1.1
Actions after a master database recovery
The master database records information about all databases of the instance. Hence, the master
database in a backup contains information about databases which existed in the instance at the time
of the backup.
After recovering the master database, you may need to do the following:
Databases that have appeared in the instance after the backup was done are not visible by the
instance. To bring these databases back to production, attach them to the instance manually. For
instructions on how to do this by using SQL Server Management Studio, see the "Attaching SQL
Server databases" (p. 289) section.
Databases that have been deleted after the backup was done are displayed as offline in the
instance. Delete these databases by using SQL Server Management Studio.
12.4.1.2
Using Acronis Active Restore for SQL database recovery
Active Restore is an Acronis proprietary technology. It brings a Microsoft SQL database online
minutes after the database recovery is started. This allows users to access their data while the
databases are still being recovered. Therefore, using Active Restore makes sense when you recover
the databases to the Ready to use or Read-only state.
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Active Restore supports the following backup locations:
A local folder on the machine where the recovery is performed (except optical disks).
Acronis Secure Zone.
A network share.
To use Active Restore, enable it on the Recover data page (p. 127) under How to recover.
The recovery process
1. If the recovery task includes the master database, it is recovered first. During this process, the
instance is in the single-user mode and, therefore, users cannot connect to it. After the database
is recovered, the software restarts the instance.
2. The agent starts the recovery of other databases. Multiple databases are recovered in parallel.
First, the databases are in the Restoring state and users have no access to them. After a short
time, users obtain the read-write or read-only access to the databases, depending on the state
specified in the recovery task settings.
Details. The Acronis Active Restore drivers intercept user queries. The data required to service
the queries is recovered with the highest priority; everything else is recovered in the background.
As a result, users can access their data even though the databases are not yet recovered.
3. After the recovery is completed, the databases are reattached. This takes less than a minute.
Because the servicing of requests is performed simultaneously with recovery, the database operation
can slow down even if recovery priority (p. 159) in the recovery options is set to Low. Although the
database downtime is minimal, there may be reduced performance during recovery.
12.4.2 Extracting the database files to folders
SQL database files and transaction logs can be extracted from a single-pass backup to a folder you
specify. This can be useful if you need to recover databases to a machine where Agent for SQL is not
installed, or you need to extract data for data mining, audit or further processing by third party tools.
To extract database files
On the Recover data page:
1. Under What to recover, click Select data and select the databases.
2. If the console is connected to the management server, select a registered machine where Agent
for SQL is installed. Otherwise, skip this step.
3. Select Extract the database files to folders.
4. In Target folder, specify the destination folder where the database files will be saved.
Details. If you select more than one database, files of each database will be extracted to a
separate folder within the folder you specify. If the destination folder already contains a file of a
database with the same name as the selected database, the database files will be extracted to
subfolder \.
5. Specify other settings of the recovery task as appropriate.
Once the extraction is completed, you can attach the database to a SQL Server instance. For
instructions on how to do this by using SQL Server Management Studio, see the "Attaching SQL
Server databases" (p. 289) section.
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12.5 Mounting SQL Server databases from a single-pass
backup
When you mount a backed-up SQL database, it is temporarily attached to your SQL Server in the
read-only mode. You can access the database like any other database of the instance.
Mounting databases comes in handy when you need any of the following:
To granularly restore individual database objects, such as tables, records, stored procedures.
Mount the database and use third-party tools to get the necessary information from it.
To quickly access historical information. Recovery of a large database may take a long time. If you
mount the database, you do not have to wait until the database is recovered.
To view the state of a database as of a certain point in time (for example, for data mining or
audit).
The mount operation is available when the console is connected to a machine where Agent for SQL is
installed. The single-pass backup must be stored in a local folder on that machine (except optical
disks), in Acronis Secure Zone, or on a network share. Other locations are not supported by the
mount operation.
System databases are mounted as user databases.
To mount a SQL Server database
1.
2.
3.
4.
Connect the console to a machine where Agent for SQL is installed.
On the Actions menu, click Mount SQL databases from image.
Click Select data, and then select the backup and the databases you need to mount.
Acronis Backup tries to specify the target instances for the selected databases by taking the
original paths from the backup. If the target instance is not selected for some database or if you
want to mount the database to another instance, specify the target instance manually.
If your current account does not have enough privileges to access the target SQL Server instance,
you will be asked to provide the credentials.
5. Сlick OK.
A mounted database has the following name: -Mounted. If a
database with this name already exists, the mounted database is named as follows: -Mounted ().
Examples: MyDatabase-Mounted, MyDatabase-Mounted (2).
12.5.1 Unmounting mounted SQL Server databases
Maintaining the mounted databases takes considerable system resources. It is recommended that
you unmount a database after the necessary operations are completed. If a database is not
unmounted manually, it will remain mounted until the operating system restarts or until the agent
service restarts.
To unmount a SQL database
1. Connect the console to a machine where Agent for SQL is installed.
2. In the Navigation pane, click Manage mounted SQL databases.
3. To unmount one database, select it and click
databases at once, click
Unmount all.
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If the selected database is in use, Acronis Backup forcibly disconnects all users from the database
and then unmounts it.
12.6 Protecting clustered SQL Server instances and AAG
SQL Server high-availability solutions
The Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) functionality enables you to configure a highly
available SQL Server through redundance at the instance level (Failover Cluster Instance, FCI) or at
the database level (AlwaysOn Availability Group, AAG). You can also combine both methods.
In a Failover Cluster Instance, SQL databases are located on a shared storage. Because this storage
can only be accessed from the active node, SQL Server data is backed up only when the active node is
backed up. For the same reason, SQL databases can only be recovered onto an active node. If the
active node fails, a failover occurs and a different node becomes active.
In an availability group, each database replica resides on a different node. If the primary replica
becomes not available, a secondary replica residing on a different node is assigned the primary role.
Other solutions include database mirroring and log shipping. For more information about SQL Server
high-availability solutions refer to the Microsoft documentation:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190202.aspx.
Backing up SQL Server configured for high availability
In both the FCI and AAG cases, backing up only one node is not sufficient. If this node fails, the SQL
Server will continue functioning, but its databases will not be backed up. If you want the SQL Server
data to be backed up uninterruptedly, regardless of how many nodes are up and operational,
consider the following approach.
1. Install Agent for SQL on all of the WSFC nodes.
2. On each of the nodes, create a backup plan with identical settings. Or create a single centralized
backup plan for all of the nodes.
The settings are as follows:
In What to back up, click Items to back up and select the check box next to the machine (not
next to individual disks). This ensures that the shared storages will be included in the backup
when the node becomes active.
In Where to back up, specify a single location for all of the nodes. This may be a centralized vault
or just a network share. This ensures that all the backed-up data will be stored in one place.
Single-pass disk and application backup - Enabled.
3. Specify other settings of the backup plan as appropriate.
With these settings, if a failover occurs, the SQL databases will continue to be backed up on a
different node. When it comes to recovery, you will find the databases by expanding the cluster in
the vault Data view or Archive view.
Recovery of databases configured for high availability
A database configured for mirroring or included in an AlwaysOn Availability Group cannot be
overwritten during a recovery because Microsoft SQL Server prohibits this. You need to remove the
target database mirroring or exclude the target database from the AAG before the recovery. Or, just
recover the database as a new non-AAG one. When the recovery is completed, you can reconstruct
the original mirroring/AAG configuration.
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13 Protecting Microsoft Active Directory with
single-pass backup
This section describes how to use single-pass disk and application backups to protect the Active
Directory Domain Services role of Microsoft Active Directory.
The single-pass backup functionality becomes available by installing Acronis Backup Agent for Active
Directory.
Without this agent, you can protect your Active Directory data by using disk-level backup. For a
detailed description of this method, see the "Protecting applications with disk-level backup" (p. 278)
section.
13.1 Agent for Active Directory
Agent for Active Directory creates an application-aware disk backup also known as a single-pass
backup. While doing a backup, Agent for Active Directory adds Microsoft Active Directory metadata
to the resulting backup file.
The agent enables you to extract Active Directory files from a single-pass backup without recovering
the entire disk or volume. After that, you can replace the corrupted files with the extracted ones.
The domain controller can also be recovered as a whole.
13.2 Supported operating systems
Agent for Active Directory can be installed in the following operating systems:
Windows Server 2003/2003 R2 – Standard and Enterprise editions (x86, x64)
Windows Small Business Server 2003/2003 R2
Windows Server 2008 – Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter editions (x86, x64)
Windows Small Business Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 R2 – Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, and Foundation editions
Windows Small Business Server 2011 – all editions
Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 – all editions
13.3 Installation of Agent for Active Directory
Agent for Active Directory can only be installed on a domain controller. Remote installation of the
agent is not possible.
The agent is included in the setup program of Acronis Backup Advanced.
The agent is installed with Agent for Windows (p. 12) or on a machine where Agent for Windows is
already installed.
Licenses required
Agent for Active Directory requires one of the following licenses:
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Acronis Backup for Windows Server Essentials
Acronis Backup Advanced for VMware / Hyper-V / RHEV / Citrix XenServer / Oracle VM
Acronis Backup Advanced Universal License
Each of these licenses enables you to install Agent for Windows on the same machine. If Agent for
Windows is already installed, you can install Agent for Active Directory by using the Acronis Backup
Advanced for Active Directory Add-On license.
To use the product in the trial mode, you do not need licenses.
Installation
Install the agent in the same way as Agent for Windows. When asked for credentials for the Acronis
Managed Machine Service, specify an existing domain user account that is included in the built-in
Administrators group of the domain controller. Otherwise, single-pass backups of Microsoft Active
Directory data will fail.
For detailed step-by-step instructions, refer to the "Interactive installation of Acronis Backup
Advanced" section of the installation documentation.
13.4 Backing up Microsoft Active Directory
To protect Active Directory, create a backup plan or use the Backup now feature as described in the
"Backup" (p. 50) section.
Follow the best practices described in the "Active Directory backup" (p. 286) section.
Ensure that the Volume Shadow Copy Service (p. 124) backup option is set to Use Volume Shadow
Copy Service and that the selected snapshot provider is not Software - Acronis VSS Provider. The
best choice is Software - System provider.
13.5 Recovering Microsoft Active Directory
Recovering a domain controller
If the domain controller is not able to boot, refer to one of the following sections, depending on the
number and availability of domain controllers in your environment:
"Recovering a domain controller (other DCs are available)" (p. 291).
"Recovering a domain controller (no other DCs are available)" (p. 292).
Recovering Active Directory data
If the Active Directory database files or the SYSVOL folder are corrupted but the domain controller is
able to start in normal mode, you can recover only the Active Directory data.
Use one of the following methods:
"Re-promoting the domain controller" (p. 314)
This is just a replication of all the Active Directory data from other DCs.
"Recovering the Active Directory data from a single-pass backup" (p. 314)
This method enables you to recover all the Active Directory data regardless of availability of
other DCs. If other DCs are available, you can also perform an authoritative restore of individual
Active Directory objects. For example, you can restore an unintentionally deleted user account or
computer account. Other objects will be replicated from other DCs.
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13.5.1 Re-promoting the domain controller
This method of recovering the data is available only if the domain has other domain controllers. It
does not require having a backup.
To recover Microsoft Active Directory, use the Dcpromo tool to demote the domain controller with
the corrupted data, and then to promote that domain controller again.
To re-promote the domain controller, run the following commands:
dcpromo /forceremoval
dcpromo /adv
13.5.2 Recovering the Active Directory data from a single-pass
backup
This method of recovering the data can be used regardless of whether the domain has other domain
controllers.
This section describes only the steps and settings that are specific for recovering Active Directory
data from a single-pass backup. The common settings of a recovery task are described in the
"Creating a recovery task" (p. 127) section.
Extracting the Active Directory data
On the Recover data page:
1. Under What to recover, click Select data. Select the data and the recovery point.
Warning If the domain has two or more domain controllers, select a recovery point that is not older than
the tombstone lifetime. Otherwise, replication issues may occur.
2. If the console is connected to the management server, select a registered machine where Agent
for Active Directory is installed. Otherwise, skip this step.
3. Click Destination and select a local or network folder to extract the Microsoft Active Directory
data as files to. The database files and the SYSVOL folder will be recovered with recreating a full
path.
4. In Overwriting, choose whether to overwrite an existing file with the same name as in the
archive.
5. Specify other settings of the recovery task (p. 127) as appropriate.
6. Run the recovery task and wait until it is completed.
Replacing the Active Directory data with the extracted files
1. Restart the domain controller and press F8 during startup.
2. On the Advanced Boot Options screen, select Directory Services Restore Mode.
3. [Optional] Create a copy of the current Active Directory database files in case the changes need
to be undone.
4. Move the extracted Active Directory data to its original location:
a. Navigate to the folder with the extracted data. This folder contains one or more folders. The
names of these folders contain drive letters of the disks that contained the backed-up Active
Directory data. For example, Drive(C).
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b. Copy all of the contents from each of these folders to the root of the corresponding disk
drive. For example, copy the contents from the Drive(C) folder to C:/ and from the Drive(E)
folder to E:/. Choose to overwrite the files, if prompted.
Completing the recovery
1. If the domain has only one domain controller, skip this step. Otherwise, do one of the following:
If you want to recover the entire Active Directory database, perform steps 3–8 described
under "USN rollback" in the "Avoiding a USN rollback" (p. 294) section.
If you want to recover individual objects, such as an unintentionally deleted user account or
computer account, perform steps 2–4 described in the "Restoring accidentally deleted
information" (p. 294) section.
2. Restart the domain controller in normal mode.
3. Ensure that the Active Directory service has started successfully.
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14 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. This section also covers
supplementary operations that can be performed on a managed machine, such as changing a license,
adjusting Machine options, and collecting system information.
14.1 Backup plans and tasks
The Backup plans and tasks view keeps you informed of data protection on a given machine. It lets
you monitor and manage backup plans and tasks.
To find out what a backup plan is currently doing on the machine, check the backup plan execution
state (p. 318). A backup plan execution state is a cumulative state of the plan's most recent activities.
The status of a backup plan (p. 319) helps you to estimate whether the data is successfully protected.
To keep track of a task's current progress, examine its state (p. 319). Check a task status (p. 320) to
ascertain the result of a task.
Typical workflow
Use filters to display the desired backup plans (tasks) in the backup plans table. By default, the
table displays all the plans of the managed machine sorted by name. You can also hide the
unneeded columns and show the hidden ones. For details, see "Sorting, filtering and configuring
table items" (p. 24).
In the backup table, select the backup plan (task).
To review detailed information on the selected plan (task), use the information panel at the
bottom of the window. The panel is collapsed by default. To expand the panel, click the arrow
mark ( ). The content of the panel is also duplicated in the Plan details (p. 325) and Task details
(p. 326) windows respectively.
Use the toolbar's buttons to take an action on the selected plan (task). For details, see "Actions
on backup plans and tasks" (p. 316).
14.1.1 Actions on backup plans and tasks
The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with backup plans and tasks.
Restrictions
Without the Administrator privileges on the machine, a user cannot run or modify plans or tasks
owned by other users.
It is not possible to modify or delete a currently running backup plan or task.
A centralized backup plan or task can be modified or deleted only on the management server
side.
To
Do
Create a new backup plan
or task
Click
New, then select one of the following:
Backup plan (p. 50)
Recovery task (p. 127)
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To
Do
Validation task (p. 232)
View details of a plan/task
Click
Details.
In the respective Plan Details (p. 325) or Task Details (p. 326) window, review the
plan or task details.
View plan's/task's log
Click
Log.
You will be taken to the Log (p. 326) view containing the list of the log entries
grouped by the plan/task-related activities.
Run a plan/task
Backup plan
1. Click
Run.
2. In the drop-down list, select the plan's task you need run.
Running the backup plan starts the selected task of that plan immediately in spite
of its schedule and conditions.
Task
Click
Run.
The task will be executed immediately in spite of its schedule and conditions.
Stop a plan/task
Click
Stop.
Backup plan
Stopping the running backup plan stops all its tasks. Thus, all the task operations
will be aborted.
Task
Stopping a task aborts its operation (recovery, validation, exporting, conversion,
etc.). The task enters the Idle state. The task schedule, if created, remains valid.
To complete the operation you will have to run the task over again.
What will happen if I stop the recovery task?
Recovering disks: the aborted operation may cause changes in the target disk.
Depending on the time that has passed since the task run, the target disk may
not be initialized, or the disk space may be unallocated, or some volumes may
be recovered and others not. To recover the entire disk, run the task once
again.
Recovering volumes: the target volume will be deleted and its space
unallocated – the same result you will get if the recovery is unsuccessful. To
recover the “lost” volume, run the task once again.
Recovering files or folders: the aborted operation may cause changes in the
destination folder. Depending on the time that has passed since the task run,
some files may be recovered, but some not. To recover all the files, run the
task once again.
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To
Do
Edit a plan/task
Click
Edit.
Backup plan editing is performed in the same way as creation (p. 50), 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.
In all other cases the scheme can be changed, and should continue to operate as
if existing archives were created by a new scheme. For empty archives all changes
are possible.
Clone a backup plan
Click
Clone.
The clone of the original backup plan will be created with default name "Clone of
". The cloned plan will be disabled immediately after
cloning, so that it does not run concurrently with the original plan. You can edit
the cloned plan settings before enabling it.
Enable a plan
Click
Enable.
The previously disabled backup plan will run again as scheduled.
Disable a plan
Click
Disable.
The backup plan will not run as scheduled. However, it can be started manually.
After a manual run, the plan will stay disabled. The plan will run as usual if you
enable it again.
Export a plan
Click
Export.
Specify the path and name of the resulting file. See Export and import of backup
plans (p. 320) for more information.
Import a plan
Click
Import.
Specify the path and name of the file that contains a previously exported plan.
See Export and import of backup plans (p. 320) for more information.
Delete a plan/task
Click
Delete.
14.1.2 States and statuses of backup plans and tasks
14.1.2.1
Backup plan execution states
A backup plan state is a cumulative state of the plan's tasks/activities.
State
1
Need interaction
How it is determined
At least one task needs
user interaction.
Otherwise, see 2.
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How to handle
Identify the tasks that need interaction (the program will
display what action is needed) -> Stop the tasks or enable
the tasks to run (change media; provide additional space on
the vault; ignore the read error; create the missing Acronis
Secure Zone).
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State
2
Running
How it is determined
At least one task is
running.
How to handle
No action is required.
Otherwise, see 3.
3
Waiting
At least one task is
waiting.
Otherwise, see 4.
Waiting for condition. This situation is quite normal, but
delaying a backup for too long is risky. The solution may be
to set the maximum delay (p. 123) after which the task will
start anyway or force the condition (tell the user to log off,
enable the required network connection.)
Waiting while another task locks the necessary resources. A
one-time waiting case may occur when a task start is
delayed or a task run lasts much longer than usual for some
particular reason and prevents another task from starting.
This situation is resolved automatically when the
obstructing task comes to an end. Consider stopping a task
if it hangs for too long to enable the next task to start.
Persistent task overlapping may result from an incorrectly
scheduled plan or plans. It makes sense to edit the plan in
this case.
4
Idle
14.1.2.2
All the tasks are idle.
No action is required.
Backup plan statuses
A backup plan can have one of the following statuses: Error; Warning; OK.
A backup plan status is derived from the results of the last run of the plans' tasks/activities.
1
Status
How it is determined
How to handle
Error
At least one task has
failed.
Identify the failed tasks -> Check the tasks log to find out
the reason of the failure, then do one or more of the
following:
Otherwise, see 2
Remove the reason of the failure -> [optionally] Start
the failed task manually
Edit the local plan to prevent its future failure if a local
plan has failed
Edit the centralized backup plan on the management
server if a centralized plan has failed
2
Warning
At least one task has
succeeded with
warnings.
View the log to read the warnings -> [optionally] Perform
actions to prevent the future warnings or failure.
Otherwise, see 3.
3
OK
14.1.2.3
All the tasks are
completed successfully.
No action is required. Note that a backup plan can be OK if
none of the tasks has been started yet.
Task states
A task can be in one of the following states: Idle; Waiting; Running; Need interaction. The initial task
state is Idle.
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Once the task is started manually or the event specified by the schedule occurs, the task enters
either the Running state or the Waiting state.
Running
A task changes to the Running state when the event specified by the schedule occurs AND all the
conditions set in the backup plan are met AND no other task that locks the necessary resources is
running. In this case, nothing prevents the task from running.
Waiting
A task changes to the Waiting state when the task is about to start, but another task using the
same resources is already running. In particular, more than one backup tasks cannot run
simultaneously on a machine. A backup task and a recovery task also cannot run simultaneously,
if they use the same resources. Once the other task unlocks the resource, the waiting task enters
the Running state.
A task may also change to the Waiting state when the event specified by the schedule occurs but
the condition set in the backup plan is not met. See Task start conditions (p. 123) for details.
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 Idle (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.)
14.1.2.4
Task statuses
A task can have one of the following statuses: Error; Warning; OK.
A task status is derived from the result of the last run of the task.
1
Status
How it is determined
How to handle
Error
Last result is "Failed"
Identify the failed task -> Check the task log to find out the
reason of the failure, then do one or more of the following:
Remove the reason of the failure -> [optionally] Start the
failed task manually
Edit the failed task to prevent its future failure
2
Warning
Last result is "Succeeded View the log to read the warnings -> [optionally] Perform
with warning" or the
actions to prevent the future warnings or failure.
task has been stopped
3
OK
Last result is
"Not run yet" means that the task has never been started or
"Succeeded" or "Not run has been started, but has not finished yet and, therefore its
yet"
result is not available. You may want to find out why the
task has not started so far.
14.1.3 Export and import of backup plans
The export operation creates a file with complete configuration of the backup plan. You can import
the file to reuse the exported backup plan on another machine.
Centralized backup plans can be exported from a management server and imported to a
management server only.
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You can edit plans in the Acronis Backup graphical user interface when importing them or after.
Backup plans are exported to .xml files, so you can edit the export files of backup plans (p. 321) with
text editors. Passwords are encrypted in the export files.
Usage examples
Agent reinstallation
Export the backup plans before reinstalling the agent and import them after reinstalling.
Deploying a backup plan to multiple machines
You have an environment where it is not possible to use Acronis Backup Management Server; for
example, because of security restrictions. Nevertheless, you want to use the same backup plan
on multiple machines. Export this plan from one of the machines and deploy it as a file (p. 324) to
the other machines.
Adjusting credentials
Before exporting a backup plan that will further be imported to a different machine, check the user
account under which the plan runs (Edit > Plan parameters > Show task credentials, comments,
label > Plan's credentials).
The plan will successfully run on a different machine if the Plan's credentials value is either Acronis
service credentials or Run as: ... (current user). If the Plan's credentials parameter contains a
specific user account, the plan will start only if there is an identical account on that machine.
Therefore, you may need to do one of the following:
Create an account with identical credentials on the machine where the plan will be imported.
Edit credentials in the export file before importing. For details, see Editing the export file (p. 321).
Edit credentials after importing the plan.
Steps to perform
To export a backup plan
1. Select a backup plan in the Backup plans and tasks view.
2. Click
Export.
3. Specify the path and name of the export file.
4. Confirm your choice.
To import a backup plan
1.
2.
3.
4.
Click
Import in the Backup plans and tasks view.
Specify the path and name of the export file.
Confirm your choice.
If you need to edit the newly imported backup plan, select it in the Backup plans and tasks view,
then click
Edit. Make the necessary changes and click Save.
14.1.3.1
Editing the export file
The export file is an .xml file and can be edited with a text editor.
Here is how to make some useful changes.
How to modify credentials
In the export file, the tags include the user name and the tags include the
user password.
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To modify credentials, change the and tags in the corresponding sections:
plan's credentials – the section
access credentials for the backed-up data – the section
access credentials for the backup destination – the section.
Pay special attention to modifying the tag. The tag that contains an encrypted
password looks like ... .
To change the encrypted password
1. In the command line, run the acronis_encrypt utility:
acronis_encrypt UserPassword#1
(here UserPassword#1 is the password you want to encrypt).
2. The utility outputs a string, for example "XXXYYYZZZ888".
3. Copy this string and paste it into the tag as follows:
XXXYYYZZZ888
The acronis_encrypt utility is available on any machine where Acronis Backup Management
Console or Acronis Backup command-line utility (acrocmd) is installed. The path to the utility is as
follows:
In a 32-bit version of Windows: %CommonProgramFiles%\Acronis\Utils
In a 64-bit version of Windows: %CommonProgramFiles(x86)%\Acronis\Utils
In Linux: /usr/sbin
How to make a backup plan use the agent's credentials
Before importing or deploying the export file, delete the value of the required tag. Then
the imported or deployed plan will use credentials of the agent service.
Example
To make the backup plan run under the agent's credentials, find the tag in the
section. The tag looks like follows:
Administrator
XXXYYYZZZ888
Delete the value of the tag, so that the tag looks like follows:
XXXYYYZZZ888
How to change items to back up
Replacing a directly specified item with another directly specified item
Inside the section:
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1. Delete the tag.
2. Edit the value of the tag , which contains information about data to back up; for example,
replace "C:" with "D:".
Replacing a directly specified item with a selection template
Inside the section:
1. Add the tag with "disks" or "files" value, depending on the type of the
template you need.
2. Add the tag.
3. Inside the tag, add the with the required template. The template must
correspond to the directly specified item. For example, if the specified item has the "disks"
value, you can use the [SYSTEM], [BOOT] and [Fixed Volumes] templates; but you cannot
use the [All Files] or [All Profiles Folder] templates. For more information about
templates, see "Selection rules for volumes" (p. 352) and "Selection rules for files and folders" (p.
350).
4. To add another template, repeat the step 3.
Example
The following example illustrates how to replace a directly specified item with selection templates.
The original section:
disks
The section after applying the selection templates:
disks
disks
[BOOT]
[SYSTEM]
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14.1.4 Deploying backup plans as files
Assume that for some reason you cannot run Acronis Backup Management Server in your
environment, but you need to apply one and the same backup plan to multiple machines. A good
decision is to export the backup plan from one machine and deploy it to all the other machines.
How it works
A dedicated folder for storing deployed plans exists on every machine where an agent is installed.
The agent tracks changes in the dedicated folder. As soon as a new .xml file appears in the dedicated
folder, the agent imports the backup plan from that file. If you change (or delete) an .xml file in the
dedicated folder, the agent automatically changes (or deletes) the appropriate backup plan.
Editing the export file
A backup plan imported in such way cannot be edited through the graphical user interface. You can
edit the export file (p. 321) with a text editor either before or after the deployment.
If you edit the file before the deployment, the changes will take effect on all the machines where the
plan will be deployed. You may want to change the direct specification of the item to backup (such as
C: or C:\Users) with a template (such as [SYSTEM] or [All Profiles Folder]). For more information
about templates see Selection rules for volumes (p. 352) and Selection rules for files and folders (p.
350).
You may also want to change credentials used by the plan.
To deploy a backup plan as file
1.
2.
3.
4.
Create a backup plan on one of the machines.
Export it to an .xml file (p. 320).
[Optional] Edit the export file. See Editing the export file (p. 321) for more information.
Deploy this .xml file to the dedicated folder.
The dedicated folder path
In Windows
The default path to the dedicated folder
is %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\import (in Windows Vista and later versions
of Windows) or %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\import (in
versions of Windows earlier than Windows Vista).
The path is stored in the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\MMS\Configuration\Import\FolderPath.
The absence of the key means that the agent does not monitor the dedicated folder.
To change the path, edit the key. The change will be applied after a restart of Acronis Managed
Machine Service.
In Linux
The default path to the dedicated folder is /usr/lib/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery/import.
The path is stored in the file /etc/Acronis/MMS.config.
To change the path, edit the /usr/lib/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery/import value in the
following tag:
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"/usr/lib/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery/import"
The change will be applied after a restart of the agent. To restart the agent, run the following
command as the root user:
/etc/init.d/acronis_mms restart
The absence of the tag means that the agent does not monitor the dedicated folder.
14.1.5 Backup plan details
The Backup plan details window (also duplicated on the Information panel) aggregates all
information on the selected backup plan.
The respective message will appear at the top of the tabs, if execution of the plan requires user
interaction. The message contains a brief description of the problem and action buttons that let you
select the appropriate action or stop the plan.
Details
The Backup plans and tasks tab provides the following general information on the selected plan:
Name - name of the backup plan
Execution state - execution state (p. 318) of the backup plan.
Schedule - whether the task is scheduled, or set to start manually.
Last finish time - how much time has passed since the last plan or task end.
Origin - whether the plan was created directly on the machine (local origin), or deployed to the
machine from the management server (centralized origin).
Status - status (p. 319) of the backup plan.
Machine - name of the machine on which the backup plan exists (only for centralized backup
plans).
Last start time - how much time has passed since the last plan or task start.
Deployment state - the deployment states of the backup plan (only for centralized backup
plans).
Last result - the result of the last plan or task run.
Type - backup plan or task type.
Owner - the name of the user who created or last modified the plan
Next start time - when the plan or task will start the next time.
Comments - description of the plan (if provided).
Tasks
The Tasks tab displays a list of all tasks of the selected backup plan. To view the selected task details,
click Details.
Progress
The Progress tab lists all the selected backup plan's activities that are currently running or waiting for
their turn to run.
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History
The History tab lets you examine the history of all the backup plan's accomplished activities.
What to back up
The Source tab provides the following information on the data selected for backup:
Source type - the type of data selected for backing up.
Items to back up - items selected to back up and their size.
Where to back up
The Destination tab provides the following information:
Name - name of the archive.
Location - name of the vault or path to the folder, where the archive is stored.
Archive comments - comments on the archive (if provided).
2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th location - names of the locations to which the archive was copied or moved (if
specified in the backup plan).
Settings
The Settings tab displays the following information:
Backup scheme - the selected backup scheme and all its settings with schedules.
Backup options - backup options changed against the default values.
Validation - if specified, events before or after which the validation is performed, and validation
schedule. If the validation is not set, the Never value is displayed.
14.1.6 Task/activity details
The Task/activity details window (also duplicated on the Information panel) aggregates on several
tabs all information about the selected task or activity.
When a task or activity requires user interaction, a message and action buttons appear above the
tabs. The message contains a brief description of the problem. The buttons allow you to retry or stop
the task or the activity.
14.2 Log
The local event log stores the history of operations performed by Acronis Backup on the machine.
To view a plain list of log entries, select Events in the Display drop-down list; to view log entries
grouped by activities, select Activities. The details of the selected log entry or activity are shown in
the Information panel at the bottom of the Log view.
Use filters to display the desired activities and log entries in the table. You can also hide the
unneeded columns and show the hidden ones. For details, see "Sorting, filtering and configuring
table items" (p. 24).
Select the activity or log entry to take an action on log entries. For details, see "Actions on log
entries" (p. 327) and "Log entry details" (p. 327).
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14.2.1 Actions on log entries
All the operations described below are performed by clicking the corresponding items on the log
toolbar. These operations can also be performed with the context menu (by right-clicking the log
entry or the activity).
The following is a guideline for you to perform actions on log entries.
To
Do
Select a single activity
Select Activities in the Display drop-down list and click an activity.
The Information pane will show log entries for the selected activity.
Select a single log entry
Click on it.
Select multiple log
entries
non-contiguous: hold down CTRL and click the log entries one by one
contiguous: select a single log entry, then hold down SHIFT and click another log
entry. All the log entries between the first and last selections will be selected too.
View a log entry’s details 1. Select a log entry.
2. Do one of the following:
Double click the selection.
Click
Details.
The log entry's details will be displayed. See Log entry details (p. 385) for details of
the log entry's operations.
Save the selected log
entries to a file
1. Display Activities and select activities or display Events and select log entries.
2. Click
Save selected to file.
3. In the opened window, specify a path and a name for the file.
All log entries of the selected activities or selected log entries will be saved to the
specified 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. All log entries will
be saved to the specified file.
Save all the filtered log
entries to a file
1. Set filters to get a list of the log entries that satisfy the filtering criteria.
2. Click
Save all to file.
3. In the opened window, specify a path and a name for the file.
All log entries in the list will be saved to the specified file.
Delete all the log entries Click
Delete all.
All the log entries will be deleted from the log, and a new log entry will be created. It
will contain information about who deleted the log entries and when.
14.2.2 Log entry details
Displays detailed information on the log entry you have selected and lets you copy the details to the
clipboard.
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To view details of the next or the previous log entry, click the down arrow button or correspondingly
the up arrow button.
To copy the details, click the Copy to clipboard button.
Log entry data fields
A log entry contains the following data fields:
Type - Type of event (Error; Warning; Information).
Module - It can be blank or the number of the program module where the event has occurred. It
is an integer number that may be used by Acronis support service to solve the problem.
Owner - The user name of the backup plan owner (p. 29).
Date and time - Date and time when the event took place.
Backup plan - The backup plan the event relates to (if any).
Task - The task the event relates to (if any).
Code - It can be blank or the program error code if the event type is error. Error code is an
integer number that may be used by Acronis support service to solve the problem.
Message - The event text description.
Date and time presentation varies depending on your locale settings.
14.3 Alerts
An alert is a message that warns about actual or potential problems. The Alerts view lets you rapidly
identify and solve the problems by monitoring the current alerts and view the alerts history.
Active and inactive alerts
An alert can be either in an active, or inactive state. The active state indicates that the issue that
caused the alert still exists. An active alert becomes inactive when the problem that caused the alert
is resolved either manually or on its own.
Note: There is one alert type that is always active: "Backup not created". This is because even if the cause of this
alert was resolved and the following backups successfully created, the fact that the backup was not created
remains.
Fixing issues that caused alerts
To find and fix the issue that caused the alert, click Fix the issue. You will be taken to the
corresponding view,where you can examine the issue and take the necessary steps to resolve it.
Optionally, you can click View details to get more information about the alert you select.
Accepting alerts
By default, the Current alerts table lists both active and inactive alerts until they are not accepted. To
accept an alert, select it and then click Accept. By accepting an alert you acknowledge the alert and
agree to take responsibility for it. The accepted alerts are then moved to the Accepted alerts table,
with the alert state unchanged.
The Accepted alerts table stores the history of the accepted alerts. Here, you can find out who
accepted the alert and when it happen. The accepted alerts of both states can be removed from the
table either manually, by using Delete and Delete all buttons, or automatically (see "Configuring
alerts" later in this section).
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To export entire table contents to a *.txt or *.csv file, click Save all to file.
Configuring alerts
Use the following options at the top of the Alerts view to configure alerts:
Show/hide alerts (p. 26) - specify the alert types to display in the Alerts view.
Notifications (p. 333) - set up e-mail notifications about alerts.
Settings (p. 331) - specify whether to move inactive alerts to the Accepted alerts table
automatically; set how long to keep the accepted alerts in the Accepted alerts table.
14.4 Changing a license
By changing the license, you switch a product from trial mode to full mode or switch to a different
product. The following table summarizes the available options.
Switching a license
Why you may need it
Trial > Full
After trying the product, you decided to buy a license.
Full > Full, different product
You want to upgrade from Acronis Backup to Acronis Backup Advanced
in order to use the centralized management capability. For more
information, refer to the "Upgrading from Acronis Backup to Acronis
Backup Advanced" section of the installation documentation.
You used a server license (for example, Acronis Backup Advanced for
Windows Server) for a workstation. Now you want to assign the
workstation a workstation license (Acronis Backup Advanced for PC).
After that, you can revoke the server license and use it for a server.
Backing up to the cloud
storage* > Full
After backing up to the cloud storage only, you decided to buy a license to
obtain greater functionality.
Trial > Backing up to the cloud
storage*
After trying the product, you decided to back up to the cloud storage only.
*Some types of data (such as Exchange databases) cannot be backed up to the cloud storage. Prior to
backing up to the cloud storage, you need to activate a subscription for the cloud backup service on
the machine(s) you want to back up. For more information refer to the "Cloud backup" (p. 407)
section.
Before switching from trial mode to full mode
If you are planning to change licenses on a large number of machines, you may want to add (import)
the license keys to Acronis License Server.
Accessing the Licenses window
Do any of the following:
To change a license for a managed machine, connect the console to the machine and click Help >
Change license.
To change a license for a managed machine, connect the console to the management server,
navigate to Machines with agents > All machines with agents or to another group that displays
the machine whose license you want to change, right-click the machine, and then click Change
license.
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To change a license for a virtualization host (except for a clustered host), connect the console to
the management server, navigate to Virtual machines > Hosts and clusters, right-click the host,
and then click Change license.
To change licenses for all of the hosts of a virtualization cluster, connect the console to the
management server, navigate to Virtual machines > Hosts and clusters, right-click the cluster,
and then click Change license.
Changing a license
In the Licenses window, you can add license keys and select which licenses to use for the selected
machine. Each license enables a certain set of features. If you choose not to use a license, you will be
able to back up the machine to the cloud storage only.
In this window, you can also change a license server used by a machine. This operation is possible
only if the machine is not registered on the management server. For registered machines, the
management server determines which license server they use. See "Changing the license server used
by the management server" (p. 376) for details.
Managing a cloud backup subscription
The Acronis Cloud block of the Licenses window requires that you sign in to your Acronis account.
After that, it shows the cloud backup subscription activated on the machine. If no subscription is
activated, this block allows you to request for a subscription, to enter the registration code that you
received after the subscription purchase, and to activate the subscription.
14.5 Collecting system information
The system information collection tool gathers information about the machine to which the
management console is connected, and saves it to a file. You may want to provide this file when
contacting Acronis technical support.
This option is available under bootable media and for machines where Agent for Windows, Agent for
Linux or Acronis Backup Management Server is installed.
To collect system information
1. In the management console, select from the top menu Help > Collect system information from
'machine name'.
2. Specify where to save the file with system information.
14.6 Adjusting machine options
The machine options define the general behavior of all Acronis Backup agents operating on the
managed machine, and so the options are considered machine-specific.
To access the machine options, connect the console to the managed machine and then select
Options > Machine options from the top menu.
14.6.1 Additional settings
Specify what to do if the machine is about to be shut down while a task is running
This option is effective only for Windows operating systems.
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It determines Acronis Backup behavior when the system is shutting down. The system shutdown
occurs when the machine is turned off or restarted.
The preset is: Stop running tasks and shut down.
If you select Stop running tasks and shut down, all of the running Acronis Backup tasks will be
aborted.
If you select Wait for task completion, all of the running Acronis Backup tasks will be completed.
14.6.2 Acronis Customer Experience Program
This option is effective only for Windows operating systems.
This option defines whether the machine will participate in the Acronis Customer Experience
Program (CEP).
If you choose Yes, I want to participate in the CEP, 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. To learn more about the CEP, read the terms of
participation on the Acronis website or in the product GUI.
Initially the option is configured during the Acronis Backup agent installation. This setting can be
changed at any time using the product GUI (Options > Machine options > Customer Experience
Program). The option can also be configured using the Group Policy infrastructure (p. 392). A setting
defined by a Group Policy cannot be changed using the product GUI unless the Group Policy is
disabled on the machine.
14.6.3 Alerts
14.6.3.1
Alert management
Remove from "Accepted alerts" items older than
This option defines whether to delete the accepted alerts from the Accepted alerts table.
The preset is: Disabled.
When enabled, you can specify the keeping period for the accepted alerts. The accepted alerts older
than this period will be deleted from the table automatically.
Automatically move inactive alerts to "Accepted alerts"
This option defines whether to accept all the alerts that become inactive and move them to the
Accepted alerts table automatically.
The preset is: Disabled.
When enabled, you can specify the alert types to apply this option to.
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14.6.3.2
Time-based alerts
Last backup
This option is effective when the console is connected to a managed machine (p. 438) or to the
management server (p. 439).
The option defines whether to alert if no backup was performed on a given machine for a period of
time. You can configure the time period that is considered critical for your business.
The preset is: alert if the last successful backup on a machine was completed more than 5 days ago.
The alert is displayed in the Alerts view of the Navigation pane. When the console is connected to
the management server, this setting will also control the color scheme of the Last backup column's
value for each machine.
Last connection
This option is effective when the console is connected to the management server or to a registered
machine (p. 439).
The option defines whether to alert if no connection was established between a registered machine
and the management server for a period of time so indicating that the machine might not be
centrally managed (for instance in the case of network connection failure to that machine). You can
configure the length of time that is considered critical.
The preset is: alert if the machine's last connection to the management server was more than 5 days
ago.
The alert is displayed in the Alerts view of the Navigation pane. When the console is connected to
the management server, this setting will also control the color scheme of the Last connect column's
value for each machine.
14.6.4 E-mail settings
The option enables you to configure e-mail settings to send notifications about alerts which occurred
on the managed machine.
The notification schedule and the types of alerts to send are configured in Machine options > E-mail
settings > Alert notifications (p. 333).
The preset is: Disabled.
Note: Alerts warn only about problems. Therefore, e-mail notifications about successful backup or recovery
operations will not be sent. These e-mail notifications are configured in Backup options > Notifications > E-mail
(p. 109) and in Recovery options > Notifications > E-mail (p. 154) respectively.
To configure e-mail notification
1. In the E-mail addresses field, type the destination e-mail address. You can enter several
addresses separated by semicolons.
2. In the Subject field, type the notification subject or leave the default value. Variables are not
supported in this field.
3. In the SMTP server field, enter the name of the outgoing mail server (SMTP).
4. In the Port field, set the port of the outgoing mail server. By default, the port is set to 25.
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5. If the outgoing mail server requires authentication, enter User name and Password of the
sender's e-mail account.
If the SMTP server does not require authentication, leave the User name and Password fields
blank. If you are not sure whether the SMTP server requires authentication, contact your
network administrator or your e-mail service provider for assistance.
6. Click Additional e-mail parameters... to configure additional e-mail parameters as follows:
a. From – type the name of the sender. If you leave this field empty, the messages will contain
the sender's e-mail account in the From field.
b. Use encryption – you can opt for encrypted connection to the mail server. SSL and TLS
encryption types are available for selection.
c. 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 and Password of the incoming mail server.
d. Click OK.
7. Click Send test e-mail message to check whether e-mail notifications work correctly with the
specified settings.
14.6.4.1
Alert notifications
This option enables you to specify when to send e-mail notifications about alerts which occurred on
the managed machine and to select the types of alerts to send.
When using this option, make sure that the e-mail settings are properly configured in Machine
options > E-mail settings (p. 332).
The preset is: Disabled.
To configure alert notifications
1. Select when to send alert notifications:
As soon as an alert appears – to send a notification every time a new alert occurs.
Click Select the types of alerts... to specify the types of alerts to send notifications about.
On schedule send notification about all current alerts – to send a cumulative alert
notification including all alerts which occurred over a time interval you specify.
Click Select the types of alerts... to specify the types of alerts to send notifications about.
Set up the notification Frequency and Time.
2. Click OK.
14.6.5 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.
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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. 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. The settings you obtain in this case will be plan-specific or
task-specific.
14.6.5.1
SNMP notifications
This option is effective for both Windows and Linux operating systems.
This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
The option defines whether the agent(s) operating on the managed machine have to send the log
events to the specified Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) managers. You can choose the
types of events to be sent.
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. 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. The settings you obtain in this case will be plan-specific or
task-specific.
For detailed information about using SNMP with Acronis Backup, please see "Support for SNMP (p.
48)".
The preset is: Disabled.
To set up sending SNMP messages
1. Select the Send messages to SNMP server check box.
2. Specify the appropriate options as follows:
Types of events to send – choose the types of events: All events, Errors and warnings, or
Errors only.
Server name/IP – type the name or IP address of the host running the SNMP management
application, the messages will be sent to.
Community – type the name of the 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.
To disable sending SNMP messages, clear the Send messages to SNMP server check box.
The messages are sent over UDP.
The next section contains additional information about Setting up SNMP services on the receiving
machine (p. 334).
14.6.5.2
Setting up SNMP services on the receiving machine
Windows
To install the SNMP service on a machine running Windows:
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs > Add/Remove Windows Components.
Select Management and Monitoring Tools.
Click Details.
Select the Simple Network Management Protocol check box.
Click OK.
You might be asked for lmmib2.dll that can be found on the installation disc of your operating
system.
Linux
To receive SNMP messages on a machine running Linux, the net-snmp (for RHEL and SUSE) or the
snmpd (for Debian) package has to be installed.
SNMP can be configured using the snmpconf command. The default configuration files are located in
the /etc/snmp directory:
/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf - configuration file for the Net-SNMP SNMP agent
/etc/snmp/snmptrapd.conf - configuration file for the Net-SNMP trap daemon.
14.6.5.3
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 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.
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. 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. The settings you obtain in this case will be plan-specific or
task-specific.
The preset is: Disabled.
To enable this option, select the Log events check box.
Use the Types of events to log check box to filter the events to be logged in the Application
Event Log of Windows:
All events - all events (information, warnings and errors)
Errors and warnings
Errors only.
To disable this option, clear the Log events check box.
14.6.6 Log cleanup rules
This option specifies how to clean up the Acronis Backup agent log.
This option defines the maximum size of the agent log file. The file paths are as follows:
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In Windows XP and Server 2003: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application
Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\events.db3.
In Windows Vista and later versions of
Windows: %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\events.db3.
In Linux: /var/lib/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery/MMS/events.db3.
The preset is: Maximum log size: 50 MB. On cleanup, keep 95% of the maximum log size.
When the option is enabled, the program compares the actual log size with the maximum size after
every 100 log entries. Once the maximum log size is exceeded, the program deletes the oldest log
entries. You can select the amount of log entries to retain. The default 95% setting will keep most of
the log. With the minimum 1% setting, the log will be nearly cleared.
This parameter can also be set by using Acronis Administrative Template (p. 396).
14.6.7 Machine management
This option defines whether the machine has to be managed centrally by the Acronis Backup
Management Server.
To be able to use this option, you must be logged on as a member of the Administrators group on
the machine.
You have the opportunity to register the machine on the management server when installing an
Acronis Backup agent. If the machine is not registered, selecting Centralized management here will
initiate the registration (p. 440). Or, you can add the machine to the management server on the
server side. Any of the three registration methods require the server administrator privileges.
Selecting Stand-alone management on a registered machine will result in the machine stopping
communication with the server. On the management server, the machine appears as Withdrawn.
The management server administrator can delete the machine from the server or register the
machine once again.
The preset is: Stand-alone management.
To set up centralized management on the machine:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Select Centralized management.
Specify the Management Server IP/Name.
Specify the user name and password of the management server administrator on prompt.
In the Machine's registration address, select how the machine will be registered on the
management server: by its name (recommended) or by its IP address.
5. Click OK and the machine will be registered on the management server.
To disable centralized management, select Stand-alone management.
14.6.8 Cloud backup proxy
This option is effective only for backup to and recovery from Acronis Cloud Storage over the Internet.
This option defines whether the Acronis agent will connect to the Internet through a proxy server.
Note The proxy server must be configured to redirect both HTTP/HTTPS and TCP traffic.
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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. If the proxy server requires authentication, specify the credentials in User name and Password.
5. To test the proxy server settings, click Test connection.
If you do not know the proxy server settings, contact your network administrator or Internet service
provider for assistance.
Alternatively, you can try to take these settings from your Web browser’s configuration. This is how
to find them in three popular browsers.
Microsoft Internet Explorer. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options. On the Connections tab,
click LAN settings.
Mozilla Firefox. On the Tools menu, click Options and then click Advanced. On the Network tab,
under Connection, click Settings.
Google Chrome. In Settings, click Show advanced settings. Under Network, click Change proxy
settings.
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15 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 Acronis Backup Advanced.
15.1 Understanding centralized management
This section contains an overview of centralized data protection with Acronis Backup. Please be sure
you have an understanding of how data is protected on a single machine before reading this section.
15.1.1 Basic concepts
Creating centralized backup plans and tracking their execution
To protect data on a single machine, you install on the machine an agent (p. 430) or multiple agents
for various data types you want to protect. You connect the console to the machine and create a
backup plan (p. 430) or multiple backup plans.
What if you have to manage hundreds of machines? It takes time to create a backup plan on each
machine, while the plans may be quite similar – you need to back up, say, the system drive and the
users' documents. Tracking the plans' execution on each machine separately is also time-consuming.
To be able to propagate the management operations to multiple machines, you install Acronis
Backup Management Server (p. 439) and register (p. 440) the machines on the server. After that you
can create groups of machines and thus manage multiple machines as a whole. You can protect all of
them or your selection by setting up a centralized backup plan (p. 348).
Once you complete setting up a centralized backup plan on the management server, the server
deploys it to each of the machines included in the plan. The agents on the machines start executing
the plan. You are able to monitor the plan's status on a single screen and navigate, if required, to
each machine or activity to see their status and log entries. The management server also enables you
to monitor and manage the agent's locally originated activities.
Since you connect the console to the management server rather than to each machine and perform
all management operations through the central management unit, this way of management is called
centralized management (p. 432).
Centralized management does not rule out the direct management (p. 434) 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 plan functions automatically and rarely requires human intervention.
Using the management server, you can create one or more centralized archive storages (centralized
vaults (p. 432)), which will be shared by the registered machines. A centralized vault can be used by
any backup plan, either centralized or created on the registered machines using direct management.
Organizing a managed archive storage
What should the capacity of your centralized vault be? What if transferring sizeable backups to the
vault will cause network congestion? Does backup of an online production server affect the server
performance? To ensure that the centralized backup will not slow down business processes in your
company and to minimize the resources required for the data protection, you install Acronis Backup
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Storage Node (p. 440) and configure it to manage a centralized vault or multiple centralized vaults.
Such vaults are called managed vaults (p. 438).
The storage node helps the agent deduplicate (p. 434) backups before transferring them to managed
vaults and deduplicates the backups already saved in the vaults. Deduplication results in reducing
backup traffic and saving storage space. The storage node also undertakes operations with archives
(such as validation and cleanup), which otherwise are performed by the agent, and thus relieves the
managed machines from unnecessary computing load. Last but not least, Acronis Backup Storage
Node enables using a tape library as a centralized vault for storing backup archives.
More than one storage node, each managing a number of vaults, can be set up and controlled
centrally from the Acronis Backup Management Server.
For more detailed information about storage nodes please refer to the "Storage nodes" (p. 212)
section.
15.1.2 Privileges for centralized management
This section describes the users' privileges that are required to manage a machine locally and
remotely, to manage a machine registered on Acronis Backup Management Server, and to access and
manage Acronis Backup Storage Node.
15.1.2.1
Types of connection to a managed machine
There are two types of connection to a managed machine: local connection and remote connection.
Local connection
The local connection is established between Acronis Backup Management Console on a machine and
Acronis Backup Agent on the same machine.
To establish a local connection
On the toolbar, click Connect, then point to New connection, and then click Manage this
machine.
Remote connection
A remote connection is established between Acronis Backup Management Console on one machine
and Acronis Backup Agent on another machine.
You might need to specify logon credentials to establish a remote connection.
To establish a remote connection
1. On the toolbar, click Connect, then point to New connection, and then click Manage a remote
machine.
2. In Machine, type or select the name or IP address of the remote machine to which you want to
connect; or click Browse to select the machine from the list.
3. To specify credentials for connection, click Options and then type the user name and password in
the User name and Password boxes respectively. In Windows, if you leave the User name box
empty, the credentials under which the console is running will be used.
4. To save the password for the specified user name, select the Save password check box; the
password will be saved in a secure storage on the machine where the console is running.
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15.1.2.2
Privileges for local connection
Windows
Local connection on a machine running Windows can be established by any user who has the "Log on
locally" user right on the machine.
Linux
Establishing a local connection on a machine running Linux, and managing such machine, requires
the root privileges on it.
To establish a local connection as the root user
1. If you are logged on as the root user, run the following command:
/usr/sbin/acronis_console
Otherwise, run the following command:
su -c /usr/sbin/acronis_console
2. Click Manage this machine.
To allow a non-root user to start the console
As a root user, add the name of the non-root user whom you want to allow to start the console,
to the file /etc/sudoers—for example, by using the visudo command.
Caution: As a result of this procedure, the non-root user will not only be allowed to start the console with the
root privileges, but also may be able to perform other actions as the root user.
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.
15.1.2.3
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.
After remote connection is established, the user has management rights on the remote machine as
described in "User privileges on a managed machine" (p. 31).
Note: On a remote machine running Windows Vista and later with enabled User Account Control (UAC)—and
which is not part of a domain—only the built-in Administrator user can back up data and perform disk
management operations. To overcome the restriction, include the machine into a domain or disable UAC (p.
340) on the machine (by default, UAC is enabled).
For information about Acronis security groups and their default members, see "Acronis security
groups" (p. 342).
15.1.2.4
Requirements on User Account Control (UAC)
On a machine that is running Windows Vista or later and is not a member of an Active Directory
domain, centralized management operations (including remote installation) require that UAC be
disabled.
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To disable UAC
Do one of the following depending on the operating system:
In a Windows operating system prior to Windows 8:
Go to Control panel > View by: Small icons > User Accounts > Change User Account Control
Settings, and then move the slider to Never notify. Then, restart the machine.
In any Windows operating system:
1. Open Registry Editor.
2. Locate the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
3. For the EnableLUA value, change the setting to 0.
4. Restart the machine.
15.1.2.5
Privileges for remote connection in Linux
Remote connections to a machine running Linux—including those performed by the root user—are
established according to authentication policies, which are set up by using Pluggable Authentication
Modules for Linux, known as Linux-PAM.
For the authentication policies to work, we recommend installing the latest version of Linux-PAM for
your Linux distribution. The latest stable source code of Linux-PAM is available at Linux-PAM source
code Web page.
Remote connection as the root user
Remote connections by the root user are established according to the Acronisagent authentication
policy, which is automatically set up during the installation of Acronis Backup Agent for Linux, by
creating the file /etc/pam.d/acronisagent with the following content:
#%PAM-1.0
auth
required
auth
required
account required
pam_unix.so
pam_succeed_if.so uid eq 0
pam_unix.so
Remote connection as a non-root user
Since accessing the system as the root user should be restricted, the root user can create an
authentication policy to enable remote management under non-root credentials.
The following are two examples of such policies.
Note: As a result, the specified non-root users will be able to perform any operation on the machine under the
root privileges. A security best practice is to make sure that the user accounts are hard to compromise—for
example, by requiring that they have strong passwords.
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
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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. For example, to add the existing user user_a to the
group, run the following command:
usermod -G Acronis_Trusted user_a
3. Edit the file /etc/pam.d/acronisagent-trusted as follows:
#%PAM-1.0
auth
required
auth
required
account
required
pam_unix.so
pam_succeed_if.so user ingroup Acronis_Trusted
pam_unix.so
Example 2
The above authentication policy might not work on Linux distributions with kernel version
2.4—including Red Hat Linuх—because the pam_succeed_if.so module is not supported there.
In this case, you can use the following authentication policy.
1. As the root user, create the file /etc/pam.d/Acronis_trusted_users
2. Add the names of the non-root users whom you want to allow to manage the machine, to this
file, one user name per line. For example, if you want to add the users user_a, user_b, and user_c,
add the following three lines to the file:
user_a
user_b
user_c
If necessary, also add the root user to the file.
3. Edit the file /etc/pam.d/acronisagent-trusted as follows:
#%PAM-1.0
auth
required
pam_unix.so
auth
required
pam_listfile.so item=user sense=allow
file=/etc/pam.d/Acronis_trusted_users onerr=fail
account required
pam_unix.so
15.1.2.6
Acronis security groups
On a machine running Windows, Acronis security groups determine who can manage the machine
remotely and act as Acronis Backup Management Server administrator.
These groups are created when Acronis Backup Agents or Acronis Backup Management Server are
being installed. During installation, you can specify what users to include in each group.
Acronis Backup Agents
When Acronis Backup 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
Management Console, according to the management rights described in Users' privileges on a
managed machine (p. 31).
By default, this group includes all members of the Administrators group.
Acronis Backup Management Server
When Acronis Backup Management Server is being installed on a machine, two groups are created
(or updated):
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Acronis Centralized Admins
A user who is a member of this group is a management server administrator. Management
server administrators can connect to the management server by using Acronis Backup
Management Console; they have the same management rights on the registered machines as
users with administrative privileges on those machines—regardless of the contents of Acronis
security groups there.
To be able to connect to the management server remotely, an administrator of the management
server must also be a member of the Acronis Remote Users group.
No user—even a member of the Administrators group—can be an administrator of the
management server without being a member of the Acronis Centralized Admins group.
By default, this group includes all members of the Administrators group.
Acronis Remote Users
A user who is a member of this group can connect to the management server remotely by using
Acronis Backup Management Console—provided that the user is also a member of the Acronis
Centralized Admins group.
By default, this group includes all members of the Administrators group.
On a domain controller
If a machine is a domain controller in an Active Directory domain, the names and default contents of
Acronis security groups are different:
Instead of Acronis Remote Users and Acronis Centralized Admins, the groups are named
DCNAME $ Acronis Remote Users and DCNAME $ Acronis Centralized Admins respectively; here,
DCNAME stands for the NetBIOS name of the domain controller. Each dollar sign is surrounded
by a single space on either side.
Instead of explicitly including the names of all members of the Administrators group, the
Administrators group itself is included.
Tip: To ensure proper group names, you should install Acronis components in a domain controller after you have
set up the domain controller itself. If the components were installed before you set up the domain controller,
create the groups DCNAME $ Acronis Remote Users and DCNAME $ Acronis Centralized Admins manually, and
then include the members of Acronis Remote Users and Acronis Centralized Admins in the newly created groups.
15.1.2.7
Management server administrator rights
Normally, the Acronis Backup 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.
Alternatively, when creating a centralized backup plan, the management server administrator has
the option to explicitly specify a user account under which the centralized backup plan will run on the
registered machines. In this case, the user account must exist on all the machines to which the
centralized backup plan will be deployed. This is not always efficient.
To be a management server administrator, the user must be a member of the Acronis Centralized
Admins group on the machine where the management server is installed.
15.1.3 Communication between Acronis Backup components
This section describes how Acronis Backup components communicate with each other using secure
authentication and encryption.
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This section also provides information on configuring communication settings, selecting a network
port for communication, and managing security certificates.
15.1.3.1
Secure communication
Acronis Backup provides the capability to secure the data transferred between its components within
a local area network and through a perimeter network (also known as demilitarized zone, DMZ).
There are two mechanisms which ensure secure communication between Acronis Backup
components:
Secure authentication provides secure transfer of certificates needed to establish a connection,
by using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
Encrypted communication provides secure transfer of information between any two
components—for example, between Acronis Backup Agent and Acronis Backup Storage
Node—by encrypting the data being transferred.
For instructions on how to set up secure authentication and data encryption settings, see Configuring
communication options (p. 345).
For instructions on how to manage SSL certificates used for secure authentication, see SSL
certificates (p. 346).
Note: The components of earlier Acronis products, including those of the Acronis True Image Echo family,
cannot connect to the Acronis Backup components, regardless of the secure authentication and data encryption
settings.
15.1.3.2
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 Management Console is connecting to Acronis Backup Agent on a
remote machine, the former is the client and the latter is the server.
An Acronis component can act as a client application, a server application, or both, as shown in the
following table.
Component name
Can be
client
Can be
server
Acronis Backup Management Console
Yes
No
Acronis Backup Agent
Yes
Yes
Acronis Backup Management Server
Yes
Yes
Acronis Backup Storage Node
Yes
Yes
Acronis PXE Server
No
Yes
Acronis Backup Bootable Agent
Yes
Yes
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15.1.3.3
Configuring communication settings
You can configure communication settings, such as whether to encrypt transferred data, for Acronis
Backup components installed on one or more machines, by using Acronis Administrative Template.
For information on how to load the administrative template, see How to load Acronis Administrative
Template (p. 391).
When applied to a single machine, the administrative template defines the communication settings
for all the components on the machine; when applied to a domain or an organizational unit, it
defines the communication settings for all the components on the machines in that domain or
organizational unit.
To configure communication settings
1. Click Start, then click Run, and then type gpedit.msc
2. In the Group Policy console, expand Computer Configuration, then expand Administrative
Templates, and then click Acronis.
3. In the Acronis pane to the right, double-click a communication option that you want to configure.
The administrative template contains the following options (p. 392):
Remote Agent ports
If Acronis Backup Management Console is running, close it and start it again.
Client Encryption options
Server Encryption options
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 other Acronis components, such as Acronis Backup Agent for Windows or Acronis Backup
Management Server are running, restart their corresponding services from the Services
snap-in in Windows.
15.1.3.4
Network port configuration
Acronis Backup components use the 9876/TCP network communication port by default. The server
listens to this port for incoming connection. This port is also used as default by the Acronis client.
During component installation you might be asked to confirm the port opening or to open the port
manually, in case you are using a firewall other than Windows Firewall.
After installation, you can change the ports at any time to match your preferable values or for the
purpose of security. This operation requires the restart of Acronis Remote Agent (in Windows) or the
acronis_agent (in Linux) service.
After the port is changed on the server side, connect to the server using the : or
the : URL notation.
Note: If you use network address translation (NAT), you can also configure the port by setting up port mapping.
Configuring the port in the operating system
Windows
To be able to change the ports' numbers, load and configure the Administrative Template, provided
by Acronis, as described in Configuring communication settings (p. 345), under "Remote Agent
ports".
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Linux
Specify the port in the /etc/Acronis/Policies/Agent.config file. Restart the acronis_agent daemon.
Configuring the port in a bootable environment
While creating Acronis bootable media, you have the option to pre-configure the network port that
will be used by the Acronis Backup Bootable Agent. The choice is available between:
The default port (9876)
The currently used port
New port (enter the port number)
If a port has not been pre-configured, the agent uses the default port number.
15.1.3.5
SSL certificates
Acronis Backup components use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates for secure authentication.
SSL certificates for the components can be one of the two types:
Self-signed certificates, such as certificates automatically generated during the installation of an
Acronis component.
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.
In Windows, the certificate path and the server certificate's file name are specified in the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\Encryption\Server. The default path is:
For 32-bit versions of Windows: %CommonProgramFiles%\Acronis\Agent
For 64-bit versions of Windows: %CommonProgramFiles(x86)%\AcronisAgent
For self-signed certificates, the certificate thumbprint (also known as fingerprint or hash) is used for
future host identification: if a client has previously connected to a server by using a self-signed
certificate and tries to establish connection again, the server checks whether the certificate's
thumbprint is the same as the one used before.
Self-signed certificates
On machines running Windows, if the certificate location contains no server certificate, a self-signed
server certificate is automatically generated and installed during the installation of any Acronis
component except Acronis Backup Management Console.
If the machine is renamed after its self-signed certificate was generated, the certificate cannot be
used and you will need to generate a new one.
To generate a new self-signed certificate
1. Log on as a member of the Administrators group.
2. In the Start menu, click Run, and then type: cmd
3. Run the following command (note quotation marks):
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When using a 32-bit version of Windows:
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
"%CommonProgramFiles%\Acronis\Utils\acroniscert" --reinstall
When using a 64-bit version of Windows:
"%CommonProgramFiles(x86)%\Acronis\Utils\acroniscert" --reinstall
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
Command-line 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.
In the Details tab, in the list of fields, click Thumbprint.
Select and copy the field's value, called a certificate thumbprint—a string such as 20 99 00 b6 3d
95 57 28 14 0c d1 36 22 d8 c6 87 a4 eb 00 85
5. In the Start menu, click Run, and then type the following in the Open box (if you are using a
64-bit version of Windows, replace %CommonProgramFiles%
with %CommonProgramFiles(x86)%):
"%CommonProgramFiles%\Acronis\Utils\acroniscert.exe" --install "20 99 00
b6 3d 95 57 28 14 0c d1 36 22 d8 c6 87 a4 eb 00 85"
(Note quotation marks; substitute the sample thumbprint shown here with that of your
certificate.)
15.2 Back up now
You can configure a one-time backup of multiple machines in a few simple steps by using the Back up
now feature on Acronis Backup Management Server. The backup process will start immediately after
you perform the required steps and click OK.
For a long-time backup strategy that includes schedules and conditions, timely deleting of backups or
moving them to different locations, consider creating a backup plan.
Configuring immediate backup is similar to creating a centralized backup plan (p. 348) except for the
following:
There are no options to schedule backups and to set up retention rules.
After a backup task is configured, the software has 5 minutes to deploy the task to the specified
machines. If all the attempts to deploy the task on a machine during that period fail, this machine
will not be backed up.
If you run the same backup task again, it will back up only those machines that were backed up
during the first run.
Conversion of a disk-level backup to a virtual machine is not available as a part of the backup
operation. You can convert the resulting backup afterwards.
Unlike a Back up now operation that is performed directly on a managed machine (p. 50), a Back up
now operation configured on the management server never uses the simplified naming of backup
files.
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15.3 Creating a centralized backup plan
A centralized backup plan can be applied to both Windows and Linux machines.
The steps required for the creating centralized backup plan are similar to creating a backup plan (p.
50) except the following:
When selecting what data to back up, you can either select items on the registered machines
directly or use the selection rules. For more information, see "Selecting data to back up" (p. 348).
When specifying where to store machines' archives, you can select to store:
All machines' archives in a single location.
Each machine's archive in the specified folder on the machine.
Each machine's archive in the machine's Acronis Secure Zone.
Each machine's archive in a custom location defined by a script.
For more information, see "Backup location selection" (p. 355).
Simplified naming of backup files (p. 72) is not available.
When setting up a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule, you can use the advanced scheduling
settings. For more information, see "Advanced scheduling settings" (p. 87).
Single-pass disk and application backup (p. 305) is always available for selection. However,
single-pass backup will be applied only to those machines where it is possible. For virtual
machines backed up by Agent for VMware or Agent for Hyper-V, and for other machines that do
not have licenses for single-pass backup, a regular disk-level backup will be created.
15.3.1 Selecting data to back up
To select the data to back up
1. In the Data to back up section, select the type of data you want to be backed up. The list of
available data types depends on the agents running on the machines:
Machines/disks/volumes
To be able to back up this data, you must have Administrator or Backup operator privileges.
Select this option to back up:
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Entire physical machines or their individual disks or volumes, if Acronis Backup Agent for
Windows or Acronis Backup Agent for Linux is installed.
A disk-level backup enables you to recover the entire system in case of severe data
damage or hardware failure. Also, you can individually recover files and folders. The
backup procedure is faster than copying files, and may significantly speed up the backup
process when backing up large volumes of data.
Microsoft SQL databases by means of single-pass disk and application backup, if Acronis
Backup Agent for SQL is installed.
Agent for SQL enables you to create application-aware disk backups and to recover
Microsoft SQL databases from such backups. For more information, see the "Protecting
Microsoft SQL Server..." (p. 301) section.
Microsoft Active Directory data by means of single-pass disk and application backup, if
Acronis Backup Agent for Active Directory is installed.
Agent for Active Directory enables you to create application-aware disk backups and to
recover Microsoft Active Directory data from such backups. For more information, see
the "Protecting Microsoft Active Directory ..." (p. 312) section.
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Entire virtual machines residing on a virtualization server or their disks or volumes, if
Acronis Backup Agent for VMware or Acronis Backup Hyper-V is installed.
Backing up an entire virtual machine, its disks, or volumes yields a standard disk backup
(p. 434). In addition, this backup stores the virtual machine configuration. This
configuration will be suggested by default when recovering the backup content to a new
virtual machine. For more information about backing up virtual machines see "Backing
up virtual machines".
Folders/files
Available if Acronis Backup Agent for Windows or Acronis Backup Agent for Linux is installed.
Select this option to back up specific files and folders.
A file-level backup is not sufficient for recovery of the operating system. Choose file backup if
you plan to keep safe only certain data (the current project, for example). This will reduce
the archive size, thus saving storage space.
In order to recover your operating system along with all the settings and applications, you
have to perform a disk backup.
Microsoft Exchange Information Store
Available if Acronis Backup Agent for Exchange is installed.
Select this option to back up information store, individual storage groups or databases of
Microsoft Exchange servers. In case of disaster, you will be able to recover lost or corrupted
databases or storage groups. Also, you can individually recover mailboxes, public
folders, single emails, contacts, calendar events, and other items.
To be able to back up Exchange data, a domain user account that has administrative
privileges on the Exchange server is required. In a cluster, the account must have
administrative privileges on each of the cluster’s nodes.
For more information about backing up Microsoft Exchange data see "Backing up Microsoft
Exchange Server data".
Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes
Available if Acronis Backup Agent for Exchange is installed.
Select this option to back up individual mailboxes and public folders without backing up the
entire Microsoft Exchange database. By using the exclusion filters, you can specify items to
be skipped during mailbox backups.
To be able to back up Exchange data, a domain user account that has administrative
privileges on the Exchange server is required. In a cluster, the account must have
administrative privileges on each of the cluster’s nodes.
For more information about backing up Microsoft Exchange data see "Backing up Microsoft
Exchange Server data".
2. Choose how to select the items:
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Select items directly (default) – recommended in cases, when backing up different data
items on multiple machines. For example, FolderA on Machine1, FolderB on Machine2,
FolderC on Machine3, etc.
Microsoft Exchange server's data items to back up are selected directly. Selection of
Exchange data items by using the policy rules is not supported.
To back up all items of the selected data type present on a machine, select the check box
next to the machine. To back up individual data items, expand the machine and select check
boxes next to the required items.
Notes for physical machines, their disks and volumes
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
If your operating system and its loader reside on different volumes, always include both
volumes in the backup. The volumes must also be recovered together; otherwise there is
a high risk that the operating system will not start.
Notes for Linux users: Logical volumes and MD devices are shown under Dynamic
volumes. For more information about backing up such volumes and devices, see "Backup
and recovery of logical volumes and MD devices (Linux)" (p. 38).
Note for Linux users: We recommend that you unmount any volumes that contain
non-journaling file systems—such as the ext2 file system—before backing them up.
Otherwise, these volumes might contain corrupted files upon recovery; recovery of these
volumes with resize might fail.
Notes for virtual machines, their disks and volumes
Backing up entire virtual machines 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.
Backing up individual disks or volumes within a virtual machine comes in handy when the
operating system and applications, such as a database server, run on a virtual disk, but
the data, such as a database, is stored on a large capacity physical disk added to the
same machine. You will be able to use different backup strategies for the virtual disk and
the physical storage.
For more information about backing up virtual machines see "Backing up virtual machines".
Use policy rules for selection – most suitable in cases, when backing up the same data items
on multiple machines. For example, backing up the system volume on every selected
machine.
For more information, see the following sections:
Selection rules for files and folders (p. 350)
Selection rules for volumes (p. 352)
3. Having specified the data to backup, click OK.
15.3.2 Selection rules for files and folders
Define file selection rules, according to which the files and (or) folders will be backed up on the
machines included in the centralized backup plan.
To define file selection rules
1. Select the rule from the drop-down list (or type it manually) and click Add rule. The program
remembers the rules typed manually, and the next time you open the window, these rules will
be available for selection in the list along with the default ones.
2. In the right part of the window, select the check boxes next to the machines or groups you want
to apply the rules to.
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
plan will back up this item on each machine where this exact path will be found.
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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. Using such variables instead of full folder and
file paths ensures that proper Windows folders are backed up regardless of where Windows is
located on a particular machine.
To include
In the Files and folders
column, type or select
Comments
Program Files folder
%PROGRAMFILES%
Points to the Program Files folder (for example,
C:\Program Files)
Windows folder
%WINDIR%
Points to the folder where Windows is located (for
example, C:\Windows)
Common data for all user %ALLUSERSPROFILE%
profiles
Points to the folder where the common data of all
user profiles is located (typically, C:\Documents and
Settings\All Users in Windows XP and
C:\ProgramData in Windows Vista or later)
You can use other environment variables or a combination of environment variables and text. For
example, to refer to the Acronis folder in the machines' Program Files folder,
type: %PROGRAMFILES%\Acronis
Templates
Templates are similar to environment variables, but are already pre-customized.
To include
In the Files and folders
column, type or select:
Comments
All files on all volumes on [All Files]
a machine
Points to all files on all volumes of the machine.
All user profiles existing
on a machine
Points to the folder where all user profiles are
located (typically, C:\Documents and Settings in
Windows XP, and C:\Users in Windows Vista or
later).
[All Profiles Folder]
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
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or
/home/usr/docs/file.txt
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Directory for all
user-related programs
/usr
Directory for system
configuration files
/etc
15.3.3 Selection rules for volumes
Define volume selection rules, according to which the volumes on the machines included in the
centralized backup plan will be backed up.
To define volume selection rules
1. Select the rule from the drop-down list (or type it manually) and click Add rule. The program
remembers the rules typed manually, and the next time you open the window, these rules will
be available for selection in the list along with the default ones.
2. In the right part of the window, select the check boxes next to the machines or groups you want
to apply the rules to.
The following table explains the pre-defined rules that can be selected from the list. The names of
templates are case-sensitive.
To include
In the selection rules box:
Comments
Windows and Linux volumes
All volumes
Type or select: [All Volumes]
Refers to all volumes on machines running
Windows, and all mounted volumes on
machines running Linux.
Windows volumes
Volume C:
Type C:\ or select it from the list
System volume
Type or select: [SYSTEM]
The system volume contains the
hardware-specific files that are needed to
start Windows, such as Ntldr, Boot.ini, and
Ntdetect.com.
There is only one system volume even if
multiple Windows operating systems are
installed on the computer.
For more details, see "Note on Windows
machines" below.
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To include
In the selection rules box:
Comments
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.
All fixed volumes
Type or select: [Fixed Volumes]
Refers to all volumes other than removable
media. Fixed volumes include volumes on
SCSI, ATAPI, ATA, SSA, SAS and SATA
devices, and on RAID arrays.
First disk
Type or select: [Disk 1]
Refers to the first disk of the registered
machine, including all volumes on that disk.
Linux volumes
First partition on the
first IDE hard disk of
a Linux machine
Type or select: /dev/hda1
hda1 is the standard device name for the
first partition of the first IDE hard disk
drive. For more details, see "Note on Linux
machines" below.
First partition on the Type or select: /dev/sda1
first SCSI hard disk of
a Linux machine
sda1 is the standard device name for the
first partition of the first SCSI hard disk
drive. For more details, see "Note on Linux
machines" below.
First partition on the
first software RAID
hard disk of a Linux
machine
md1 is the standard device name for the
first partition of the first software RAID
drive. For more details, see "Note on Linux
machines" below.
Type or select: /dev/md1
Note on Windows machines
Windows operating systems prior to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 keep system files and
the loader on the same volume, unless a different volume has been specified during the system
installation. If Windows files and the loader are on the same volume, selecting either [SYSTEM] or
[BOOT] is enough to back up the entire operating system. Otherwise, select both [SYSTEM] and
[BOOT].
Operating systems starting with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 create a dedicated system
volume called System Reserved. If you select [SYSTEM], only this dedicated volume will be backed up.
Always select both [SYSTEM] and [BOOT] when backing up machines running these operating
systems.
Because centralized backup plans usually include multiple machines with various operating systems,
Acronis recommends that you always select both the system and the boot volumes for backup. This
ensures the integrity of every operating system.
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Note on Linux machines
You can include both Windows and Linux volumes (partitions) in one centralized backup plan.
For example, it is possible to set up a centralized backup plan to back up volume C: on Windows
machines and partition /dev/hda1 on Linux machines.
Unlike Windows, there is no clear distinction between a volume (partition) and a folder (directory) in
Linux. Linux has the root partition (denoted as /) to which elements of various types—including hard
disks, directories, and system devices—are attached (mounted). This forms a tree similar to the file
and folder structure in Windows.
For example, let a Linux machine contain a hard disk which is split into three volumes, or partitions:
the first, second, and third partitions. These partitions are available in the tree as /dev/hda1,
/dev/hda2, and /dev/hda3, respectively. To perform a disk backup of the, say, third partition, you can
specify the rule /dev/hda3 in the Data to Back Up dialog box.
Furthermore, a Linux partition can be mounted anywhere inside the tree. For example, /dev/hda3,
can be mounted as a “subdirectory” inside the tree. Such a tree might be /home/usr/docs. In this
case, you can type either /dev/hda3 or /home/usr/docs in the Volume field to perform a disk backup
of the third partition.
In general, when setting up a centralized backup plan to perform volume backups of Linux machines,
make sure that the paths entered in the selection rules for volumes correspond to partitions (such as
/dev/hda2 or /home/usr/docs in the previous example), and not to directories.
Standard names for Linux partitions
Names such as /dev/hda1 reflect the standard way of naming IDE hard disk partitions in Linux. The
prefix hd signifies the disk type (IDE); a means that this is the first IDE hard disk on the system, and 1
denotes the first partition on the disk.
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, and so on
Partition number on the disk: 1 for the first partition, 2 for the second partition, and so on
To guarantee backing up selected disks regardless of their type, consider including three entries in
the Data to Back Up dialog box, one for each possible type. For example, to back up the first hard
disk of each Linux machine under a centralized backup plan, you may want to add the following rules:
/dev/hda1
/dev/sda1
/dev/mda1
Names for logical volumes
To back up logical volumes, also known as LVM volumes, specify their full names in the selection
rules. The full name of a logical volume includes the volume group to which the volume belongs.
For example, to back up two logical volumes, lv_root and lv_bin, both of which belong to the volume
group vg_mymachine, specify the following selection rules:
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/dev/vg_mymachine/lv_root
/dev/vg_mymachine/lv_bin
To see the list of logical volumes on a machine, run the lvdisplay utility. In our example, the output
would be similar to the following:
--- Logical volume --LV Name
/dev/vg_mymachine/lv_root
VG Name
vg_mymachine
…
--- Logical volume --LV Name
/dev/vg_mymachine/lv_bin
VG Name
vg_mymachine
…
15.3.4 Backup location selection
Specify where to store the archives and define names for the new backup archives.
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 Cloud Storage, click Log in and specify the credentials to log in to
the cloud storage. Then, expand the Cloud storage group and select the account.
Prior to backing up to the cloud storage, you need to buy a subscription (p. 421) to the cloud
backup service and activate (p. 423) the subscription on the machine(s) you want to back up.
Acronis Cloud Backup might be unavailable in your region. To find more information, click here:
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/my/cloud-backup/corporate
To store archives in a centralized vault, expand the Vaults group and click the vault.
To store archives on an FTP or SFTP server, expand the corresponding group, reach the
appropriate server, and then select the folder that will be used for storing archives.
To store archives on a network share, expand the Network folders group, select the required
networked machine, and then click the shared folder. If the network share requires access
credentials, the program will ask for them.
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.
Store each machine's archive in the specified folder on the machine with agent
Enter the full path to the folder in the Path field. You need to create this folder in advance on
each machine the centralized plan is created for.
Store each machine's archive in the machine's Acronis Secure Zone
You need to create Acronis Secure Zone in advance on each machine the centralized plan is
created for. For information on how to create Acronis Secure Zone, see the Creating Acronis
Secure Zone (p. 186) section.
Store each machine's archive in a location defined by a custom script
Click Browse, and then specify the script path. If necessary, specify the credentials to access the
backup locations.
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The software supports scripts written in JScript or VBScript. When deploying the backup plan, the
software runs the script on each machine. The script output for each machine should be a folder
path. The folders must exist by the time of the first backup.
Example. The following JScript script outputs the backup location for a machine in the format
\\bkpsrv\:
WScript.echo("\\\\bkpsrv\\" +
WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network").ComputerName);
As a result, the backups of each machine will be saved in a folder of the same name on the server
bkpsrv.
2. Naming the archives
Data from each machine will be backed up to a separate archive.
The software generates a common name for the new archives and displays it in the Name field. The
name looks like [Machine Name]_Archive(N), where the [Machine Name] stands for the machine's
name (physical or virtual), and N is a sequence number. If you are not satisfied with the automatically
generated name, construct another name.
When selecting data to back up from multiple machines, the following variables can be used:
[Machine Name] - substitution for the machine's name. Use of this variable is mandatory.
[Virtual Host Name] - substitution for the name of the virtual machine host. Use this variable in
cases, when two or more virtual machines from different hosts have the same names.
[Plan name] - substitution for the centralized backup plan's name. Use this variable for additional
distinguishing of the archives by the backup plan names.
Example: You create the centralized backup plan, named for example, SYSTEMBACKUP, that will be
deployed to three machines (say, FINDEPT1, FINDEPT2, FINDEPT3). In the Name field you specify
[Machine Name]_[Plan name]_Archive(N). Thus, the following three archives will be created in the
location:
FINDEPT1_SYSTEMBACKUP_Archive(1)
FINDEPT2_SYSTEMBACKUP_Archive(1)
FINDEPT3_SYSTEMBACKUP_Archive(1)
15.3.5 Centralized backup plan's credentials
Provide the credentials under which the centralized tasks will run on the machines.
To specify credentials
1. Select one of the following:
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Use Acronis service credentials
The tasks will run under the Acronis service account, whether started manually or executed
on schedule.
Use the following credentials
The tasks will run under the credentials you specify, whether started manually or executed
on schedule.
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.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Confirm password. Re-enter the password.
2. Click OK.
To learn more about Acronis service credentials, see the List of Acronis services (p. 31) section.
To learn more about operations available depending on the user privileges, see the User privileges on
a managed machine (p. 31) section.
15.3.6 What if a machine does not have data meeting the selection
rules
A centralized backup plan can be deployed to a machine that does not have data meeting the
selection rules. No error or warning will be logged during the plan deployment because it is assumed
that the data may appear in the future. A backup plan is created as usual and the plan state is
changed to Deployed.
If no data to back up is found at the time when the backup task starts, the task will fail and the plan
status will turn to Error. If at least one of the data items is found, the backup task will succeed with a
warning. The plan status will change accordingly.
The backup tasks will start on schedule as specified by the plan and produce a similar result until all
data items appear on the machine or the plan is edited to exclude the non-existent data items.
Examples
Assume the selection rule states that the plan has to back up volumes D: and F:. The plan is deployed
to both Linux and Windows machines. Once the first backup is started, the plan gets the Error status
on the Linux machines and on the Windows machines that do not have such volumes. The plan gets
the Warning status on Windows machines that have either a D: or F: volume, unless an event that
will result in an error occurs.
The plan 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. This is because the [SYSTEM] volume is not found. The plan will get the Error
status on Linux machines that do not have a SCSI device.
15.4 Administering Acronis Backup 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.
15.4.1 Dashboard
Use the Dashboard view to estimate at a glance the health of data protection on the registered
machines. The dashboard displays the summary of Acronis Backup agents' activities, lets you check
for free space available in managed vaults, and rapidly identify and resolve any issues.
Recent alerts
The Recent alerts section draws your attention to issues that have occurred on the management
server, registered machines and in centralized vaults. It offers you ways of fixing or examining the
issues. By default, the section shows the five most recent alerts. Click the View all link to move to the
Alerts view and see all alerts. If no alerts or warnings have been fixed, the system displays "There are
no alerts".
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Activity history
The stacked column chart in the Activity history section lets you explore the daily history of the
Acronis Backup agents' activities. The history is based on the log entries, collected from the
registered machines and from the management server. The chart shows the number of log entries of
each type (Succeeded, With warnings, Failed) for a particular day.
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. Click the View all link to display in the Log view all activities. They are sorted by
the start date. Right-click the particular day on the column chart to show the context menu and
move to the Log view for the selected date.
The
Current day button focuses selection to the current date.
Machines, backup plans, and recovery tasks
The Machines, Backup plans, and Recovery tasks sections show summarized statistics of registered
machines, backup plans, and recovery tasks. Click the items in these sections to obtain the relevant
information. This will take you to the appropriate view with pre-filtered machines, backup plans, or
recovery tasks respectively. For instance, if you click Need interaction under Recovery tasks, the
Backup plans and tasks view will be opened with the recovery tasks filtered by the Need interaction
state.
Information presented in the Machines, Backup plans, and Recovery tasks sections is refreshed
every time the management server synchronizes with the machines. Information in other sections is
refreshed every 10 minutes and every time you access the Dashboard.
Applications
The Applications section displays the number of protected and unprotected applications running on
the registered machines.
An application on a machine is considered protected if the respective agent is installed on that
machine in the trial mode or with a license key. If an agent is installed for cloud backup only, the
application is not considered protected.
The following applications can be protected:
Microsoft Active Directory
Microsoft Exchange Server
Microsoft SQL Server (multiple SQL Server instances are counted as one application)
To see a list of machines with unprotected applications, click Unprotected applications.
Vaults
The Vaults section displays information about vaults space usage. In some cases information about
free space in a vault might be not available; for example, if the vault is located on a tape library. If the
vault itself is not available (offline), the "Vault is not available" message will be displayed.
The "No centralized vaults were created" message is displayed, if there are no vaults. To create a
new vault, select the Create now link and move to the Create vault page.
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15.4.2 Machines with agents
Acronis Backup lets you protect data and perform management operations on multiple machines.
Add a machine (p. 362) to the management server using the machine's name or IP address, import
machines from Active Directory, or from text files. Once a machine is registered on the management
server, it becomes available for centralized backup (p. 348), for grouping and for monitoring the
activities related to data protection.
To estimate whether the data is successfully protected on a managed machine, check its status. A
machine's status is defined as the most severe status of all backup plans (p. 319) (both local and
centralized) existing on the machine. It can be "OK", "Warning" or "Error".
Typical workflow
Create a custom group and add machines to it. For more information, see "Machine groups" (p.
359).
Select a machine (or group) to perform actions on it. See "Actions on machines" (p. 360) and
"Actions on groups" (p. 367).
To view detailed information about the selected machine or group and perform additional
operations (such as run/stop tasks, import/export backup plans), use the information panel at
the bottom of the window. The panel is collapsed by default. To expand the panel, click the
arrow mark ( ).
Use filtering and sorting capabilities for easy browsing and examination of the required machines.
For more information, see "Sorting, filtering and configuring table items" (p. 24).
15.4.2.1
Machine groups
Machine groups are designed for convenient protection of a large number of machines registered on
the management server. While creating a centralized backup plan, select a group and the plan will be
deployed to all machines of this group. Once a new machine appears in a group, the centralized
backup plan is deployed to the machine. If a machine is removed from a group, the centralized
backup plan will be removed from the machine. A single machine can be a member of more than one
group.
Built-in group
As soon as a machine is registered on the management server, the machine appears in the
All
machines with agents built-in group. This group always exists on a management server and cannot
be edited or deleted. The built-in group cannot contain any nested groups.
To protect all the registered machines at once, create a centralized backup plan select the All
machines with agents group. Protecting all machines with a single backup plan may not be
satisfactory because of the different roles of the machines. The backed-up data is specific for each
department; some data has to be backed up frequently, other data is backed up twice a year.
Therefore, you may want to create various backup plans applicable to different sets of machines. In
this case, consider creating custom groups.
Custom groups
Custom groups are created by the management server administrator. Creating custom groups helps
the administrator to organize data protection by company departments, by Active Directory
organizational units, by various populations of users, by the site locations and so forth.
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A custom group can contain one or more nested groups. Any custom group can be edited or deleted.
The administrator can create the following custom groups:
Static groups
The static groups contain the machines manually added by the administrator. The static group
content never changes unless the administrator explicitly adds or deletes a machine.
Example: You create custom group for the accounting department and manually add the
accountants' machines to this group. Once you create the centralized backup plan for the group,
the accountants' machines become protected. If a new accountant is hired, you will have to add
the new machine to the group manually.
Dynamic groups
The dynamic groups contain the machines added automatically according to the criteria specified
by the administrator. The dynamic group content changes automatically. A machine remains in
the group until it meets the specified criteria.
Example: The accounting department forms a separate Active Directory organizational unit (OU).
You simply specify the accounting OU as the group membership criterion and create the
centralized backup plan for it. If a new accountant is hired, the new machine will be added to the
group as soon as it is added to the OU, and thus will be protected automatically.
Tip. To make the best use of the AD OU criterion, consider reproducing the Active Directory
hierarchy in the management server.
For more information about operations with groups and machines, see the following sections:
Actions on groups (p. 367)
Actions on machines (p. 360)
15.4.2.2
Actions on machines
Registering machines on the management server
Once the machine is added or imported to the
All machines with agents group, it becomes
registered on the management server. Registered machines are available for deploying centralized
backup plans and for performing other centralized management operations. Registration provides a
trusted relationship between the agent, residing on the machine, and the management server.
Adding and importing actions are available when you select the
the
All machines with agents group in the navigation tree.
To
Do
Add a new machine to the
management server
Click
Add multiple machines
Click
Machines with agents view or
Add a machine to AMS.
In the Add machine (p. 362) window, select the machine that needs to be added
to the management server.
Add multiple machines.
Specify the machines to add to the management server. This way, you can add
machines running Windows with no agent installed. The agent for Windows will
be installed automatically, using the remote installation functionality.
For details, see the "Specifying the list of machines" section of the installation
documentation.
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To
Do
Synchronize machines with
a list in the text file
Click
Synchronize with file.
Specify a text file with the list of machines. After synchronization, only the
machines that are listed in the file remain registered on the management
server. For details, see "Synchronizing machines with a text file" (p. 363).
The management console addresses to the agent and initiates the registration procedure. Because
registration requires the agent's participation, it cannot take place when the machine is offline.
An additional agent installed on a registered machine becomes registered on the same management
server automatically. Multiple agents are jointly registered and deregistered.
Deleting the selected machine from the management server
To
Do
Delete a machine from the
management server
Click
Delete machine from AMS.
As a result, backup plans are removed and shortcuts to centralized vaults are
deleted from the machine. If the machine is not available at the moment,
these actions will be performed on the machine as soon as the machine
becomes available to the management server.
Grouping actions
To
Do
Create a custom static or
dynamic group
Click
Add a machine to another
static group
Click
Create group.
In the Create group (p. 368) window, specify the required parameters of the
group. The new group will be created in the group in which the selected
machine is a member (except for the built-in
All machines with agents
group).
Add to another group.
In the Add to group (p. 364) window, specify the group to copy the selected
machine to. The centralized backup plans of the groups the machine is a
member of will be deployed to the machine.
For machines in custom groups
Add machines to a static
group
Click
Move a machine to another
static group
Click
Add machines to group.
In the Add machines to group (p. 365) window, select the machines that you
need to add. The centralized backup plans of the group will be deployed to the
selected machines.
Move to another group.
In the Move to group (p. 364) window, select the group to move the machine
to.
All the centralized backup plans of the group the machine was in will be
removed. The centralized backup plans of 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 centralized backup plans of the group will be removed from the machine
automatically.
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Direct management
To
Do
Create a backup plan on a
machine
Click
Recover data
Click
Back up.
This operation is described in depth in Creating a backup plan (p. 50).
Recover.
This operation is described in depth in Recovering data (p. 127).
Connect to a machine
directly
Click
Connect directly.
Establishes a direct connection to the managed machine. Enables to administer
a managed machine and perform all the direct management (p. 434)
operations.
Other actions
To
Do
View detailed information
on a machine
Click
View log entries of a
machine
Click
Update the license for a
machine's agent
Click
Details.
In the Machine details (p. 365) window, examine information on the machine.
Log.
The Log (p. 383) view will display a list of the machine's log entries.
Change license.
The reasons for changing a license (p. 329) include:
Switching from trial mode to full mode.
Upgrading from Acronis Backup to Acronis Backup Advanced
Update all information
related to the machine
Click
Refresh a list of machines
Click
Synchronize.
The management server will query the machine and update the database with
the most recent information. Along with synchronizing, the refresh operation
will be performed automatically in order to update the list of the machines.
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.
Adding a machine to the management server
To be able to deploy centralized backup plans from Acronis Backup Management Server to a
managed machine and perform other centralized management operations, you need to register the
machine on the management server.
Initiating registration on the management server side
To add a machine
1. In the Navigation tree, select
2. Click
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Machines with agents.
Add a machine to AMS on the toolbar.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
3. In the IP/Name field, enter the machine's name or its IP address, or click Browse... and browse
the network for the machine.
Note for users of Acronis Backup Advanced for virtual environments: When adding a VMware ESX(i)
host, enter the IP of the virtual appliance or Windows machine running Acronis Backup Agent for
VMware.
4. Specify the credentials of an account with administrative privileges on the machine.
When adding a machine that is running Windows Vista or later and is not a member of an Active
Directory domain, you need to either specify the built-in Administrator account or disable User
Account Control (UAC) (p. 340) on the machine.
Note for users of Acronis Backup Advanced for virtual environments: When adding a VMware ESX(i)
host, specify the user name and password for your vCenter Server or ESX(i) host.
User name. When entering the name of an Active Directory user account, be sure to also
specify the domain name (DOMAIN\Username).
Password. The password for the account.
5. Click Next, and then click Proceed.
Initiating registration on the machine side
The registration procedure can be initiated on the machine side.
1. Connect the console to the machine where Acronis Backup agent is installed. If prompted for
credentials, specify credentials of a member of the Administrators group on the machine.
2. Select from the menu Options > Machine options > Machine management.
3. Select Centralized management and specify the management server where to register the
machine. Refer to "Machine management (p. 336)" for details.
Synchronizing machines with a text file
During synchronization, the management server adjusts the
All machines with agents group in
accordance with the list of machines provided in a .txt or .csv file. The management server:
Adds machines that are present in the list but are not registered
Deletes registered machines not present in the list
Deletes and then tries again to add registered machines that are present in the list, but their
current availability (p. 365) is Withdrawn.
As a result, only those machines that are listed in the file will be present in the All machines with
agents group.
Text file requirements
The file should contain machine names or IP addresses, one machine per line.
Example:
Machine_name_1
Machine_name_2
192.168.1.14
192.168.1.15
Specifying an empty file leads to deletion of all machines with agents from the management server.
A registered machine has to be specified by its registration address: that is, you need to provide exactly the
same host name, fully qualified domain name (FQDN), or IP address as was specified when the machine was
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initially added to the management server. Otherwise, the machine will be deleted and added again as if it were
another machine. This means all centralized backup plans, both inherited and directly deployed, will be removed
from the machine and its static group membership will be lost.
The registration address of each machine can be found in the Registration address column in any
management server view that contains the machine (the column is hidden by default).
To avoid a discrepancy, you can initially import the machines from a text file. Modify this file later as
required, by adding and removing machines, but do not change the names/addresses of the
machines that have to remain registered.
To synchronize machines with a text file
1. In the Navigation tree, select
Machines with agents, or
All machines with agents.
2. Click
Synchronize with file on the toolbar.
3. In the Path field, enter a path to the .txt or .csv file, 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 that are listed in the file.
5. Click OK to start import.
Synchronization command-line tool
Acronis Backup Management Server has a command-line tool that enables you to create a batch file
and schedule the synchronization task using Windows scheduler.
To synchronize machines with a text file using command line
1. Log on as a member of the Acronis Centralized Admins security group.
2. In the command prompt, change the directory to the folder where Acronis Backup Management
Server has been installed—by default: C:\Program Files\Acronis\AMS.
3. Run the following command:
syncmachines [path_to_the_file] {username password}
where:
[path_to_the_file] is the path to a .txt or .csv file containing the list of machines. The tool
does not accept spaces in the path name.
{username password} belongs to a user who is a member of the Administrators group on all
machines listed in the file. If not specified, the single sign-on mechanism is used to operate
on all the machines.
Adding a machine to another group
To add the selected machine to another group
1. Select the group the machine will be added to.
2. Click OK.
The machine being added becomes a member of more than one group. As a result, the centralized
backup plans for the first group will remain on the machine, and the centralized backup plans created
for the second, third, etc. group will also 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.
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2. Click OK.
The machine being moved leaves one group and becomes a member of another group. As a result,
the centralized backup plans created for the first group will be removed from the machine, and the
centralized backup plans created for the second group will be deployed to the machine.
Adding machines to a group
To add machines to the selected group
1.
2.
3.
4.
In the groups' tree, select the group whose machines you need to add.
In the right part of the window, select the machines.
To add more machines from other groups, repeat the steps 1 and 2 for each group.
Click OK to add machines.
Once the machines appear in the group, the centralized backup plans created for the group (if any)
are deployed to the machines. If any of the selected machines is not available or reachable at the
moment, the action will be kept in the management server as pending and will be performed as soon
as the machine becomes available to the server.
Machine details
Four tabs accumulate all information on the selected machine and let the management server
administrator perform operations with the backup plans and tasks on the machine.
Machine
The tab displays the following information on the registered machine:
Name - name of the selected machine (taken from the Computer name in Windows).
IP address - IP address of the selected machine.
Status - the machine protection status. This is the result of the latest backup of the machine's
data. Results of other operations, such as validation, cleanup, or replication, do not affect the
status. Possible status values are OK, Warning, and Error.
Last connection - how much time has passed since the management server last connected to the
machine.
Last successful backup - how much time has passed since the last successful backup.
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Registration address - computer name or IP address of the selected machine. During the
registration of a machine (p. 440) the management server administrator can assign either a name
or IP address to identify the machine on the management server.
Drive health status - the state of the machine's drives health. This field is set to Not available if
the Acronis Drive Monitor utility is not installed on the machine. Acronis Drive Monitor
automatically checks for disk problems and predicts when a hard drive is about to fail. The utility
is free of charge for download at http://www.acronis.com.
Next backup - how much time is left before the next backup.
Availability:
Online - the machine is available for the management server. This means that the
management server's last connection to the machine was successful. Connection is
established every 2 minutes.
Offline - the machine is unavailable for the management server: it is turned off, or its
network cable is unplugged.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Unknown - this state 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
Stand-alone management parameter was selected on the machine in Options > Machine
options > Machine management (p. 336). As a result, it is not possible to control the
machine from the current management server. To regain control over the machine, remove
it from the current management server and then add the machine again.
Expired - the trial period of the machine's agent has expired. To specify a license key for the
agent, right-click the machine, and then click Change license (p. 329).
Installed agents - full name of Acronis agents, installed on the machine.
Operating system - the operating system the machine's agent runs.
Processor - the type of CPU used in the managed machine.
CPU clock - clock rate of the CPU.
RAM - memory size.
Comments - the machine's description (taken from the Computer description in Windows).
Backup plans and tasks
Displays a list of the plans (both local and centralized) and tasks existing on the selected machine.
Operations
For the list of the operations available with machine's backup plans and tasks, see "Actions on
backup plans and tasks" (p. 316).
Filtering and sorting
Filtering and sorting of the backup plans and task is performed as described in "Sorting, filtering and
configuring table items" (p. 24).
Member of
This tab appears only if the selected machine is added to one or more custom groups and displays a
list of the groups the machine is a member of.
Operations
To
Do
View details of a group
Click
Details.
You will be taken to the Group details window, where you can examine all
information related to this group.
Remove a machine from a
group.
Click
Refresh a list of groups
Click
Remove from this group.
The centralized plans, which were deployed to the parent group, will no longer
affect this machine.
Refresh.
While you are reviewing the machine, groups can be added, deleted or
modified. Click Refresh to update the information on groups with the most
recent changes.
This opens a Log view with pre-filtered log entries of the selected group.
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Progress
The Progress tab lists all of the selected machine's activities and tasks that are currently running. The
tab provides information about task progress, elapsed time and other parameters.
Managed virtual machines
The tab displays a list of the machines hosted on the selected virtualization server or managed by the
specified virtual appliance.
You can create a dynamic group based on the list of the hosted virtual machines. To do this, click
Create a dynamic group. The created group will be accessible in the Virtual machines view.
15.4.2.3
Actions on groups
Actions are available when you select the
Machines with agents view in the Navigation tree.
You select a group in the Navigation tree or in the Machines with agents view to perform an action
on the group.
The following is a guideline to perform actions on selected groups.
To
Do
Add a machine to the
management server
This action is enabled only for the
Machines with agents view and for
the
All machines with agents group.
Click
Add machine to AMS.
In the Add machine (p. 362) window, select the machine that needs to be
added to the management server.
Synchronize machines with a
list in the text file
This action is enabled only for the
Machines with agents view and for
the
All machines with agents group.
Click
Synchronize with file.
Specify a text file with the list of machines. After synchronization, only the
machines that are listed in the file remain registered on the management
server. See "Synchronizing machines with a text file (p. 363)" for more
information.
Create a custom static or a
dynamic group
Click
Create group.
In the Create group (p. 368) window, specify the required parameters of the
group.
Custom groups can be created in the root folder (
or in other custom groups.
Add machines to the selected
static group
Click
Machines with agents),
Add machines to group.
In the Add machines to group (p. 365) window, select the machines that you
need to add.
Not applicable to dynamic groups.
Create a new backup plan for
a group
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Click
Create backup plan to create a backup plan for the selected group.
This operation is described in depth in Creating a backup plan (p. 50).
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
To
Do
View detailed information on
a group
Click
Rename a custom
group/subgroup
Click
Details.
In the Group details (p. 370) 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. 370) 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. 370) window, specify a group that will be a new
parent of the selected group.
Delete.
Deletion of a parent group will delete its child groups as well. Centralized
backup plans created for the parent group and inherited by its child groups
will be removed from all members of the deleted groups. The backup plan
that are directly created for the members will remain.
Refresh a list of groups
Click
Refresh.
The management console will update the list of groups from the management
server with the most recent information. Though the list of groups 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.
Creating a custom static or dynamic group
To create a group
1. In the Name field, enter a name for the group being created.
2. Choose the type of group:
a. Static - to create a group that will contain machines added manually.
b. Dynamic - to create a group that will contain machines added automatically according to the
specified criteria.
Click the Add criterion and select the criterion pattern.
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Operating system
All the machines running the selected operating system will be members of the dynamic
group.
Organizational unit (p. 369)
All the machines belonging to the specified organizational unit (OU) will be members of
the dynamic group.
IP address range
All the machines whose IP addresses are within the specified IP range will be members of
the dynamic group.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Listed in txt/csv file (p. 369)
All the machines that are listed in the specified .txt or .csv file will be members of the
dynamic group.
3. In the Group description 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).
For example, the following set of criteria
Operating system: Windows Server 2003
Operating system: Windows Server 2008
will add to the same group all the machines whose operating system is Windows 2003 OR
Windows 2008.
b) Entries of different criteria are combined by logical multiplication (AND)
For example, consider the following set of criteria:
Operating system: Windows Server 2003
Operating system: Windows Server 2008
Organizational unit: SERVERS
IP range:
192.168.17.0 - 192.168.17.55
These criteria will add to the same group all of the machines whose operating system is
Windows 2003 or Windows 2008 and belong to the SERVERS organizational unit and whose
IP addresses are within the range 192.168.17.0 - 192.168.17.55.
Organizational unit criterion
Organizational unit criterion is specified for the domain the management server is currently in, as
follows: OU=OU1
Select an organizational unit from the Active Directory tree by clicking Browse, or typing it manually.
If the domain access credentials were not specified in the management server options, the program
will ask you to provide them. The credentials will be saved in the Domain access credentials (p. 387)
option.
For example, suppose that the domain us.corp.example.com has OU1 (which is in the root), OU1
has OU2, and OU2 has OU3. And you need to add the machines of OU3. So, the criterion will be:
OU=OU3, OU=OU2, OU=OU1
If OU3 has child containers and you also need to add the machines of those containers to the group,
select the Include child containers check box.
Listed in txt/csv file criterion
When you use this criterion, the dynamic group will include machines from the list given in the
specified .txt or .csv file.
If you later modify the file, the contents of the group will change accordingly. The file is checked
every 15 minutes.
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.
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Text file requirements
The file should contain machine names or IP addresses, one machine per line.
Example:
Machine_name_1
Machine_name_2
192.168.1.14
192.168.1.15
A registered machine has to be specified by its registration address, that is, you need to provide
exactly the same host name, fully qualified domain name (FQDN), or IP address as was specified
when the machine was initially added to the management server. Otherwise, the machine will not be
added to the group. The registration address of each machine can be found in the Registration
address column in any management server view that contains the machine (the column is hidden by
default).
Move one group to another
To move the selected group to another group or to the root
1. In the groups tree, click the group to move the selected group to. You can move any type of
custom group (either static, or dynamic) to another custom group of any type, or to the root
folder.
The root folder of the machines tree contains groups of the first level. Groups that include other
groups are called parent groups. Groups that are in parent groups are called child groups. All the
centralized backup plans created for the parent group will be deployed to the machines of its
child groups as well.
2. Click OK.
Editing custom groups
Editing a custom group is performed in the same way as creating (p. 368) one.
Changing the type of group will result in its conversion. Any custom group can be converted to a
dynamic group if it was static, and vice versa.
When converting a static group to dynamic, provide grouping criteria. All the members that exist
in the static group that do not match the provided criteria will be removed from the dynamic
group.
When converting a dynamic group to static, two options are available – either to leave the
current content of the group or to empty the group.
Group details
Aggregates in two tabs all of the information on the selected group. This allows performing
operations with the centralized backup plans for the group.
Group
Displays the following information on the group:
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Name - name of the selected group
Parent group (for subgroups only) - name of the parent group
Machines - number of machines in the group
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Type - type of the group (static or dynamic)
Criteria (for dynamic groups only) - grouping criteria
Description - the group description (if specified)
Backup plans
Displays a list of centralized backup plans related to the group and allows performing the following
operations:
To
Do
View details of a backup plan Click
Details.
In the Backup plans and tasks window, examine all information related to the
selected backup plan.
View log of a backup plan
Click
Log.
The Log view will display a list of the log entries related to the selected backup
plan.
Run a backup plan
1. Click
Run.
2. In the drop-down list, select the plan's task you need run.
Running the backup plan starts the selected task of that plan immediately in
spite of its schedule and conditions on the machines the plan is deployed to.
The centralized backup plan cannot be run manually, if at least one of the
machines included in the plan runs Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent.
Stop a backup plan
Click
Stop.
Stopping the running backup plan stops all its tasks on all the machines the plan
is deployed to. Thus, all the task operations will be aborted.
The centralized backup plan cannot be stopped manually, if at least one of the
machines included in the plan runs Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent.
Refresh table
Click
Refresh.
The management console will update the list of backup plans existing for the
machine group with the most recent information. The list is refreshed
automatically based on events. However, the data may not be retrieved
immediately from the managed machine group, due to some latency. Manual
refresh guarantees that the most recent data is displayed.
Filtering and sorting
Filtering and sorting of the backup plans and tasks is performed in the same way as for the Backup
plans and tasks view. For details, see Sorting, filtering and configuring table items (p. 24).
15.4.3 Virtual machines
You can centrally manage virtual machines using either of the following methods or both:
Adding a virtual machine as a physical machine
Install Acronis Backup Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux on the virtual machine and register (p.
362) it on the management server. The machine will be treated as a physical one. It will appear under
Machines with agents in the All machines with agents group.
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This approach comes in handy when:
The machine is not hosted on a virtualization server.
You need to overcome limitations of the backup at a hypervisor level.
Acronis Backup Advanced does not support backup at a hypervisor level for your virtualization
product.
Adding a virtual machine as a virtual machine
On Acronis Backup Management Server, a machine is considered virtual if it can be backed up from
the virtualization host without installing an agent on the machine. This is possible when using Acronis
Backup Advanced for virtual environments.
There are several ways to add a virtual machine to the management server:
Enable integration of the management server with vCenter Server.
Result. The virtual machines managed by the vCenter Server appear under Virtual machines in
the All virtual machines group. The machines look as unmanageable (grayed out) but can be
backed up if automatic agent deployment was enabled during the integration.
Install and configure Agent for VMware (Virtual Appliance) or Agent for VMware (Windows).
Register the agent on the management server.
Result. The machine with the agent (the virtual appliance or the Windows host) appears under
Machines with agents in the All machines with agents group. The virtual machines managed by
the agent appear under Virtual machines in the All virtual machines group.
Install Agent for Hyper-V on a Hyper-V host or on all nodes of a Hyper-V cluster. Register the
agent(s) on the management server.
Result. The Hyper-V host (nodes) appears under Machines with agents in the All machines with
agents group. The virtual machines managed by the agent(s) appear under Virtual machines in
the All virtual machines group.
Virtual machines added to the management server as virtual machines are present under the Virtual
machines in the Navigation tree. For more information about available operations with these
machines see the "Backing up virtual machines" document.
15.4.4 Backup plans and tasks
The Backup plans and tasks view keeps you informed of data protection on the machines registered
on the management server. This view displays the centralized backup plans that exist on the
management server, the management server's and the storage nodes' tasks.
To check whether the data is successfully protected on the machines the centralized plan is deployed
to, inspect the cumulative status of the plan.
To find out whether a centralized backup plan is currently being deployed, removed, or updated,
check the deployment state of the plan. In each of the states, the backup plan can have one of the
following statuses: Error; Warning; OK.
To keep track of a task's current progress, examine its state (p. 319). Check a task status (p. 320) to
ascertain the result of a task.
Typical workflow
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Use filters to display the desired backup plans (tasks) in the backup plans table. By default, the
table displays all the plans of the managed machine sorted by name. Additionally, you can hide
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
the unneeded columns and show the hidden ones. For more information, see Sorting, filtering
and configuring table items (p. 24).
In the table, select the backup plan (task).
To review detailed information on the selected plan (task), use the information panel at the
bottom of the window. The panel is collapsed by default. To expand the panel, click the arrow
mark ( ). The content of the panel is also duplicated in the Plan details (p. 325) and Task details
(p. 326) windows respectively.
Use the toolbar's buttons to take an action on the selected plan (task). See the Actions on
centralized backup plans and tasks (p. 373) section for details.
15.4.4.1
Actions on centralized backup plans and tasks
The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with tasks and centralized backup plans.
To
Do
Create a new
Click
New, and select one of the following:
backup plan, or
Backup plan (centralized) (p. 348)
a task on a
registered
Recovery task (p. 127)
machine
Validation task (p. 232)
For the recovery or validation tasks creation, you have to specify the registered machine the
selected task will run on.
View details of
the selected
plan/task
Click
View details.
In the Plan details/Task details window, examine all information related to the selected
plan/task.
View a
plan's/task's
log
Click
Run a backup
plan/task
Backup plan
View log.
The Log (p. 383) view will display a list of the log entries related to the selected plan/task.
1. Click
Run.
2. In the drop-down list, select the plan's task you need run.
Running the backup plan starts the selected task of that plan immediately in spite of its
schedule and conditions on the machines the plan is deployed to.
The centralized backup plan cannot be run manually, if at least one of the machines included
in the plan runs Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent.
Task
The task will be executed immediately in spite of its schedule.
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To
Do
Stop the
Click
Stop.
running backup
Centralized backup plan
plan/task
Stopping the running backup plan stops all its tasks on all the machines the plan is deployed
to. Thus, all the task operations will be aborted.
The centralized backup plan cannot be stopped manually, if at least one of the machines
included in the plan runs Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent.
Task
Generally, stopping the task aborts its operation (backup, recovery, validation, exporting,
conversion, etc.). The task enters the Idle state. The task schedule, if created, remains valid.
To complete the operation you will have to run the task once again.
Edit a plan/task Click
Edit.
Centralized backup plan
The editing of centralized backup plans is performed in the same way as creating. Once the
plan is edited, the management server updates the plan on all machines the plan was
deployed to.
Task
The editing of tasks is performed in the same way as their creation.
Clone a backup
Click
Clone.
plan
The clone of the original backup plan will be created with default name "Clone of
". The cloned plan will be disabled immediately after cloning, so that it
does not run concurrently with the original plan. You can edit the cloned plan settings before
enabling it.
Enable a plan
Click
Enable.
The previously disabled backup plan will run again as scheduled.
Disable a plan
Click
Disable.
The backup plan will not run as scheduled. However, it can be started manually. After a
manual run, the plan will stay disabled. The plan will run as usual if you enable it again.
Export a plan
Click
Export.
Specify the path and name of the resulting file. See Export and import of backup plans (p.
320) for more information.
Import a plan
Click
Import.
Specify the path and name of the file that contains a previously exported plan. See Export and
import of backup plans (p. 320) for more information.
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To
Do
Delete a
plan/task
Click
Delete.
Centralized backup plan
As a result, the centralized backup plan will be removed from the machines it was deployed
to and deleted from the management server. If the machine is currently offline, the plan will
be removed when the machine comes online again.
Task
As a result, the task will be deleted from the management server. The built-in compacting
tasks of storage nodes cannot be deleted.
15.4.5 Storage nodes
Acronis Backup Storage Node helps you to optimize the usage of various resources which are
required to protect enterprise data. This goal is achieved by organizing managed vaults that serve as
dedicated storages of the enterprise backup archives.
Storage nodes become available in the Storage nodes view after you install and register them on the
management server. For more information about operations with storage nodes, see "Storage
nodes" (p. 212).
15.4.6 Licenses
The Licenses view enables you to manage licenses stored on Acronis License Server. The license
server can be either integrated with Acronis Backup Management Server, or installed as a separate
component.
Accessing the Licenses view
To access the Licenses view when connected to the management server, click Licenses in the
Navigation pane.
To connect to the license server directly:
1. In the Tools menu of the console, select Manage licenses.
2. Specify the name or IP address of the machine with the license server.
3. Click OK. This opens the same Licenses view.
Viewing information about licenses
The Licenses view displays all license keys that are present on the license server. The keys are
grouped by products. One license key can contain multiple licenses.
Right-click on the column headings bar to choose the details to display: License key, Expiration date,
Import date, and Total number of license keys, as well as how many of them are Available (i.e. free)
and Used.
To view information about each specific license key, expand the required product and then expand
the key. To obtain information about machines that use the license, click Show machines that use
the license.
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Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
15.4.6.1
Adding licenses
To be able to manage licenses, add them to the license server first.
To add licenses
1. Click Add license.
2. In the Specify licenses to add window, type the license keys or to import them from a file. To
import licenses from a .txt, .eml, or .xml file, click Import keys from file and specify the file
containing the list of license keys. You can specify multiple files one by one or enter the license
keys manually.
3. Click OK.
15.4.6.2
Changing the license server used by the management server
By default, the management server uses the integrated license server. You can make the
management server use a different license server. If you already have a separate license server, this
functionality helps you to migrate the license server to new hardware.
Before changing the license server, make sure to export (p. 376) the licenses from the old license
server and then add (p. 376) them to the new one.
To change the license server
1.
2.
3.
4.
Connect the console to the management server.
In the Actions menu, select Change license server.
Specify the name or IP address of the machine with the license server.
Click OK.
After changing the license server, the management server deploys the new license server's IP
address to the registered machines and they start using the new license server.
15.4.6.3
Exporting licenses
Before changing the license server, export the licenses from the license server that you plan to
change (p. 376). All licenses are saved into an .xml or a .txt file. Later on, you can import (p. 376)
these licenses to a new license server.
To export licenses
1.
2.
3.
4.
Click Export licenses.
Specify the file destination (and optionally, the file name).
Select the file type: *.xml or *.txt.
Click OK to save the file.
15.4.6.4
Removing licenses
To completely remove a license from the Acronis License Server, select it from the list of available
licenses and click Remove license on the toolbar. To remove a license that is in use, you need to
revoke (p. 376) it first.
15.4.6.5
Revoking licenses
Revoking makes used licenses available again. You may need it in the following cases:
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A component that requires a license (such as an agent) is uninstalled from the machine.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Revoke the license from the machine either before or after uninstalling the component.
A managed machine is taken out of service permanently.
Revoke the license from the machine either before or after taking out the machine.
Make sure that revoking and subsequent reusing the license does not contradict the license
agreement and other legal requirements.
To revoke a license:
Expand the required product and then expand the key.
If the license key is used by a single machine, click Revoke license on the toolbar.
If the license key is used by multiple machines, click Show machines that use the license. In the
appearing window, select the host from which you wish to revoke the license (see the Host name
column) and click Revoke license.
15.4.6.6
Using the Acronis License Server Management Tool
The LicenseServerCmdLine.exe file is located in the license server installation folder, by default it is
\Program Files\Acronis\LicenseServer.
LicenseServerCmdLine.exe uses the following syntax:
LicenseServerCmdLine
LicenseServerCmdLine.exe supports the following parameters:
--status
Displays the total number of licenses and the number of available licenses for each Acronis
product.
--import
Adds a new license key to the specified license server. You can specify multiple license keys
(space separated).
--import-file
Imports license keys from a .txt or .eml file.
--help
Shows usage.
15.4.7 Alerts
An alert is a message that warns about actual or potential problems. The Alerts view lets you rapidly
identify and solve the problems by monitoring the current alerts and view the alerts history.
Active and inactive alerts
An alert can be either in an active, or inactive state. The active state indicates that the issue that
caused the alert still exists. An active alert becomes inactive when the problem that caused the alert
is resolved either manually or on its own.
Note: There is one alert type that is always active: "Backup not created". This is because even if the cause of this
alert was resolved and the following backups successfully created, the fact that the backup was not created
remains.
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Fixing issues that caused alerts
To find and fix the issue that caused the alert, click Fix the issue. You will be taken to the
corresponding view,where you can examine the issue and take the necessary steps to resolve it.
Optionally, you can click View details to get more information about the alert you select.
Accepting alerts
By default, the Current alerts table lists both active and inactive alerts until they are not accepted. To
accept an alert, select it and then click Accept. By accepting an alert you acknowledge the alert and
agree to take responsibility for it. The accepted alerts are then moved to the Accepted alerts table,
with the alert state unchanged.
The Accepted alerts table stores the history of the accepted alerts. Here, you can find out who
accepted the alert and when it happen. The accepted alerts of both states can be removed from the
table either manually, by using Delete and Delete all buttons, or automatically (see "Configuring
alerts" later in this section).
To export entire table contents to a *.txt or *.csv file, click Save all to file.
Alerts view on the management server
When the console is connected to the management server, the Alerts view displays alerts collected
from both the registered machines and the management server.
Alerts collected from the registered machines:
Appear in the Alerts view independently from these machines.
Accepted separately both on the management server side and the registered machines.
Similar alerts collected from a number of machines are combined in a single group alert. The
Machine column for group alerts looks as Multiple (X), where X - is the number of the registered
machines that have this alert. Once a single active alert in the group becomes inactive, the alert is
moved to a new or to the existing inactive group. The number of associated machines (X) is reduced
for the active group alert and increased for the inactive group alert respectively.
To obtain information about machines associated with the group alert, click View details.
Configuring alerts
Use the following options at the top of the Alerts view to configure alerts:
Show/hide alerts (p. 26) - specify the alert types to display in the Alerts view.
Notifications (p. 388) - set up e-mail notifications about alerts.
Settings (p. 386) - specify whether to move inactive alerts to the Accepted alerts table
automatically; set how long to keep the accepted alerts in the Accepted alerts table.
15.4.8 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.
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Report templates
Reports are generated based on report templates. The templates define the information to be
included in the report and the way the information is represented.
Acronis Backup Management Server offers report templates for:
Registered machines.
Local and centralized backup plans existing on the registered machines.
Local and centralized tasks existing on the registered machines.
Archives and backups stored in the centralized managed vaults.
Statistics about centralized managed vaults.
Task activities history.
Reports about machines, backup plans, tasks, archives and backups contain information as of the
current time.
Reports about vault statistics and task activities are interval-based and provide historical information
for the specified time interval that can last from days to years, depending on the amount of data kept
in the databases.
Configuring and generating reports
There are two types of report templates: customizable and predefined.
In a customizable report template, by using filters, you can specify which entries to include in the
report, how to group and sort them. To configure a report, select a report template in the Reports
view, click Configure on the toolbar, and then set Filters and Report view. Click OK to generate the
report.
A predefined report template is preset so that you can generate a report with one click. To start
generating a report, select a report template in the Reports view, and then click Generate on the
toolbar.
The report will contain the information selected, grouped and sorted according to the template
settings. Select whether to preview the report in the default browser or to save it to the .xml file. If
previewed, the report appears in a separate interactive window that enables expanding and
collapsing the tables. To open the saved .xml file use Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access.
15.4.8.1
Report about the machines
In this view, you can generate a report about the machines that are registered on the management
server. This report consists of one or more tables.
Filters
Under Filters, choose which machines to include in the report. Only the machines that meet all filter
criteria are included.
Machines: The list of machines. Select either machines with agents or virtual machines.
[Optional] Click Select to select particular machines or machines' groups.
Status: The machine statuses—OK, Warning, and/or Error.
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Last connection (machines with agents only): The period within which the last connection
between the machines and the management server occurred.
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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 (machines with agents only): The types of the machines' availability—Online or
Offline.
IP address (machines with agents only): The range for the latest-known IP addresses of the
machines.
With the default filter settings, the report includes all machines with agents.
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.
15.4.8.2
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.
Owner: The list of users who created the backup plans.
Machines: The list of machines on which the backup plans exist.
Backed up data type: The types of backed up data—Machines/Disks/Volumes and/or Files.
Deployment state: The deployment states of the backup plans—for example, Revoking.
Execution state: The execution states of the backup plans—for example, Running.
Status: The statuses of the backup plans—OK, Warning, and/or Error.
Last finished time: The moment when the last backup plan's task has finished.
Schedule: The types of the backup plans' schedules—Manual and/or Scheduled. Manual
schedule means that a backup plan runs only when you start it manually.
With the default filter settings, the report includes all backup plans from all machines.
Report view
Under Report view, choose how the report will look:
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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.
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15.4.8.3
Report about the tasks
In this view, you can generate a report about the tasks that run on registered machines. This report
consists of one or more tables.
Filters
Under Filters, choose which tasks to include in the report. Only the tasks that meet all filter criteria
are included.
Origin: The types of origin of the tasks—Centralized, Local, and/or Local without backup plan. A
centralized task belongs to a centralized backup plan. A local task might not belong to a backup
plan (for example, a recovery task).
Backup plans (centralized tasks only): The backup plans on which the tasks are based.
Schedule: The types of the tasks' schedules—Manual or Scheduled. Manual schedule means that
a task runs only when you start it manually.
Owner: The list of users who created the tasks.
Machines: The list of machines on which the tasks exist.
Type: The task types—for example, disk backup tasks.
Execution state: The execution states of the tasks—for example, Running.
Last result: The last results of the tasks—Succeeded, Succeeded with warnings, Failed, Stopped,
or "-" (not resulted yet).
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.
15.4.8.4
Report about the archives and backups
In this view, you can generate a report about the archives that are stored in managed centralized
vaults. This report consists of one or more tables.
Filters
Under Filters, choose which archives to include in the report. Only the archives that meet all filter
criteria are included.
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Vaults: The list of centralized managed vaults that store the archives.
Machines: The list of registered machines from which the archives were created.
Type: The archive types—disk-level archives and/or file-level archives.
Owner: The list of users who created the archives.
Creation time: The period within which the newest backup was created in each of the archives.
Occupied space: The limits for the space occupied by each of the archives.
Data backed up: The limits for the total size of data that is currently stored in each of the
archives. This size may differ from the occupied space because of compression or deduplication.
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Number of backups: The limits for the number of backups that each of the archives contains.
With the default filter settings, the report includes all archives that are stored in the centralized
managed vaults.
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.
15.4.8.5
Report about the vaults' statistics
In this view, you can generate a report about the use of the centralized managed vaults that are
currently added to the management server. This report consists of one or more tables and diagrams.
Report coverage
Under Report coverage, choose the time interval for which you want to generate the report. The
report will show the state of the selected vaults at the specified time on each day in the report
period.
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.
Report view
Under Report view, choose how the report will look:
Specify which table columns to show, and in which order.
Select which diagrams to include in the report. The diagrams show space usage in the vaults.
15.4.8.6
Report about the tasks' runs
In this view, you can generate a report about the tasks that existed on registered machines within a
chosen period. This report consists of one or more diagrams, one diagram per machine.
The diagrams show how many times each task finished on a particular day with each of these results:
“Succeeded”, “Succeeded with warnings”, and “Failed”.
Report coverage
Under Report coverage, choose the time interval for which you want to generate the report.
Filters
Under Filters, choose which tasks to include in the report. Only the tasks that meet all filter criteria
are included.
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Origin: The types of origin of the tasks—Centralized, Local, and/or Local without backup plan. A
centralized task belongs to a centralized backup plan. A local task might not belong to a backup
plan (for example, a recovery task).
Backup plans (centralized tasks only): The backup plans on which the tasks are based. The
default setting means all backup plans that ever existed during the report period.
Machines: The list of machines on which the tasks exist.
Type: The task types—for example, disk backup tasks.
Owner: The list of users who created the tasks.
With the default filter settings, the report includes all tasks that existed on the registered machines
any time during the report period.
15.4.8.7
Column selection
In the Column Selection window, you can choose which table columns to include in the report and in
which order.
The tables in the report will contain columns, from left to right, as listed in Display in report. The
topmost column in the list will be the leftmost column in the report.
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.
15.4.8.8
Report view
In order for your web browser to correctly display dates and other information in generated reports,
enable active content (JavaScript). You can allow active content to run temporarily for the currently
displayed webpage, or enable it permanently. To allow active content to run temporarily in Internet
Explorer, click the Information bar that appears at the top of the webpage by default, and then click
Allow blocked content.
To allow active content permanently
in Internet Explorer
1. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options, and then click the Advanced tab.
2. Select the Allow active content to run files on My Computer check box under Security.
3. Click OK.
in Mozilla Firefox
1. On the Options menu, click Content.
2. Make sure, that the Enable JavaScript check box is selected.
3. Click OK.
15.4.9 Log
The centralized event log stores the history of operations performed by the management server, the
storage nodes, and the registered machines.
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To view a plain list of log entries, select Events in the Display drop-down list; to view log entries
grouped by activities, select Activities. The details of the selected log entry or activity are shown in
the Information panel at the bottom of the Log view.
Use filters to display the desired activities and log entries in the table. You can also hide the
unneeded columns and show the hidden ones. For details, see Sorting, filtering and configuring table
items (p. 24). Having selected items in other administration views (Dashboard, Machines with agents,
Backup plans and tasks), you can open the Log view with already filtered log entries for the item in
question.
Select the activity or log entry to take an action on log entries. For details, see Actions on log entries
(p. 384) and Log entry details (p. 385).
15.4.9.1
Actions on log entries (centralized)
All the operations described below are performed by clicking the corresponding items on the log
toolbar. These operations can also be performed with the context menu (by right-clicking the log
entry or the activity).
The following is a guideline for you to perform actions on log entries.
To
Do
Select a single activity
Select Activities in the Display drop-down list and click an activity.
The Information pane will show log entries for the selected activity.
Select a single log entry
Click on it.
Select multiple log
entries
non-contiguous: hold down CTRL and click the log entries one by one
contiguous: select a single log entry, then hold down SHIFT and click another log
entry. All the log entries between the first and last selections will be selected too.
View a log entry’s details 1. Select a log entry.
2. Do one of the following:
Double click the selection.
Click
Details.
The log entry's details will be displayed. See Log entry details (p. 385) for details of
the log entry's operations.
Save the selected log
entries to a file
1. Display Activities and select activities or display Events and select log entries.
2. Click
Save selected to file.
3. In the opened window, specify a path and a name for the file.
All log entries of the selected activities or selected log entries will be saved to the
specified 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. All log entries will
be saved to the specified file.
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To
Do
Save all the filtered log
entries to a file
1. Set filters to get a list of the log entries that satisfy the filtering criteria.
2. Click
Save all to file.
3. In the opened window, specify a path and a name for the file.
All log entries in the list will be saved to the specified file.
Delete all the log entries Click
Delete all.
All the log entries will be deleted from the log, and a new log entry will be created. It
will contain information about who deleted the log entries and when.
Set up the logging level
Click
Configure logging level.
In the Logging level (p. 390) window, specify event types to be collected from the
registered machines to the centralized log.
15.4.9.2
Centralized log entry details
Displays detailed information on the log entry you have selected and lets you copy the details to the
clipboard.
To view details of the next or the previous log entry, click the down arrow button or correspondingly
the up arrow button.
To copy the details, click the Copy to clipboard button.
Log entry data fields
A centralized log entry contains the following data fields:
Type - Type of event (Error; Warning; Information).
Module - It can be blank or the number of the program module where an error was occurred. It
is an integer number that may be used by Acronis support service to solve the problem.
Owner - The user name of the backup plan owner (p. 29).
Date and time - Date and time when the event took place.
Backup plan - The backup plan the event relates to (if any).
Task - The task the event relates to (if any).
Managed entity type - The type of the managed entity where the event has occurred (if any).
Managed entity - The name of the managed entity where the event has occurred (if any).
Machine - The name of the machine where the event has occurred (if any).
Code - It can be blank or the program error code if the event type is error. Error code is an
integer number that may be used by Acronis support service to solve the problem.
Message - The event text description.
15.4.10 Management server options
The management server options enable you to adjust the behavior of the Acronis Backup
Management Server.
To access the management server options, connect the console to the management server and then
select Options > Management server options from the top menu.
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15.4.10.1 Acronis WOL Proxy
This option works in combination with the Use Wake-on-LAN (p. 87) advanced scheduling setting.
Use this option if the management server has to wake up for backup machines located in another
subnet.
When the scheduled operation is about to start, the management server sends out magic packets to
wake up the appropriate machines. (A magic packet is a packet that contains 16 contiguous copies of
the receiving NIC's MAC address). The Acronis WOL Proxy, installed in the other subnet, transfers the
packets to machines located in that subnet.
The preset is: Disabled.
To bring this option into use:
1. Install Acronis WOL Proxy on any server in the subnet where the machines to be woken are
located. The server has to provide continuous services availability. With multiple subnets, install
Acronis WOL Proxy in every subnet where you need to use the Wake-On-LAN functionality.
2. Enable Acronis WOL Proxy in the Management server options as follows:
a. Select the Use the following proxies check box.
b. Click Add, and then enter the name or IP address of the machine where the Acronis WOL
Proxy is installed. Provide access credentials for the machine.
c. Repeat this step if there are several Acronis WOL Proxies.
3. When scheduling a centralized backup plan, enable the Use Wake-on-LAN setting.
You also have the ability to delete proxies from the list. Please keep in mind that any change to this
option affects the entire management server. If you delete a proxy from the list, the Wake-On-LAN
functionality in the corresponding subnet will be disabled for all centralized backup plans including
those already deployed.
15.4.10.2 Alerts
Alert management
Remove from "Accepted alerts" items older than
This option defines whether to delete the accepted alerts from the Accepted alerts table.
The preset is: Disabled.
When enabled, you can specify the keeping period for the accepted alerts. The accepted alerts older
than this period will be deleted from the table automatically.
Automatically move inactive alerts to "Accepted alerts"
This option defines whether to accept all the alerts that become inactive and move them to the
Accepted alerts table automatically.
The preset is: Disabled.
When enabled, you can specify the alert types to apply this option to.
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Time-based alerts
Last backup
This option is effective when the console is connected to a managed machine (p. 438) or to the
management server (p. 439).
The option defines whether to alert if no backup was performed on a given machine for a period of
time. You can configure the time period that is considered critical for your business.
The preset is: alert if the last successful backup on a machine was completed more than 5 days ago.
The alert is displayed in the Alerts section of the Dashboard. When the console is connected to the
management server, this setting will also control the color scheme of the Last backup column's value
for each machine.
Last connection
This option is effective when the console is connected to the management server or to a registered
machine (p. 439).
The option defines whether to alert if no connection was established between a registered machine
and the management server for a period of time so indicating that the machine might not be
centrally managed (for instance in the case of network connection failure to that machine). You can
configure the length of time that is considered critical.
The preset is: alert if the machine's last connection to the management server was more than 5 days
ago.
The alert is displayed in the Alerts section of the Dashboard. When the console is connected to the
management server, this setting will also control the color scheme of the Last connect column's
value for each machine.
15.4.10.3 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. 369). 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.
It is sufficient to specify the credentials of a user who is a member of the Domain Users group on the
domain.
15.4.10.4 E-mail settings
The option enables you to configure e-mail settings to send notifications about alerts which occurred
on the management server.
The notification schedule and the types of alerts to send are configured in Management server
options > E-mail settings > Alert notifications (p. 388).
The preset is: Disabled.
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Note: Alerts warn only about problems. Therefore, e-mail notifications about successful backup or recovery
operations will not be sent. These e-mail notifications are configured in Backup options > Notifications > E-mail
(p. 109) and in Recovery options > Notifications > E-mail (p. 154) respectively.
To configure e-mail notification
1. In the E-mail addresses field, type the destination e-mail address. You can enter several
addresses separated by semicolons.
2. In the Subject field, type the notification subject or leave the default value. Variables are not
supported in this field.
3. In the SMTP server field, enter the name of the outgoing mail server (SMTP).
4. In the Port field, set the port of the outgoing mail server. By default, the port is set to 25.
5. If the outgoing mail server requires authentication, enter User name and Password of the
sender's e-mail account.
If the SMTP server does not require authentication, leave the User name and Password fields
blank. If you are not sure whether the SMTP server requires authentication, contact your
network administrator or your e-mail service provider for assistance.
6. Click Additional e-mail parameters... to configure additional e-mail parameters as follows:
a. From – type the name of the sender. If you leave this field empty, the messages will contain
the sender's e-mail account in the From field.
b. Use encryption – you can opt for encrypted connection to the mail server. SSL and TLS
encryption types are available for selection.
c. 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 and Password of the incoming mail server.
d. Click OK.
7. Click Send test e-mail message to check whether e-mail notifications work correctly with the
specified settings.
Alert notifications
This option enables you to specify when to send e-mail notifications about alerts which occurred on
the management server and to select the types of alerts to send.
When using this option, make sure that the e-mail settings are properly configured in Management
server options > E-mail settings (p. 387).
The preset is: Disabled.
To configure alert notifications
1. Select when to send alert notifications:
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As soon as an alert appears – to send a notification every time a new alert occurs.
Click Select the types of alerts... to specify the types of alerts to send notifications about.
On schedule send notification about all current alerts – to send a cumulative alert
notification including all alerts which occurred over a time interval you specify.
Click Select the types of alerts... to specify the types of alerts to send notifications about.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
Set up the notification Frequency and Time.
2. Click OK.
15.4.10.5 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.
SNMP notifications
This option defines whether the management server has to send its own log events to the specified
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) managers. You can choose the types of events to be
sent.
For detailed information about using SNMP with Acronis Backup, please see "Support for SNMP (p.
48)".
The preset is: Disabled.
To set up sending SNMP messages
1. Select the Send messages to SNMP server check box.
2. Specify the appropriate options as follows:
Types of events to send – choose the types of events: All events, Errors and warnings, or
Errors only.
Server name/IP – type the name or IP address of the host running the SNMP management
application, the messages will be sent to.
Community – type the name of the 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.
To disable sending SNMP messages, clear the Send messages to SNMP server check box.
The messages are sent over UDP.
Windows event log
This option defines whether the management server has to record its own log events 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 recorded.
The preset is: Disabled.
To enable this option, select the Log events check box.
Use the Types of events to log check box to filter the events to be logged in the Application
Event Log of Windows:
All events - all events (information, warnings and errors)
Errors and warnings
Errors only.
To disable this option, clear the Log events check box.
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15.4.10.6 Logging level
This option defines whether the management server has to collect log events from the registered
machines to the centralized log that is stored in a dedicated database and is available in the Log view.
You can set the option for all the events at once or select the event types to be collected. If you
completely disable collection of the log events, the centralized log will contain only the management
server's own log.
The preset is: Collect logs for All events.
Use the Types of events to log combo-box to specify the types of events that will be collected:
All events - all events (information, warnings and errors) occurred on all the machines registered
on the management server will be recorded to the centralized log
Errors and warnings - warnings and errors will be recorded to the centralized log
Errors only - only errors will be recorded to the centralized log.
To disable collection of the log events, clear the Collect logs check box.
Log cleanup rules
This option specifies how to clean up the centralized event log stored in the management server's
reporting database.
This option defines the maximum size of the reporting database.
The preset is: Maximum log size: 1 GB. On cleanup, keep 95% of the maximum log size.
When the option is enabled, the program compares the actual log size with the maximum size after
every 100 log entries. Once the maximum log size is exceeded, the program deletes the oldest log
entries. You can select the amount of log entries to retain. The default 95% setting will keep most of
the log. With the minimum 1% setting, the log will be nearly cleared.
Even if you remove the log size limit, logging events to an SQL Server Express database will stop after the log
size reaches 4 GB, because SQL Express Edition has the 4 GB per database limit. Set the maximum log size to
approximately 3.8 GB if you want to use the maximum capacity of the SQL Express database.
This parameter can also be set by using Acronis Administrative Template (p. 400).
15.4.10.7 Cloud backup proxy
This option is effective only for connection to Acronis Cloud Storage over the Internet.
This option defines whether the management server will connect to the Internet through a proxy
server.
Note The proxy server must be configured to redirect both HTTP/HTTPS and TCP traffic.
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
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3. In Port, specify the port number of the proxy server—for example: 80
4. If the proxy server requires authentication, specify the credentials in User name and Password.
5. To test the proxy server settings, click Test connection.
15.5 Configuring Acronis Backup components
There are three ways to configure various parameters of Acronis Backup components in Windows:
By using Acronis Administrative Template
By using the graphical user interface (GUI)
By modifying the Windows registry
In Linux, instead of using the administrative template and modifying the registry, parameters are
configured by editing the corresponding configuration files.
If the values of any of these parameters set through the administrative template differ from those
set through the graphical user interface, the template-based parameters take precedence and are
effective immediately; the parameters shown in the GUI will be changed accordingly.
The following subtopics describe each way of configuration and the parameters that can be
configured through it.
15.5.1 Parameters set by using Acronis Administrative Template
The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup 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. 391).
The administrative template contains the configuration parameters of Acronis Backup Agent, Acronis
Backup Management Server, Acronis Backup Storage Node, and common parameters of Acronis
Backup components.
The Acronis Backup Storage Node parameters are described in the "Storage nodes" (p. 218) section.
Other parameters are described in the correspondent subtopics.
15.5.1.1
How to load Acronis Administrative Template
The Administrative Template, provided by Acronis, enables the fine-tuning of some security related
features, including encrypted communication settings. Through the Microsoft Group Policy
mechanism, the template policy settings can be applied to a single computer as well as to a domain.
To load the Acronis Administrative Template
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
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Run Windows Group Policy Objects Editor (%windir%\system32\gpedit.msc.)
Open the Group Policy object (GPO) you want to edit.
Expand Computer Configuration.
Right click Administrative Templates.
Click Add/Remove Templates.
Click Add.
Browse to Acronis Administrative Template and click Open. The path to the Administrative
Template is as follows:
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
In a 32-bit version of
Windows: %CommonProgramFiles%\Acronis\Agent\Acronis_agent.adm
or %ProgramFiles%\Acronis\BackupAndRecoveryConsole\Acronis_agent.adm
In a 64-bit version of
Windows: %CommonProgramFiles(x86)%\Acronis\Agent\Acronis_agent.adm
or %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Acronis\BackupAndRecoveryConsole\Acronis_agent.adm
Once the template is loaded, you can open it and edit the desired settings. After loading the
template or editing its settings, you should restart the configured component(s) or some of their
services.
For detailed information about Windows GPO Editor please see:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa374163.aspx
For detailed information about Group Policies please see:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa374177.aspx
15.5.1.2
Acronis Backup
This section of the administrative template specifies the connection parameters and event tracing
parameters for the following Acronis Backup components:
Acronis Backup Management Server
Acronis Backup Agent
Acronis Backup Storage Node
Connection parameters
Remote Agent ports
Specifies the port that the component will use for incoming and outgoing communication with
other Acronis components.
Select one of the following:
Not Configured
The component will use the default TCP port number 9876.
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Enabled
The component will use the specified port; type the port number in the Server TCP Port box.
Disabled
The same as Not configured.
Client Encryption options
Specifies whether to encrypt the transferred data when the component acts as a client
application, and whether to trust self-signed SSL certificates.
Select one of the following:
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.
Required
Data transfer will be performed only if encryption is enabled on the server application
(see "Server Encryption options"); it will be encrypted.
Authentication parameters
Selecting the Trust self-signed certificates check box allows the client to connect to the
server applications that use self-signed SSL certificates such as certificates created during the
installation of Acronis Backup components—see SSL certificates (p. 346).
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. Any connection to a server application which
requires the use of SSL certificates will not be established.
Use if possible
The use of SSL certificates is enabled. The client will use SSL certificates if their use is
enabled on the server 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 server application.
Disabled
The same as Not configured.
Server Encryption options
Specifies whether to encrypt the transferred data when the component acts as a server
application.
Select one of the following:
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Not Configured
The component will use the default setting, which is to use encryption if possible (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 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.
Authentication parameters
In Use Agent Certificate Authentication, select one of the following:
Do not use
The use of SSL certificates is disabled. Any connection to a client application which
requires the use of SSL certificates will not be established.
Use if possible
The use of SSL certificates is enabled. The server will use SSL certificates if their use is
enabled on the client application, and will not use them otherwise.
Always use
The use of SSL certificates is enabled. The connection will be established only if the use
of SSL certificates is enabled on the client application.
Disabled
The same as Not configured.
Event tracing parameters
In Windows, the events occurring in Acronis Backup can be recorded into the event log, a file, or
both.
Each event has a level from zero to five based on the event's severity, as shown in the following
table:
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Level
Name
Description
0
Unknown
Event whose level of severity is unknown or
not applicable
1
Debug
Event used for debug purposes
2
Information
Informational event, such as one about the
successful completion of an operation or
startup of a service
3
Warning
Event which is a possible impending problem,
such as low free space in a vault
4
Error
Event that resulted in a loss of data or
functionality
5
Critical
Event that resulted in the termination of a
process such as the agent's process
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.
Possible values: Any severity level from Unknown through Critical, or Blocked to not record any
events
Default value: 2 (meaning that events with severity levels two through five will be recorded)
The log files are located inside the folder %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Acronis (in
Windows XP and Server 2003) or %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis (in Windows Vista and later
versions of Windows), in the Logs subfolder for the particular component.
Win32 Trace Minimal Level
Description: Specifies the minimum severity level of events to be recorded in the System event
log. Only events of levels greater than or equal to Win32 Trace Minimal Level will be recorded.
Possible values: Any severity level from Unknown through Critical, or Blocked to not record any
events
Default value: 4 (meaning that events about errors and critical errors will be recorded)
Customer Experience Program
Specifies whether the machine where the Acronis Backup component is installed will participate
in the Customer Experience Program.
Select one of the following:
Not Configured
By default, the machine does not participate in the Customer Experience Program.
Enabled
In Enable sending reports to Acronis, select one of the following:
Enable
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. The terms of participation can be found on the Acronis website.
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Disable
The information will not be sent.
Disabled
The same as Not configured.
15.5.1.3
Acronis Backup Agent for Windows
The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup Agent that can be set by using Acronis
Administrative Template.
Licensing
Specifies how often the agent checks its license on the license server, and how long it can work
without a license server.
License Check Interval (in days)
Description: Specifies how often, in days, to check for license availability on Acronis License
Server.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 5
Default value: 1
Acronis Backup Agent periodically checks whether its license key is present on the license
server. The first check is performed every time that Acronis Backup Agent starts and
subsequent checks are performed once in the number of days given by
License Check Interval.
When the agent cannot connect to the license server, a warning is recorded into the agent's
log. You can view this warning in the Dashboard.
If the value is 0, no license check will be performed; without a license, Acronis Backup's
functionality will be disabled after the number of days given by
Maximum Time without License Server (see the next parameter).
See also License Server Connection Retry Interval later in this topic.
Maximum Time without License Server (in days)
Description: Specifies how long, in days, Acronis Backup will work as normal until its
functionality is disabled.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 60
Default value: 30
If Acronis License Server is unavailable, Acronis Backup 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.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 24
Default value: 1
If, during a check for the license key (see License Check Interval earlier in this topic), Acronis
Backup Agent could not connect to the license server, it will try to reconnect once in the
number of hours given by License Server Connection Retry Interval.
If the value is 0, no reconnection attempts will be performed; the agent will only check for
the license as determined by License Check Interval.
License Server Address
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Description: Specifies the network name or IP address of Acronis License Server.
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: Empty string
Log Cleanup Rules
Specifies how to clean up the agent log.
This parameter has the following settings:
Max Size
Description: Specifies the maximum size of the agent log folder, in kilobytes.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 2147483647
Default value: 1048576 (that is, 1 GB)
Percentage To Keep
Description: Specifies the percentage of the maximum log size to keep on cleanup.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 100
Default value: 95
For details on how the agent log is cleaned up, see Log cleanup rules (p. 335).
Windows Event Log
Specifies when to record Acronis Backup Agent's events into the Application Event Log in
Windows.
This parameter has two settings:
Trace State
Description: Specifies whether to record the agent's events into the event log.
Possible values: Enabled or Disabled
Default value: Enabled
Trace Level
Description: Specifies the minimum level of severity of events to be recorded into the event
log. Only events of levels greater than or equal to the value in Trace Level will be recorded.
Possible values: 0 (Internal event), 1 (Debugging information), 2 (Information), 3 (Warning), 4
(Error), or 5 (Critical error)
Default value: 4 (only errors and critical errors will be sent—if Trace State is set to Enabled)
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.
Possible values: Enabled or Disabled
Default value: Enabled
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.
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Possible values: 0 (Internal event), 1 (Debugging information), 2 (Information), 3 (Warning), 4
(Error), or 5 (Critical error)
Default value: 4 (only errors and critical errors will be sent—if Trace State is set to Enabled)
SNMP Address
Description: Specifies the network name or IP address of the SNMP server.
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: Empty string
SNMP Community
Description: Specifies the community name for the SNMP notifications.
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: public
Snapshot Storage
Specifies the location and initial size of the snapshot storage—a temporary file that is used when
backing up data by taking a snapshot. This file is deleted as soon as the backup is complete.
With the default settings, the snapshot storage is created in the temporary files folder of the
agent and initially occupies 20 percent of the space available on the volume containing that
folder. This size may then grow if more space is needed for the snapshot.
You may want to increase the initial size of the snapshot storage—or to place it on a different
volume—when experiencing problems with backing up data that changes extensively during
backup.
This parameter is used when creating a local backup plan. Changes to this parameter do not
affect already existing local backup plans.
This parameter has the following settings:
Path to the snapshot folder
Description: Specifies the folder in which to create the snapshot storage.
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: Empty string
An empty string means the folder %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application
Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\Temp (in Windows XP and Server 2003)
or %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\Temp (in Windows Vista and later
versions of Windows).
You can specify a local folder on any volume, including a volume you are backing up.
Pre-allocated storage size (in Megabytes)
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 Pre-allocated storage size (in percent)
setting.
The initial size will not exceed the available space minus 50 MB.
Pre-allocated storage size (in percent)
This setting is effective only when the Pre-allocated storage size (in Megabytes) setting is 0.
Description: Specifies the initial size of the snapshot storage as a percentage of the disk space
that is available at the time of starting the backup.
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Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 100
Default value: 50
If this setting is 0, the snapshot storage will not be created.
The initial size will not exceed the available space minus 50 MB.
Without the snapshot storage, taking snapshots is still possible.
The size of the snapshot storage does not affect the size of the backup.
Online Backup Proxy
Specifies proxy server settings for connection to Acronis Cloud Storage over the Internet.
This parameter has the following settings:
Proxy
Description: Specifies whether to use a proxy server
Possible values: Enabled or Disabled
Default value: Enabled
If the value of this parameter is Disabled, all of the following parameters are ignored.
Proxy server address
Description: Specifies the name or IP address of the proxy server
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: Empty string
Proxy server port
Description: Specifies the port number of the proxy server
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 65535
Default value: 0
Online Backup Proxy Credentials
Use the following two parameters if the proxy server for connection to Acronis Cloud Storage
requires authentication.
User name
Description: Specifies the user name for authentication with the proxy server
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: Empty string
Password
Description: Specifies the password for authentication with the proxy server
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: Empty string
Important. The password can be viewed by any user who has access to the administrative
template, such as to an administrator of the machine.
Cataloging
Description: Specifies whether Acronis Backup Agent will catalog backups in unmanaged
vaults.
Possible values: Enabled (catalog) or Disabled (do not catalog)
Default value: Enabled
If the value of this parameter is Disabled, the Data view for a vault will not display any data
when the management console is directly connected to the machine.
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Suppress machine reboot on running task
Description: Specifies what to do if the machine needs to be turned off or restarted while a
task is running.
Possible values: Enabled (wait until the task is finished) or Disabled (stop the task)
Default value: Disabled
15.5.1.4
Acronis Backup Management Server
The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup Management Server that can be set by using
Acronis Administrative Template.
Collecting Logs
Specifies when to collect log entries from machines managed by Acronis Backup Management
Server.
This parameter contains two settings:
Trace State
Description: Specifies whether to collect the log entries about the components' events from
the registered machines.
Possible values: Enabled or Disabled
Default value: Enabled
Trace Level
Description: Specifies the minimum level of severity of collected entries. Only entries of
levels greater than or equal to the value in Trace Level will be collected.
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.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 2147483647
Default value: 1048576 (that is, 1 GB)
Percentage to Keep
Description: Specifies the percentage of the maximum log size to keep on cleanup
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 100
Default value: 95
For details on how the centralized event log is cleaned up, see Log cleanup rules (p. 390).
Windows Event Log
Specifies when to record Acronis Backup Management Server's events into the Application Event
Log in Windows.
This parameter has two settings:
Trace State
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Description: Specifies whether to record Acronis Backup Management Server's events into
the event log.
Possible values: Enabled or Disabled
Default value: Enabled
Trace Level
Description: Specifies the minimum level of severity of events to be recorded into the event
log. Only events of levels greater than or equal to the value in Trace Level will be recorded.
Possible values: 0 (Internal event), 1 (Debugging information), 2 (Information), 3 (Warning), 4
(Error), or 5 (Critical error)
Default value: 4 (only errors and critical errors will be sent—if Trace State is set to Enabled)
SNMP
Specifies the types of the management server's events to send notifications about by means of
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
This parameter contains the following settings:
Trace State
Description: Specifies whether to send the SNMP notifications.
Possible values: Enabled or Disabled
Default value: Enabled
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.
Possible values: 0 (Internal event), 1 (Debugging information), 2 (Information), 3 (Warning), 4
(Error), or 5 (Critical error)
Default value: 4 (only errors and critical errors will be sent—if Trace State is set to Enabled)
SNMP Address
Description: Specifies the network name or IP address of the SNMP server.
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: Empty string
SNMP Community
Description: Specifies the community name for the SNMP notifications.
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: public
Synchronization
Specifies how Acronis Backup Management Server connects to registered machines for
deployment of centralized backup plans, retrieval of logs and backup plan states, and similar
actions—collectively called synchronization.
This parameter has the following settings:
Maximum Connections
Description: Specifies the maximum number of simultaneous synchronization connections to
keep.
Possible values: Any integer number between 1 and 500
Default value: 200
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If the total number of online registered machines does not exceed the value in
Maximum Connections, connections to those machines are always kept, and the
management server periodically performs synchronization with each machine.
Otherwise, it connects to a number of registered machines depending on the allotted
number of simultaneous connections. After synchronization for a machine is complete, the
management server may disconnect from that machine and use the free connection for
synchronization with another machine, and so on.
(Note: Connections to machines with high synchronization priority—see Period-High Priority
later in this topic—are likely to be always kept.)
Synchronization connections are unrelated to connections such as those between Acronis
Backup Management Server and Acronis Backup Management Console.
Maximum Workers
Description: Specifies the maximum number of threads to use for synchronization.
Possible values: Any integer number between 1 and 100
Default value: 30
The management server's process uses special threads—called worker threads or
workers—to perform synchronization for a registered machine which is connected for
synchronization.
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).
Period (in seconds)
Description: Specifies how often, in seconds, to perform synchronization for machines that
have a normal synchronization priority—typically, the machines without currently running
centralized backup tasks.
Possible values: Any integer number between 120 and 2147483647
Default value: 120
Acronis Backup Management Server tries to perform synchronization for each
normal-priority machine once in the number of seconds given by Period, by using an
available worker thread (see Maximum Workers described previously).
If there are fewer worker threads than normal-priority machines, the actual interval between
synchronizations may be longer than the value of this parameter.
Period-High Priority (in seconds)
Description: Specifies how often, in seconds, to perform synchronization for machines that
have a high synchronization priority—typically, the machines with currently running
centralized backup tasks.
Possible values: Any integer number between 15 and 2147483647
Default value: 15
This parameter is analogous to the Period parameter described previously.
Real-Time Monitoring
Description: Specifies whether to perform real-time monitoring of registered machines
instead of using a polling mechanism.
Possible values: Enabled or Disabled
Default value: Disabled
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By default, Acronis Backup Management Server connects to registered machines to perform
synchronization—in particular, to retrieve data such as backup logs. This approach is known
as a polling mechanism.
If Real Time Monitoring is set to Enabled, the management server instead sends requests to
machines to provide new data whenever it will appear, and then enters a listening mode.
This approach is called real-time monitoring.
Real-time monitoring may reduce network traffic—for example, when centralized backup
tasks run infrequently. However, it is effective only when there are relatively few registered
machines.
Avoid enabling real-time monitoring if the number of registered machines exceeds the
maximum number of simultaneous connections (see Maximum Connections earlier in this
topic).
Second Connection Attempt
Description: Specifies whether to try to connect to a registered machine by using its
last-known IP address after an attempt to connect to it by using its host name has failed.
Possible values: Enabled or Disabled
Default value: Disabled
When connecting to a registered machine, Acronis Backup 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 Enabled 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.
We recommend setting Second Connection Attempt to Enabled only in networks which
often experience problems with their DNS servers, and provided that the machines' IP
addresses change infrequently—as in cases of fixed IP addresses or long DHCP lease times.
This setting has no effect on machines that were added to the management server by IP
address.
Offline Period Threshold (in seconds)
Description: Specifies the maximum interval, in seconds, between attempts to connect to a
registered machine which appears to be offline.
Possible values: Any integer number between 1800 and 2147483647
Default value: 1800
Normally, the management server connects to each registered machine with a certain time
interval (see Period and Period-High Priority earlier in this section). When the management
server discovers that the machine is offline, it doubles this interval; it keeps doubling this
interval on each further attempt until reaching the value specified in
Offline Period Threshold. If the machine comes back online, the time interval becomes
normal again.
This approach aims at efficient use of the management server resources and reducing the
network load.
Snapshot Storage
Specifies the location and initial size of the snapshot storage—a temporary file that is used when
backing up data by taking a snapshot. This file is deleted as soon as the backup is complete.
With the default settings, the snapshot storage is created in the temporary files folder of the
corresponding agent and initially occupies 20 percent of the space available on the volume
containing that folder. This size may then grow if more space is needed for the snapshot.
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You may want to increase the initial size of the snapshot storage—or to place it on a different
volume—when experiencing problems with backing up data that changes extensively during
backup.
This parameter is used when creating a centralized backup plan. Changes to this parameter do
not affect already existing centralized backup plans.
This parameter has the following settings:
Path to the snapshot folder
Description: Specifies the folder in which to place the snapshot storage.
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: Empty string
An empty string means the folder %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application
Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\Temp (in Windows XP and Server 2003)
or %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\Temp (in Windows Vista and later
versions of Windows).
You can specify a local folder on any volume, including a volume you are backing up.
Pre-allocated storage size (in Megabytes)
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 Pre-allocated storage size (in percent)
setting.
The initial size will not exceed the available space minus 50 MB.
Pre-allocated storage size (in percent)
This setting is effective only when the Pre-allocated storage size (in Megabytes) setting is 0.
Description: Specifies the initial size of the snapshot storage as a percentage of the disk space
that is available at the time of starting the backup.
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 100
Default value: 50
If this setting is 0, the snapshot storage will not be created.
The initial size will not exceed the available space minus 50 MB.
Without the snapshot storage, taking snapshots is still possible.
The size of the snapshot storage does not affect the size of the backup.
Online Backup Proxy
Specifies proxy server settings for connection to Acronis Cloud Storage over the Internet.
This parameter has the following settings:
Proxy
Description: Specifies whether to use a proxy server
Possible values: Enabled or Disabled
Default value: Enabled
If the value of this parameter is Disabled, all of the following parameters are ignored.
Proxy server address
Description: Specifies the name or IP address of the proxy server
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
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Default value: Empty string
Proxy server port
Description: Specifies the port number of the proxy server
Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 65535
Default value: 0
Online Backup Proxy Credentials
Use the following two parameters if the proxy server for connection to Acronis Cloud Storage
requires authentication.
User name
Description: Specifies the user name for authentication with the proxy server
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: Empty string
Password
Description: Specifies the password for authentication with the proxy server
Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long
Default value: Empty string
Important. The password can be viewed by any user who has access to the administrative
template, such as to an administrator of the machine.
Customer Experience Program
Description: Specifies whether the management server participates in the Customer Experience
Program.
Possible values: Enabled (participate) or Disabled (do not participate)
Default value: Enabled
15.5.1.5
Acronis Backup Management Console
The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup Management Console that can be set by using
Acronis Administrative Template.
Check for updates
Description: Specifies whether the automatic check for software updates is performed each time
you start the management console.
Possible values: Enabled (perform the check) or Disabled (do not perform the check)
Default value: Enabled
Customer Experience Program
Description: Specifies whether the management console participates in the Customer Experience
Program.
Possible values: Enabled (participate) or Disabled (do not participate)
Default value: Enabled
Smart Error Reporting
Description: Specifies whether an error message displayed by the management console will
include a link to a relevant Acronis Knowledge Base article.
Possible values: Enabled (include) or Disabled (do not include)
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Default value: Enabled
15.5.2 Parameters set by using Windows registry
Cataloging
The following parameter enables or disables cataloging on Acronis Backup Management Server. The
parameter is useful when updating or loading the data catalog takes a long time.
The parameter is a string value that should be manually added to the corresponding Catalog key in
the registry. If this parameter is missing in the registry, cataloging is enabled on the management
server.
To enable or disable cataloging on Acronis Backup Storage Node, use the similar parameter described in the
"Configuring a storage node with Windows registry" (p. 223) section.
Enabled
Possible values: 0 (disables cataloging) or 1 (enables cataloging)
Registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\AMS\Configuration\Catalog\Enabled
If cataloging is disabled, the management server will not catalog backups in unmanaged vaults.
Also, the Data view and Data catalog will not display any data when the management console is
connected to the management server.
Parameters for writing to tapes (p. 192)
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16 Cloud backup
This section provides details about using the Acronis Cloud Backup service. This service enables you
to back up your data to Acronis Cloud Storage.
Acronis Cloud Backup might be unavailable in your region. To find more information, click here:
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/my/cloud-backup/corporate
To configure backup to the cloud storage or recovery from the storage, follow the regular steps
described in the corresponding sections:
Creating a backup plan (p. 50)
Creating a centralized backup plan (p. 348)
Recovering data (p. 127)
The main difference is that you select the cloud storage as the backup destination.
16.1 Introduction to Acronis Cloud Backup
This section contains a brief overview of Acronis Cloud Backup and answers questions that may arise
during evaluation and usage of this product.
16.1.1 What is Acronis Cloud Backup?
Acronis Cloud Backup is a service that enables you to back up data to Acronis Cloud Storage. To use
this service, you need to buy a subscription that determines the amount of storage space reserved
for your backups (storage quota) and how long the cloud backup service will be available to you.
Examples of subscriptions:
A 1 TB volume subscription means that you can back up data from an unlimited number of
physical and/or virtual machines, for a period of one year. The backups can occupy no more than
one terabyte.
A subscription for PC means that you can back up data from a machine running a non-server
Windows operating system, for a period of one year. The storage quota is unlimited.
16.1.2 What data can I back up and recover?
You can back up files, volumes, disks, or the entire physical machine as often as you wish. Unlike
most cloud backup solutions, Acronis Cloud Backup enables bare metal recovery directly from the
cloud storage. Files can be recovered from disk-level backups as well as from file-level backups.
For information about backing up virtual machines see "How do I back up virtual machines to the
cloud storage?" (p. 408)
16.1.3 How long will my backups be kept in the cloud storage?
Your backups remain in the cloud storage until you delete them or until the subscription expires.
Recovering data from the cloud storage is possible for 30 days following the subscription expiration
date.
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For effective use of the storage space, you have the option to set up the "Delete backups older than"
retention rule.
Example
You might want to use the following backup strategy for a file server.
Back up the critical files twice a day on a schedule. Set the retention rule "Delete backups older
than" 7 days. This means that after every backup the software will check for backups older than 7
days and delete them automatically.
Run backup of the server's system volume manually as required. For example, after the operating
system updates. Manually delete the backups that you do not need.
16.1.4 How do I secure my data?
Backups can be encrypted using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cryptographic algorithm
and the password you set. This guarantees that your data is not accessed by anyone else.
16.1.5 How do I back up virtual machines to the cloud storage?
Use either of the following methods or both.
Install Acronis software onto the virtualization host
This approach comes in handy when the virtualization product installed on the host server is VMware
ESX(i) or Microsoft Hyper-V.
Host-based backup is available only for paid licenses of VMware ESXi. If your ESXi uses a free license, choose the
alternative approach described later in this section.
In this approach, you install one or more Acronis agents onto the virtualization hosts. Each agent can
back up multiple virtual machines by using a single subscription for servers. Therefore, you need as
many subscriptions as the number of the agents. Alternatively, the agents can use a volume
subscription that can be shared with other virtual or physical machines.
You will be able to back up and recover entire virtual machines or individual disks and volumes. In
addition, you can recover individual files and folders to a network share, FTP or SFTP server. You
cannot recover files directly to a virtual machine’s file system.
Installing the software, backing up, and recovery are described in the "Backing up Virtual Machines"
document for Acronis Backup Advanced. When installing Acronis Backup for cloud backup only, you
do not need to enter a license key during installation.
Because ESX(i) machines may be automatically redistributed among the agents, you need to
manually bind the machines to their agents so that the machines always use the same subscription.
Install Acronis software into the guest system
This approach comes in handy when:
the machine is not hosted on a virtualization server
you want to back up a pass-through disk of a Hyper-V virtual machine
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the virtualization product installed on the host server is not VMware ESX(i) or Microsoft Hyper-V
you want to back up an independent disk or an RDM disk attached in the physical compatibility
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you want to use pre/post backup or pre/post data capture commands on the virtual machine
you want to back up individual files and folders of the virtual machine
you want to recover files directly to the virtual machine’s file system.
The machine will be treated as a physical one. If you do not have a volume subscription, you will
need a separate server or PC subscription for this machine.
Installing the software, backing up, and recovery are the same as with a physical machine.
16.1.6 Supported operating systems and virtualization products
Acronis Cloud Backup supports the following operating systems and virtualization platforms.
Server operating systems
Windows
Windows Server 2003/2003 R2 – Standard and Enterprise editions (x86, x64)
Windows Small Business Server 2003/2003 R2
Windows Server 2008 – Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, and Web editions (x86, x64)
Windows Small Business Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 R2 – Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Foundation, and Web editions
Windows MultiPoint Server 2010/2011/2012
Windows Small Business Server 2011 – all editions
Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 – all editions
Windows Storage Server 2003/2008/2008 R2/2012/2012 R2
Windows Server 2016 – Technical Preview 4
Linux
Linux with kernel from 2.4.20 to 4.4 and glibc 2.3.2 or later
Various x86 and x86_64 Linux distributions, including:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.x, 5.x, 6.x, 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2
Ubuntu 9.10, 10.04, 10.10, 11.04, 11.10, 12.04, 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04, 14.10, 15.04,
and 15.10
Fedora 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 – supported on file systems, except for Btrfs
Debian 4, 5, 6, 7.0, 7.2, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 8.0, 8.1, and 8.2
CentOS 5.x, 6.x, and 7.0
Oracle Linux 5.x, 6.x, 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2 – both Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel and Red Hat
Compatible Kernel
CloudLinux 6.x
ClearOS 5.x, 6.x, 7, and 7.1
Before installing the product on a system that does not use RPM Package Manager, such as
an Ubuntu system, you need to install this manager manually; for example, by running the
following command (as the root user): apt-get install rpm
Workstation operating systems
Windows XP Professional SP2+ (x86, x64)
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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)
Windows 8/8.1 – all editions except for the Windows RT editions (x86, x64)
Windows 10 – Home, Pro, Education, and Enterprise editions
Virtualization products (host-based backup of virtual machines)
VMware ESX(i) 5.0, 5.1, 5.5, and 6.0
(Host-based backup is available only for paid licenses of VMware ESXi.)
Windows Server 2008 (x64) with Hyper-V
Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008/2008 R2
Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 with Hyper-V
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012/2012 R2
Windows 8, 8.1 (x64) with Hyper-V
Windows 10 – Pro, Education, and Enterprise editions with Hyper-V
Windows Server 2016 with Hyper-V – Technical Preview 4
16.1.7 Backup and recovery FAQ
This section answers questions related to backup and recovery processes.
16.1.7.1
What backup methods are available?
Full and incremental backup methods are available through several backup schemes. Regardless of
the backup scheme, the first task run produces a full backup; subsequent task runs produce
incremental backups. The following backup schemes are available:
Manual start (postponed start). You can run the task again manually.
GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) (start on schedule). You specify which of the daily backups to
consider as weekly backups and monthly backups. You can set up separate retention rules for
daily, weekly, and monthly backups.
Tower of Hanoi (start on schedule). You set up the number of levels. This is the number of
backups stored at a time. The excessive backups will be deleted in a manner that leaves more
recovery points for recent dates and fewer recovery points for older dates.
An additional backup scheme that is available only for cloud backups is Initial seeding. With this
scheme, the backup starts immediately to a local destination and using the full backup method.
To use this scheme, you need a license for the Initial Seeding (p. 69) service.
Simple (start on schedule). With this backup scheme, you can set up a retention rule to
automatically delete old backups.
16.1.7.2
What recovery methods are available?
There are two methods to recover your data from Acronis Cloud Storage:
Recovering disks or files by using Acronis Backup GUI or command line interface. This method
enables you to use a wide range of Acronis Backup functionality.
Retrieving files (p. 425) from file-level backups by using a web browser. To do this, you only need
a machine with Internet access.
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16.1.7.3
Is the cloud storage available under Acronis bootable media?
Recovery from Acronis Cloud Storage is available but backup to the storage is not.
16.1.7.4
What if a network connection is lost during cloud backup or
recovery?
The software will try to reach the cloud storage every 30 seconds. The attempts will be stopped as
soon as the connection is resumed OR a certain number of attempts are performed, depending on
which comes first. The default number of attempts is 300 when backing up and 30 when recovering.
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.
16.1.7.5
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 webpage near the machine. This means you have to free some space for future
backups. Or, you can consider increasing the storage quota. You may also want to set or edit the
retention rule (p. 407) so that an overflow does not occur in future. Once the occupied space reaches
the limit, the backups will cease to run.
16.1.7.6
What is the cleanup task for?
Any backup plan where the retention rule is set contains a cleanup task in addition to a backup task.
The cleanup task checks the archive created by the backup plan for backups that have outlived their
lifetime. If such backups are found, the task makes the cloud storage delete them. Since the deletion
is performed on the cloud storage side, it does not take your machine's CPU resource.
The cleanup task runs after every cloud backup, even if the backup has failed. The last successful
backup is always kept though. For more information about the retention rule please refer to "How
long will my backups be kept in the cloud storage?" (p. 407)
Normally, there is no need to start and stop the cleanup task manually. But it is possible to do so in
the Backup plans and tasks view.
16.1.7.7
How do I make a recovered machine recognize its subscription?
When you recover a physical machine from a backup, a new machine identifier is created. Therefore,
the machine is not able to back up to the subscription it used before recovery.
To continue backing up the machine to the same subscription, reassign (p. 423) the subscription to
the machine. If you do this, the next machine's backup can be incremental. If you assign a new
subscription to the machine, the software will have to do a new full backup.
16.1.8 Initial Seeding FAQ
This section explains what Initial Seeding is, why you would want to use it and provides some usage
details.
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16.1.8.1
What is Initial Seeding?
Initial Seeding is an extra service that lets you save an initial full backup locally and then send it to
Acronis on a hard disk drive.
Acronis uploads the backup to the cloud storage. After that, you can add incremental backups to this
full backup, either manually or on a schedule.
The hard disk drive is sent back to you but it is not possible to recover from it. However, recovery
from a locally attached device is possible with the Large scale recovery (p. 417) option.
16.1.8.2
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 cloud storage.
16.1.8.3
Is Initial Seeding a paid service?
Yes, you need to buy one Initial Seeding license per machine.
16.1.8.4
What types of hard drive can I use for Initial Seeding?
Acronis accepts hard disk drives of the following interface types: SATA, eSATA, and USB connected
drives. ATA, IDE, and SCSI drives are not accepted.
You can back up directly to the device or back up to a local or network folder and then copy the
backup to the device. Ensure that the device has only one volume and that the file system on that
volume is NTFS or FAT32.
16.1.8.5
Can I send more than one backup under a single Initial Seeding
license?
No. An Initial Seeding license allows you to create only one backup on the machine.
However, if you have made a mistake or have decided to create another backup for any reason, you
can cancel the initial seeding order. As a result, the license will become available again.
16.1.8.6
Can I send backups taken from a number of machines on a
single hard drive?
Yes. However, the number of required licenses is still one per machine.
16.1.8.7
How to buy an Initial Seeding license?
You can buy an Initial Seeding license from an Acronis partner or from the Acronis online store.
Having purchased a license from an Acronis partner, you receive a confirmation e-mail with a
registration code. Log in to your Acronis account and enter the registration code in the product
registration section. The registered license appears on the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab on your
account management webpage.
A license purchased from the Acronis online store appears on the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab
immediately after the payment is processed.
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16.1.8.8
How do I perform initial seeding?
Preparing
1. Ensure that you have activated an Acronis Cloud Backup subscription on the machine where you
will do initial seeding (skip this step if you have a volume subscription).
2. If you are currently using a trial subscription, ensure that you also have a paid subscription
available and assigned to this machine. Do not use the Initial Seeding service if you do not have a
paid subscription.
3. Decide on the media (p. 412) that you will send.
4. Choose the shipping company that you will use to ship your media. We strongly recommend that
you use a recognized provider, such as UPS, FedEx, or DHL.
Creating the initial full backup
1. Attach the media to the machine you are going to back up. Alternatively, you can back up to a
local or network folder and then copy/move the backup to the media.
2. Start Acronis Backup, click Create backup plan and create a backup plan on this machine:
Under What to back up, select disks, volumes or files/folders you want to back up.
Under Where to back up, specify Cloud Storage.
In Backup scheme, select Initial seeding. Specify the said media as the backup destination.
[Optional, but strongly recommended] Enable backup encryption in Backup options >
Archive protection.
The backup starts immediately after you click the final OK.
3. [Optional] If you want to add backups from another machine, attach the media to that machine
and perform the same steps. You need a separate Initial Seeding license for each machine that
you want to back up.
Packaging and sending
1. Package the media along with a prepaid return shipping label.
Important Carefully follow the instructions in the "How to package a hard drive for shipment?" (p. 413)
section, to ensure that your hard drive is safely delivered and returned.
2. Send the media to Acronis by physical mail.
3. On your account management webpage, mark the order as "shipped" and track (p. 416) the
order status.
Creating subsequent backups
Once you observe that the backup has been uploaded to the cloud storage, you can edit the backup
plan to do incremental backups:
In Backup scheme, select the desired backup scheme and specify its settings.
Click Save.
When started manually or on a schedule, your backup plan will add incremental backups to the initial
backup stored in the cloud storage.
16.1.8.9
How to package a hard drive for shipment?
It is very important that your hard drive be packaged carefully. Careful packaging will protect your
drive from any damage during shipment.
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Hard drive types
Acronis accepts hard disk drives of the following interface types: SATA, eSATA, and USB connected
drives.
ATA, IDE, and SCSI drives are not accepted.
Packaging
If possible, use the original packaging. Otherwise, packaging materials can be obtained at any
shipping outlet or stationary store. You should also include all necessary cables or adapters to the
drive. Acronis will not be able to process your initial seeding request if there are no cables included.
The following are instructions about how to package your hard disk drive.
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.
DO NOT use Styrofoam peanuts for packing as they do not provide enough protection.
DO NOT send your media in jiffy bags
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Step 4
Using the website of the shipping company that you chose, 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 Datacenter
address.
We recommend that you use overnight shipping, if you want to start doing incremental backups
as soon as possible. The data is generally available the next business day after the data center
receives it.
2. Shipping label for returning your hard drive. Put this label in the box. When returning your hard
drive, we will reuse the same packaging unless it is damaged. If you do not enclose the label,
your drive will be securely discarded.
You might want to use the most cost-efficient delivery method for having your hard drive
returned.
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Step 5
Securely seal the box with a sturdy tape. Then, stick the shipping label for sending your hard drive to
the top of the box, so the label does not wrap around the edge of the package.
16.1.8.10 How do I track an Initial Seeding order status?
On the Acronis website, the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab shows you the status of all your orders. In
addition, you will receive e-mail notifications about the most important events.
Available – The license is available for using on any machine.
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. You can now ship the media:
Step 1. Package the media following the drive packaging and shipment instructions (p. 413) to
avoid damage during shipment. If you want the media to be returned to you after the data is
uploaded, prepare a prepaid return shipping label and place it inside the package together with
the drive.
Step 2. Send the drive via your preferred carrier to the Acronis datacenter.
Step 3. Let us know when you have shipped the order by marking your order as "shipped".
You will receive a notification message when Acronis receives the order and when the order is
completed. If necessary, Acronis may contact you during order processing.
[Occasional] Backup creation error – An error occurred when backing up. Please check the
backup plan parameters and try again.
The media has been shipped – This status is set after you mark the order as "shipped".
The data upload has started – The process of uploading data to Acronis Cloud Storage has
started.
The data upload has been completed – The initial full backup has been successfully uploaded to
the cloud storage. You can do incremental cloud backups now.
The order has been completed. The media has been returned (or: Returning the media was not
requested) – Your media has been shipped back (the carrier and the tracking number are
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An order was created – The backup is about to start and the license cannot be used for the same
or 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.
The media has been received by Acronis – Acronis has started processing your order. From this
point on, you cannot cancel the order. Creating a new initial seeding backup will require a new
Initial Seeding license.
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specified). If a prepaid shipping label was not provided with the media, the media will be
discarded.
[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.
[Occasional] The order has been cancelled – The order had been cancelled before the media was
shipped, so returning the media is not required.
[Occasional] The order has been cancelled. The media has been returned (or: Returning the
media was not requested) – The order was cancelled while the media was in the datacenter. The
media has been shipped back (the carrier and the tracking number are specified). If a prepaid
shipping label was not provided with the media, the media will be discarded.
16.1.9 Large Scale Recovery FAQ
This section explains what Large Scale Recovery is, why you would want to use it and provides some
usage details.
16.1.9.1
What is Large Scale Recovery?
Large Scale Recovery is an extra service that enables you to obtain a copy of the backups you have in
the cloud storage. You can then recover data from this copy.
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.
16.1.9.2
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. Recovering hundreds of gigabytes over the
Internet may take days. This process will deliver a faster recovery.
16.1.9.3
Do I need to perform initial seeding to be able to use Large
Scale Recovery?
No, these services are independent.
16.1.9.4
Is Large Scale Recovery a paid service?
Yes, you need to buy one Large Scale Recovery license per machine. The license enables you to get a
disk with all of the currently available backups of this machine. To obtain backups that will be created
in the future, you will need a new Large Scale Recovery license.
16.1.9.5
Can I perform large scale recovery on a different machine?
Yes. You can recover the data an unlimited number of times on any machine you wish.
16.1.9.6
Can I obtain backups taken from a number of machines on a
single hard drive?
No. A separate hard drive is required for each machine.
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16.1.9.7
How to buy a Large Scale Recovery license?
You can buy a Large Scale Recovery license from an Acronis partner or from the Acronis online store.
Having purchased a license from an Acronis partner, you receive a confirmation e-mail with a
registration code. Log in to your Acronis account and enter the registration code in the product
registration section. The registered license appears on the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab on your
account management webpage.
A license purchased from the Acronis online store appears on the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab
immediately after the payment is processed.
16.1.9.8
How do I track a Large Scale Recovery order status?
On the Acronis website, the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab shows you the status of all your orders. In
addition, you will receive e-mail notifications about most important events.
Available – The license can be used for any machine.
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.
[Occasional] The order has been cancelled – The order has been cancelled.
[Occasional] Address has been updated – This status is set after you have updated the delivery
address on Acronis website.
An order was created – This status is set upon completion of the Large Scale Recovery order
form. This means that 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.
Writing data – Your backups are being written onto the media. From this point on, you cannot
cancel the order.
Ready to ship the media – Your order has been processed and the media will be shipped shortly.
The order has been completed. The media has been shipped – The media has been shipped to
you (the carrier and the tracking number are specified).
[Occasional] Address is undeliverable – Acronis cannot send the disk. On the same Web page,
click Change my delivery address and specify the correct address for the order.
16.1.9.9
How to perform large scale recovery?
The recovery procedure is the same as when recovering from the cloud storage. Just specify the path
to the location where your backups are. For detailed information about recovery please refer to the
context-sensitive help.
16.1.10 Subscription lifecycle FAQ
This section explains a subscription lifecycle and subscription operations that you can perform on
your account management webpage.
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16.1.10.1 How do I access my account management webpage?
Go to http://www.acronis.com/en-us/my/cloud-backup/corporate and log in to your account (create
one if you are not registered).
To access this webpage from Acronis Backup:
1. On the Actions menu, click Back up now or Create backup plan.
2. Click Location, and then click Buy or manage your subscriptions.
3. Log in to your account (create one if you are not registered).
16.1.10.2 Where do I find the subscriptions that I purchased?
If you purchased your subscriptions from an Acronis partner, you should have received an e-mail
confirming the registration codes for each subscription. Go to your account management webpage,
click Enter new registration code, and then enter the registration codes. The subscriptions will
appear in the list of available subscriptions on the Manage subscriptions tab.
Another way to register the subscriptions is to enter the registration codes during local installation of
Acronis Backup in Windows.
Subscriptions that are purchased from the Acronis website are available on this tab immediately.
16.1.10.3 When does my subscription begin?
The subscription period of a volume subscription begins at the time of purchase.
The subscription period of a machine subscription begins as soon as the subscription is activated on a
machine.
16.1.10.4 What happens when my subscription expires?
A month before the subscription expiration date you receive an e-mail notification with an alert. In
addition, you can see this alert on the account management webpage near the machine. This means
you need to renew (p. 419) the subscription to continue backing up the machine.
If you do not renew the subscription, you will be able to back up data to the cloud storage for five
days following the expiration date. You will be able to recover data from the cloud storage for 30
days following the expiration date.
16.1.10.5 How do I renew a subscription?
Buy another subscription and specify it as the next subscription of the same machine. The new
subscription will be activated as soon as the current subscription expires.
An expired subscription can be renewed within five days after expiration. In such cases, the new
subscription will be activated immediately.
Renewing a single subscription
You can renew an activated subscription to a subscription with the same or a larger storage quota.
To renew a volume subscription, you need a volume subscription. To renew a machine subscription,
you need a machine subscription of the same type or a volume subscription.
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A subscription for virtual machines (now deprecated) can be renewed to a server subscription or to a
volume subscription.
Volume subscriptions
To renew a volume subscription, go to the account management webpage, click Renew next to the
volume subscription, and then follow the on-screen instructions.
The new expiration date will appear in the Expires column.
If the new subscription has the same storage quota as the old one, the subscription periods will
be added together.
If the new subscription has a larger storage quota, the resulting subscription period will be
recalculated.
Machine subscriptions
To renew a machine subscription, go to the account management webpage, find the machine that
you want to renew the subscription for, click Renew next to the machine, and then follow the
on-screen instructions.
The new subscription will appear in the Next subscription column for the machine.
Renewing a number of activated subscriptions at once
This operation is possible if the appropriate number of new subscriptions are identical to the
currently used subscriptions.
Make sure the new subscriptions are available on your account management webpage. Then click
Renew all. The confirmation window will summarize which subscriptions will be renewed. If identical
subscriptions are not found for some of the machines, you have the option to cancel automatic
renewal and renew each subscription individually.
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
auto-renewal can be used. You can select auto-renewal for each individual subscription or set up bulk
auto-renewal of all of the activated subscriptions you have.
16.1.10.6 What is the “Group” column for?
So you can apply actions, such as Renew all or Auto-renew all, to your selection of the subscriptions.
Specify the desired group name, for example, SalesDept, near each of the subscriptions you want to
group. Click the Group column header to sort the subscriptions and then apply the desired actions to
the group.
16.1.10.7 Can I revoke a subscription from a machine?
You cannot return an activated subscription to the list of available subscriptions, but you can reassign
(p. 423) it to a different machine in Acronis Backup GUI.
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16.1.10.8 Can I cancel my subscription?
Just wait until the subscription expires. Refunds are not available for the cloud backup subscriptions.
16.2 Where do I start?
Go to http://www.acronis.com/en-us/my/cloud-backup/corporate and log in to your account (create
one if you are not registered). This is your account management webpage. Here you can get a trial
subscription, locate an Acronis partner or buy subscriptions online. The newly obtained subscriptions
are listed as available subscriptions on the Manage subscriptions tab.
If you purchased your subscriptions from an Acronis partner, register them manually using the Enter
new registration code link. The registration codes come with the purchase confirmation e-mail.
Next, install Acronis software (if not yet installed) and start backing up to Acronis Cloud Storage.
16.3 Choosing a subscription
Volume subscriptions
A volume subscription enables you to back up an unlimited number of physical and/or virtual
machines. All backed up machines share a common storage quota. The subscription period begins at
the time of purchase.
Machine subscriptions
A machine subscription enables you to back up either a single physical machine or all virtual
machines managed by one Agent for VMware or Agent for Hyper-V. The storage quota applies to this
physical machine or to all of the virtual machines managed by the agent. The subscription period
begins when the subscription is activated on the machine.
For a physical machine, choose the subscription for server or for PC based on the operating system
that the machine is running. If you doubt whether the machine is a server or a workstation, refer to
the list of the supported operating systems (p. 409).
For virtual machines managed by Agent for VMware or Agent for Hyper-V, use a server subscription.
In addition to backing up virtual machines, this subscription allows you to back up their physical host.
If your backups are likely to exceed the storage quota for the subscription, you may want to use a
server subscription on a workstation. The inverse usage is not possible. You cannot back up a server
by using a subscription for PC.
Trial subscriptions
You can obtain one free trial subscription per account. The trial subscription enables you to back up a
single machine. The subscription period is limited to one month.
Obtaining a trial subscription is possible until you buy a paid subscription. You can use a trial
subscription along with paid ones. The same expiration rules apply to trial and paid subscriptions.
To continue using the service after the trial subscription expires, buy a subscription, and then renew
the trial subscription specifying the paid subscription. Your backed up data will be kept. Regular
backups of your machines will continue uninterrupted. The service will not need to perform a new
full backup.
To get a trial subscription, do either of the following:
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On the account management webpage, click the cloud backup trial link, and then select the
necessary subscription type.
Install Acronis Backup, start the product, connect the console to the machine you want to back
up, click Back up now or Create backup plan, click Location, and then click Get trial subscription.
Log in to your account (create one if you are not registered yet). A trial subscription will be
automatically created and assigned to the machine.
16.4 Configuring proxy settings
If one or more machines where you installed agents connect to the Internet through a proxy server,
you need to configure each of the agents to use the proxy server.
The management server connects to the Internet to retrieve information about cloud backup
subscriptions. The proxy settings for the management server also need to be configured.
Proxy settings for the agent and the management server are configured separately, even if both are
installed on the same machine.
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.
On the Options menu, click Machine options.
Click Cloud backup proxy.
Enter the proxy server settings. For detailed information (p. 336) about the settings please refer
to the context-sensitive help.
5. Repeat steps 2–4 for all machines that connect to the Internet through a proxy server.
To configure proxy settings for the management server
1.
2.
3.
4.
Connect the console to the management server.
On the Options menu, click Management server options.
Click Cloud backup proxy.
Enter the proxy server settings. For detailed information (p. 390) about the settings please refer
to the context-sensitive help.
16.5 Checking the firewall settings
To back up to Acronis Cloud Storage, outbound connections over the ports 443, 44445, and 55556
must be allowed on the machine where an Acronis agent is running.
Windows Firewall allows all outbound connections by default. You need to create new rules only if
the connections are blocked by a personal or corporate firewall.
In many cases, it is acceptable to allow connections to any host/IP address. If you want to allow
connections only to specific hosts/IP addresses, do the following:
1. Find the datacenter assigned to your account. To do this, go to your account management
webpage (p. 419) and click Recover files from Acronis Cloud. The resulting webpage URL will
start with a fragment similar to https://cloud-wr-eu1.acronis.com. Here, characters eu1 are the
datacenter abbreviation.
2. Check if connections to the following hosts via the respective ports are allowed:
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cloud-rs-.acronis.com, port 55556.
cloud-fes-.acronis.com, port 44445.
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rpc.acronis.com, port 443.
To check the connections, use the telnet command or Acronis Cloud Connection Verification
Tool, as described in the Acronis Knowledge Base article https://kb.acronis.com/content/4350.
3. If any of the above connections are blocked, configure your firewall to allow the connections.
16.6 Activating cloud backup subscriptions
Activating a subscription on a machine means allowing the machine to back up to the cloud storage.
A volume subscription is activated automatically as soon as you start backing up the machine to
Acronis Cloud Storage.
A machine subscription (for Server or for PC) is also activated automatically if all subscriptions
available in your account are the same type and have the same storage quota. If various
subscriptions are available in your account, choose the one to be activated either when creating a
backup plan or by manual activation (described in this section). The subscription period of a machine
subscription starts at the moment of activation.
Important Before activating the first subscription for your account, check the country selected in your profile.
Depending on this country, the service determines the data center where your backups will be sent. Make sure
to select the country where all or most of the machines you want to back up to the cloud storage are located.
Otherwise, the data may unnecessarily travel a long way. Later, you will not be able to change the data center
even if you change the country in your profile. To access your profile, go to the Acronis website, log in to your
account, and then click Personal Profile.
16.6.1 Activating subscriptions in Acronis Backup Advanced
To begin with, make sure that the machines whose subscriptions you want to activate are registered
on the management server and available (turned on).
If you need to back up ESX(i) virtual machines, bind them to Agent for VMware as described in the
"Agent for VMware binding" section of the "Backing up virtual machines" document. When activating
a subscription, select the machine where the agent is running.
To activate subscriptions
1.
2.
3.
4.
Connect the console to the management server.
On the Actions menu, click Activate cloud backup subscriptions.
Specify the credentials to log in to the cloud storage.
Select any number of machines from either the Workstations or the Servers list, and then click
Select subscription.
5. Select the type of subscriptions you want to activate for the machines. The number of the
subscriptions must be at least the same as the number of the selected machines.
6. Click Activate now.
7. Perform the previous three steps for other machines you want to activate subscriptions on.
Alternatively, you can activate a subscription when the console is connected to a machine instead of
the management server.
16.6.2 Reassigning an activated subscription
Sometimes you may want to use an already activated subscription instead of an available
subscription. In these cases, for example:
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You no longer need to back up one of your machines and you want to reuse that machine’s
subscription for another machine.
You reinstalled Acronis Backup on a machine and want to resume its cloud backups.
You recovered a machine to bare metal (or to a state when it did not yet have an activated
subscription) and want to resume its cloud backups.
Reassigning a subscription does not restart its subscription period.
To assign an activated subscription to a machine
1. On the machine to which you want to assign an activated subscription, go to the subscription
activation window.
2. Click Reassign an already used subscription.
3. Select the machine whose subscription you want to reassign to the current machine.
4. Click Reassign now.
Example
The diagram below shows what happens if you reassign a subscription to a different machine. Let's
assume Machine 1 has four backups in Subscription 1. Machine 2 has two backups in Subscription 2.
At that point, you reassign Subscription 1 to Machine 2. Machine 2 does its third backup to
Subscription 1.
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. Keep in mind
though, backups can be deleted from a subscription only by the machine to which the subscription is
assigned. In our example, you have the following options.
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Before reassigning
Delete backups from Subscription 1 using Machine 1 (if it is available and turned on). Delete backups
from Subscription 2 using Machine 2.
After reassigning
Delete backups from Subscription 1 using Machine 2. You cannot delete backups from Subscription 2,
unless you assign this subscription to any machine.
16.7 Retrieving files from the cloud storage by using a
web browser
By using a web browser, you can browse Acronis Cloud Storage, view contents of file-level archives,
and download the selected files and folders.
The following browsers support these operations:
Internet Explorer 7 or later
Mozilla Firefox 3.5 or later
Google Chrome 10 or later
Safari 5.0.5 or later
To retrieve files from the cloud storage:
1. Go to the account management webpage (p. 419) and click Recover files from Acronis Cloud.
You will see the list of the machines backed up by using the specified account. The list of
machines that share a volume subscription appears when you select this subscription.
2. Click the name of the machine whose data you want to retrieve. The software displays both
file-level and disk-level archives of this machine's data.
Note for users of the Initial Seeding (p. 69) service. While an initial seeding backup is being
uploaded from your hard drive to Acronis Cloud Storage, the backup is visible but its data is not
retrievable.
3. Click the required file-level archive. If prompted, enter the archive password. The software
displays all of files and folders that were ever backed up to this archive.
4. If necessary, browse to the required folder or use search to obtain the list of the required files
and folders.
Details. The search string can contain one or more wildcard characters * and ?.
5. Do one of the following:
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To get the latest version of a single file or folder, simply click its name.
To get an earlier version of a single file, click the
icon to the right of it and choose View
versions. This opens a window with the version list. In this window, select the required
version by its date and time and click Download.
[Not available if you used search] To get earlier versions of multiple files and folders, select
the required date and time from the Versions list. Select the check boxes to the left of the
files and folders and click the Download button.
Details. You will get the file and folder versions that were backed up prior and closest to the
selected point in time.
To get the latest versions of multiple files and folders, select the check boxes to the left of
them and click the Download button.
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6. To download the selected files, click Save.
Details. If you selected a single file, it is downloaded as is. Otherwise, the selected data will be
archived into a .zip file (named AcronisArchive.zip by default).
7. Select the location to save the data to, and then click Save.
16.8 Limitations of the cloud storage
Unlike other types of storage available in Acronis Backup, the cloud storage has the following
limitations.
Operations
The following operations are not possible.
Backup operations:
Backing up from bootable media
Backing up with Agent for Exchange
Creating differential backups
Using the Custom backup scheme
Simplified naming of backup files
Simultaneous host-based backup of multiple virtual machines
Setting up regular conversion of backups to a virtual machine
Operations with backups:
Validating a backup*
Exporting a backup
Mounting a backup
Replicating or moving backups from the cloud storage
Converting an incremental backup to full
Operation with archives (an archive is a set of backups):
Validating an archive
Exporting an archive
These limitations also apply to backing up data using Initial Seeding and to recovering data using
Large Scale Recovery.
* An initial seeding backup is automatically validated immediately after its creation.
Backup and recovery options
Some backup and recovery options are not supported by cloud backups. For example, Backup
splitting (p. 106).
By using the Backup performance > Network connection speed option, you can vary the transferring
speed as kilobytes per second, but not as a percentage.
16.9 Terminology reference
The following is the list of terms related to the Acronis Cloud Backup service.
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Activate a subscription
Allow the machine to use the cloud storage according to the subscription.
Activated subscription
A subscription that is currently being used by a machine.
Assign a subscription to a machine
Reserve a subscription for a particular machine in order to renew its current subscription.
Assigned subscription
A subscription that has been assigned to a machine.
Available subscription
A subscription that is not assigned to any machine.
Extra service
A service that you can use in addition to cloud backup subscriptions.
Increase storage quota
Replace a subscription with another one that has a greater storage quota. The remaining subscription
period is reduced in proportion to the capacity increase.
Initial Seeding
An extra service that enables you to save an initial full backup locally and then send it to Acronis on a
hard disk drive. Acronis uploads the backup to the cloud storage. After that, you can add incremental
backups to this full backup, either manually or on a schedule.
The Initial Seeding service might be unavailable in your region. To find more information, click here:
http://kb.acronis.com/content/15118.
Large Scale Recovery
An extra service that enables you to obtain a copy of the backups you have in the cloud storage. You
can then recover data from this copy.
The Large Scale Recovery service might be unavailable in your region. To find more information, click
here: http://kb.acronis.com/content/15118.
License
Not to be confused with Acronis Backup product license.
Permission for a machine to use an extra service of Acronis Cloud Backup.
You can buy Initial Seeding licenses and/or Large Scale Recovery licenses.
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.
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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 webpage, and these subscriptions and licenses become available for use.
Renew a subscription
Assign a subscription of the same type and with the same or a larger storage quota as the current,
activated subscription.
This subscription will become activated as soon as the current subscription expires.
Storage quota
The amount of storage space that can be occupied according to the subscription.
Subscription
Permission for a machine or for multiple machines to use a specific amount of space in the cloud
storage, for a specific period of time.
Subscription period
The period during which the subscription remains activated. You can back up and recover the
machine during this period. Recovery is possible for extra 30 days after this period ends.
Unassign a subscription
Make an assigned subscription available again.
You can unassign a subscription as long as it is not activated.
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17 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. 434) 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. Limitations:
the backup must be located on the local drive (any device available through the BIOS except for
network boot)
does not work with Linux images
GPT disks and the UEFI boot mode are not supported.
Acronis Plug-in for WinPE
A modification of Acronis Backup Agent for Windows that can run in the preinstallation environment.
The plug-in can be added to a WinPE (p. 442) image using Bootable Media Builder. The resulting
bootable media (p. 431) can be used to boot any PC-compatible machine and perform, with certain
limitations, most of the direct management (p. 434) operations without the help of an operating
system. Operations can be configured and controlled either locally through the GUI or remotely using
the console (p. 433).
Acronis Secure Zone
A secure volume for storing backup archives (p. 430) within a managed machine (p. 438).
Advantages:
enables recovery of a disk to the same disk where the disk's backup resides
eliminates the need for a separate media or network connection to back up or recover the data.
This is especially useful for mobile users
can serve as the primary location from which backups are replicated further.
offers a cost-effective and handy method for protecting data from software malfunction, virus
attack, operator error
Limitation: Acronis Secure Zone cannot be organized on a dynamic disk (p. 435).
Acronis Secure Zone is considered as a personal vault (p. 439).
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (ASRM)
A modification of the bootable agent (p. 431), residing on the system disk and configured to start at
boot time when F11 is pressed. Acronis Startup Recovery Manager eliminates the need for rescue
media or network connection to start the bootable rescue utility.
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is especially useful for mobile users. If a failure occurs, the user
reboots the machine, hits F11 on prompt "Press F11 for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager…" and
performs data recovery in the same way as with ordinary bootable media.
Limitation: requires re-activation of loaders other than Windows loaders and GRUB.
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Activity
An action performed by Acronis Backup for achievement of some user goal. Examples: backing up,
recovery, exporting a backup, cataloging a vault. An activity may be initiated by a user or by the
software itself. Execution of a task (p. 441) always causes one or more activities.
Agent (Acronis Backup Agent)
An application that performs data backup and recovery and enables other management operations
on the machine (p. 438), such as task management and operations with hard disks.
The type of data that can be backed up depends on the agent type. Acronis Backup includes the
agents for backing up disks and files and the agents for backing up virtual machines residing on
virtualization servers.
Archive
See Backup archive (p. 430).
B
Backup
A backup is the result of a single backup operation (p. 430). Physically, it is a file or a tape record that
contains a copy of the backed-up data as of a specific date and time. Backup files created by Acronis
Backup have a TIB extension. The TIB files which are the result of a backup export (p. 437) or
consolidation (p. 433) are also called backups.
Backup archive (Archive)
A set of backups (p. 430) created and managed by a backup plan (p. 430). An archive can contain
multiple full backups (p. 437) as well as incremental (p. 437) and differential backups (p. 434).
Backups belonging to the same archive are always stored in the same location. If the backup plan
includes replication (p. 440) or moving of backups to multiple locations, the backups in each location
form a separate archive.
Backup operation
An operation that creates a copy of the data that exists on a machine's (p. 438) hard disk for the
purpose of recovering or reverting the data to a specified date and time.
Backup options
Configuration parameters of a backup operation (p. 430), 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. 430).
Backup plan (Plan)
A set of rules that specify how the given data will be protected on a given machine. A backup plan
specifies:
430
what data to back up
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the backup archive (p. 430) name and location
[optionally] additional operations to perform with the backups (replication (p. 440), validation (p.
441), conversion to a virtual machine)
the backup options (p. 430).
the backup scheme (p. 431). This includes the backup schedule and [optionally] the retention
rules (p. 440)
For example, a backup plan can contain the following information:
back up volume C: (this is the data the plan will protect)
perform a full backup monthly on the last day of the month at 10:00AM and an incremental
backup on Sundays at 10:00PM. Delete backups that are older than 3 months (this is a backup
scheme)
validate the last backup immediately after its creation (this is a validation rule)
name the archive MySystemVolume and place it in \\server\backups\ (this is the backup
archive name and location)
protect the archive with a password (this is an option).
Physically, a backup plan is a bundle of tasks (p. 441) executed on a managed machine (p. 438).
A backup plan can be created directly on the machine, imported from another machine (local plan)
or propagated to the machine from the management server (centralized plan (p. 432)).
Backup scheme
A part of the backup plan (p. 430) that includes the backup schedule and [optionally] the retention
rules and the cleanup (p. 433) schedule. For example, perform a full backup (p. 437) monthly on the
last day of the month at 10:00AM and an incremental backup (p. 437) on Sundays at 10:00PM.
Delete backups that are older than 3 months. Check for such backups every time the backup
operation is completed.
Acronis Backup provides the ability to use well-known optimized backup schemes such as GFS and
Tower of Hanoi, to create a custom backup scheme or to back up data once.
Bootable agent
A bootable rescue utility that includes most of the functionality of the Acronis Backup Agent (p. 430).
Bootable agent is based on Linux kernel. A machine (p. 438) can be booted into a bootable agent
using either bootable media (p. 431) or Acronis PXE Server. Operations can be configured and
controlled either locally through the GUI or remotely using the console (p. 433).
Bootable media
A physical media (CD, DVD, USB flash drive or other media supported by a machine (p. 438) as a boot
device) that contains the bootable agent (p. 431) or Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) (p.
442) with the Acronis Plug-in for WinPE (p. 429). A machine can also be booted into the above
environments using the network boot from Acronis PXE Server or Windows Deployment Service
(WDS). These servers with uploaded bootable components can also be thought of as a kind of
bootable media.
Bootable media is most often used to:
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recover an operating system that cannot start
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access and back up the data that has survived in a corrupted system
deploy an operating system on bare metal
create basic or dynamic volumes (p. 436) on bare metal
back up sector-by-sector a disk that has 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.
Built-in group
A group of machines permanently located on a management server (p. 439).
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 machine from the built-in
group except by removing the machine from the management server.
C
Cataloging
Cataloging a backup (p. 430) adds the contents of the backup to the data catalog (p. 433). Backups
are cataloged automatically as soon as they are created. Backups stored on a storage node (p. 440)
are cataloged by the node. Backups stored anywhere else are cataloged by the agent (p. 430). In the
backup options (p. 430), a user can choose between full and fast cataloging. Full cataloging can also
be started manually.
Centralized backup plan
A backup plan (p. 430) that is deployed to a managed machine (p. 438) from the management server
(p. 439). Such plan can be modified only by editing the original backup plan on the management
server.
Centralized management
Management of the Acronis Backup infrastructure through a central management unit known as
Acronis Backup Management Server (p. 439). The centralized management operations include:
creating centralized backup plans (p. 432) for the registered machines (p. 439) and groups of
machines
creating and managing static (p. 440) and dynamic groups (p. 436) of machines (p. 438)
managing the tasks (p. 441) existing on the machines
creating and managing centralized vaults (p. 432) for storing archives
managing storage nodes (p. 440)
monitoring activities of the Acronis Backup components, creating reports, viewing the centralized
log and more.
Centralized task
A task (p. 441) propagated to a machine from the management server (p. 439). Such task can be
modified only by editing the original task or centralized backup plan (p. 432) on the management
server.
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Centralized vault
A networked location allotted by the management server (p. 439) administrator to serve as storage
for the backup archives (p. 430). A centralized vault can be managed by a storage node (p. 440) or be
unmanaged. The total number and size of archives stored in a centralized vault are limited by the
storage size only.
As soon as the management server administrator creates a centralized vault, the vault name and
path to the vault are distributed to all machines registered (p. 439) on the server. The shortcut to the
vault appears on the machines in the Vaults list. Any backup plan (p. 430) existing on the machines,
including local plans, can use the centralized vault.
On a machine that is not registered on the management server, a user having the privilege to back up
to the centralized vault can do so by specifying the full path to the vault. If the vault is managed, the
user's archives will be managed by the storage node as well as other archives stored in the vault.
Cleanup
Deleting backups (p. 430) from a backup archive (p. 430) or moving them to a different location in
order to get rid of outdated backups or prevent the archive from exceeding the desired size.
Cleanup consists of applying retention rules (p. 440) to an archive. The retention rules are set by the
backup plan (p. 430) that produces the archive. Cleanup may or may not result in deleting or moving
backups depending on whether the retention rules are violated or not.
Console (Acronis Backup Management Console)
A tool for remote or local access to Acronis agents (p. 430) and Acronis Backup Management Server
(p. 439).
Having connected the console to the management server, the administrator sets up centralized
backup plans (p. 432) and accesses other management server functionality, that is, performs
centralized management (p. 432). Using the direct console-agent connection, the administrator
performs direct management (p. 434).
Consolidation
Combining two or more subsequent backups (p. 430) belonging to the same archive (p. 430) into a
single backup.
Consolidation might be needed when deleting backups, either manually or during cleanup (p. 433).
For example, the retention rules require to delete a full backup (p. 437) that has expired but retain
the next incremental (p. 437) one. The backups will be combined into a single full backup which will
be dated with the incremental backup's date. Since consolidation may take a lot of time and system
resources, retention rules provide an option to not delete backups with dependencies. In our
example, the full backup will be retained until the incremental one also becomes obsolete. Then both
backups will be deleted.
D
Data catalog
Allows a user to easily find the required version of data and select it for recovery. On a managed
machine (p. 438), users can view and search data in any vault (p. 441) accessible from this machine.
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The centralized catalog available on the management server (p. 439) contains all data stored on its
storage nodes (p. 440).
Physically, data catalog is stored in catalog files. Every vault uses its own set of catalog files which
normally are located directly in the vault. If this is not possible, such as for tape storages, the catalog
files are stored in the managed machine's or storage node's local folder. Also, a storage node locally
stores catalog files of its remote vaults, for the purpose of fast access.
Deduplicating vault
A managed vault (p. 438) in which deduplication (p. 434) is enabled.
Deduplication
A method of storing different duplicates of the same information only once.
Acronis Backup can apply the deduplication technology to backup archives (p. 430) stored on storage
nodes (p. 440). This minimizes storage space taken by the archives, backup traffic and network usage
during backup.
Differential backup
A differential backup stores changes to the data against the latest full backup (p. 437). You need
access to the corresponding full backup to recover the data from a differential backup.
Direct management
An operation that is performed on a managed machine (p. 438) using the direct console (p.
433)-agent (p. 430) connection (as opposed to centralized management (p. 432) when the operations
are configured on the management server (p. 439) and propagated by the server to the managed
machines).
The direct management operations include:
creating and managing local backup plans (p. 438)
viewing and managing the log of the agent's operations
creating and managing local tasks (p. 438) such as recovery tasks
creating and managing personal vaults (p. 439) and archives stored there
viewing the state, progress and properties of the centralized tasks (p. 432) existing on the
machine
disk management operations, such as clone a disk, create volume, convert volume.
A kind of direct management is performed when using bootable media (p. 431).
Disaster recovery plan (DRP)
A document that contains a list of backed up data items and detailed instructions on how to recover
these items from a backup.
If the corresponding backup option (p. 430) is enabled, a DRP is created after the first successful
backup is performed by the backup plan, and also after any change to the list of data items or the
DRP parameters. A DRP can be sent to the specified e-mail addresses or saved as a file to a local or
network folder.
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Disk backup (Image)
A backup (p. 430) that contains a sector-based copy of a disk or a volume in a packaged form.
Normally, only sectors that contain data are copied. Acronis Backup provides an option to take a raw
image, that is, copy all the disk sectors, which enables imaging of unsupported file systems.
Disk group
A number of dynamic disks (p. 435) that store the common configuration data in their LDM
databases and therefore can be managed as a whole. Normally, all dynamic disks created within the
same machine (p. 438) are members of the same disk group.
As soon as the first dynamic disk is created by the LDM or another disk management tool, the disk
group name can be found in the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\dmio\Boot Info\Primary Disk
Group\Name.
The next created or imported disks are added to the same disk group. The group exists until at least
one of its members exists. Once the last dynamic disk is disconnected or converted to basic, the
group is discontinued, though its name is kept in the above registry key. In case a dynamic disk is
created or connected again, a disk group with an incremental name is created.
When moved to another machine, a disk group is considered as ‘foreign’ and cannot be used until
imported into the existing disk group. The import updates the configuration data on both the local
and the foreign disks so that they form a single entity. A foreign group is imported as is (will have the
original name) if no disk group exists on the machine.
For more information about disk groups please refer to the following Microsoft knowledge base
article:
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. In addition to MBR or GPT, each dynamic disk has a hidden database where the LDM stores the
dynamic volumes' configuration. Each dynamic disk holds the complete information about all
dynamic volumes existing in the disk group which makes for better storage reliability. The database
occupies the last 1MB of an MBR disk. On a GPT disk, Windows creates the dedicated LDM Metadata
partition, taking space from the Microsoft Reserved Partition (MSR.)
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Disk 1
MBR
LDM
database
Disk 2
Protec-t GPT
ive
MBR
Microsoft
Reserved
Partition (MSR)
LDM
database
1 MB
GPT
LDM Metadata
partition
1 MB
Dynamic disks organized on MBR (Disk 1) and GPT (Disk 2) disks.
For more information about dynamic disks please refer to the following Microsoft knowledge base
articles:
Disk Management (Windows XP Professional Resource Kit)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457110.aspx
816307 Best practices for using dynamic disks on Windows Server 2003-based computers
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816307
Dynamic group
A group of machines (p. 438) which is populated automatically by the management server (p. 439)
according to membership criteria specified by the administrator. Acronis Backup offers the following
membership criteria:
Operating system
Active Directory organizational unit
IP address range
Listed in txt/csv file.
A machine remains in a dynamic group as long as the machine meets the group's criteria. However,
the administrator can specify exclusions and not include certain machines in the dynamic group even
if they meet the criteria.
Dynamic volume
Any volume located on dynamic disks (p. 435), or more precisely, on a disk group (p. 435). Dynamic
volumes can span multiple disks. Dynamic volumes are usually configured depending on the desired
goal:
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to increase the volume size (a spanned volume)
to reduce the access time (a striped volume)
to achieve fault tolerance by introducing redundancy (mirrored and RAID-5 volumes.)
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
E
Encrypted archive
A backup archive (p. 430) encrypted according to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). When the
encryption option and a password for the archive are set in the backup options (p. 430), each backup
belonging to the archive is encrypted by the agent (p. 430) before saving the backup to its
destination.
Encrypted vault
A managed vault (p. 438) to which anything written is encrypted and anything read is decrypted
transparently by the storage node (p. 440), using a vault-specific encryption key stored on the node.
In case the storage medium is stolen or accessed by an unauthorized person, the malefactor will not
be able to decrypt the vault contents without access to the storage node. Encrypted archives (p. 436)
will be encrypted over the encryption performed by the agent (p. 430).
Export
An operation that creates a copy of an archive (p. 430) or a self-sufficient part copy of an archive in
the location you specify. The export operation can be applied to a single archive, a single backup (p.
430) or to your choice of backups belonging to the same archive. An entire vault (p. 441) can be
exported by using the command line interface.
F
Full backup
A self-sufficient backup (p. 430) 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. 431) aimed to maintain the optimal balance between a backup archive
(p. 430) size and the number of recovery points (p. 439) available from the archive. GFS enables
recovering with daily resolution for the last several days, weekly resolution for the last several weeks
and monthly resolution for any time in the past.
For more information please refer to GFS backup scheme (p. 61).
I
Image
The same as Disk backup (p. 434).
Incremental backup
A backup (p. 430) that stores changes to the data against the latest backup. You need access to other
backups to recover data from an incremental backup.
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Indexing
An activity (p. 430) performed by a storage node (p. 440) after a backup (p. 430) has been saved to a
deduplicating vault (p. 434).
During indexing, the storage node performs the following operations:
Moves data blocks from the backup to a special file within the vault. This file is called the
deduplication data store.
In the backup, replaces the moved blocks with their fingerprints ("hashes")
Saves the hashes and the links that are necessary to "assemble" the deduplicated data, to the
deduplication database.
Indexing can be thought of as "deduplication at target", as opposed to "deduplication at source"
which is performed by the agent (p. 430) during the backup operation (p. 430). A user can suspend
and resume indexing.
L
Local backup plan
A backup plan (p. 430) created on a managed machine (p. 438) using direct management (p. 434).
Local task
A task (p. 441) created on a managed machine (p. 438) using direct management (p. 434).
Logical volume
This term has two meanings, depending on the context.
A volume, information about which is stored in the extended partition table. (In contrast to a
primary volume, information about which is stored in the Master Boot Record.)
A volume created using Logical Volume Manager (LVM) for Linux kernel. LVM gives an
administrator the flexibility to redistribute large storage space on demand, add new and take out
old physical disks without interrupting user service. Acronis Backup Agent (p. 430) for Linux can
access, back up and recover logical volumes when running in Linux with 2.6.x kernel or a
Linux-based bootable media (p. 431).
M
Machine
A physical or virtual computer uniquely identified by an operating system installation. Machines with
multiple operating systems (multi-boot systems) are considered as multiple machines.
Managed machine
A machine (p. 438), either physical or virtual, where at least one Acronis Backup Agent (p. 430) is
installed.
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Managed vault
A centralized vault (p. 432) managed by a storage node (p. 440). Archives (p. 430) 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
cleanup (p. 433) and validation (p. 441) for each archive stored in the managed vault. An
administrator can specify additional operations that the storage node will perform (deduplication (p.
434), encryption).
Management server (Acronis Backup Management Server)
A central server that drives data protection within the enterprise network. Acronis Backup
Management Server provides the administrator with:
a single entry point to the Acronis Backup infrastructure
enterprise-wide monitoring and reporting functionality
an easy way to protect data on numerous machines (p. 438) using centralized backup plans (p.
432) and grouping
the ability to create centralized vaults (p. 432) for storing enterprise backup archives (p. 430)
the ability to manage storage nodes (p. 440)
the centralized catalog (p. 433) of all data stored on the storage nodes.
If there are multiple management servers on the network, they operate independently, manage
different machines and use different centralized vaults for storing archives.
Media builder
A dedicated tool for creating bootable media (p. 431).
P
Personal vault
A local or networked vault (p. 441) created using direct management (p. 434). Once a personal vault
is created, a shortcut to it appears on the managed machine in the Vaults list. Multiple machines can
use the same physical location; for example, a network share; as a personal vault.
Plan
See Backup plan (p. 430).
R
Recovery point
Date and time to which the backed-up data can be reverted.
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Registered machine
A machine (p. 438) managed by a management server (p. 439). A machine can be registered on only
one management server at a time. A machine becomes registered as a result of the registration (p.
440) procedure.
Registration
A procedure that adds a managed machine (p. 438) to a management server (p. 439).
Registration sets up a trust relationship between the agent (p. 430) residing on the machine and the
server. During registration, the console retrieves the management server's client certificate and
passes it to the agent which uses it later to authenticate clients attempting to connect. This helps
prevent any attempts by network attackers from establishing a fake connection on behalf of a
trusted principal (the management server).
Replenishable pool
A tape pool that is allowed to take tapes from the Free tapes pool when required.
Replication
Copying a backup (p. 430) to another location. By default, the backup is copied immediately after
creation. A user has the option to postpone copying the backup by setting up replication inactivity
time.
This feature replaces and enhances the dual destination backup feature, which was available in
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10.
Retention rules
A part of backup plan (p. 430) that specifies when and how to delete or move the backups (p. 430)
created by the plan.
S
Single-pass backup
A single-pass backup (aka application-aware backup) is a disk backup containing metadata of
VSS-aware applications that are present on the disk. This metadata enables browsing and recovery of
the backed-up application data without recovering the entire disk or volume.
Static group
A group of machines which a management server (p. 439) administrator populates by manually
adding machines to the group. A machine remains in a static group until the administrator removes it
from the group or from the management server.
Storage node (Acronis Backup Storage Node)
A server aimed to optimize usage of various resources required for protection of enterprise data. This
goal is achieved by organizing managed vaults (p. 438). Storage Node enables the administrator to:
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use a single centralized catalog (p. 433) of data stored in the managed vaults
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016
relieve managed machines (p. 438) of unnecessary CPU load by performing cleanup (p. 433),
validation (p. 441) and other operations with backup archives (p. 430) which otherwise would be
performed by agents (p. 430)
drastically reduce backup traffic and storage space taken by the archives (p. 430) by using
deduplication (p. 434)
prevent access to the backup archives, even in case the storage medium is stolen or accessed by
a malefactor, by using encrypted vaults (p. 437).
T
Task
A set of actions to be performed by Acronis Backup at a certain time or event. The actions are
described in a non human-readable service file. The time or event (schedule) is stored in the
protected registry keys (in Windows) or on the file system (in Linux).
Tower of Hanoi
A popular backup scheme (p. 431) aimed to maintain the optimal balance between a backup archive
(p. 430) size and the number of recovery points (p. 439) available from the archive. Unlike the GFS (p.
437) scheme that has only three levels of recovery resolution (daily, weekly, monthly resolution), the
Tower of Hanoi scheme continuously reduces the time interval between recovery points as the
backup age increases. This allows for very efficient usage of the backup storage.
For more information please refer to "Tower of Hanoi backup scheme (p. 67)".
U
Unmanaged vault
Any vault (p. 441) that is not a managed vault (p. 438).
V
Validation
An operation that checks the possibility of data recovery from a backup (p. 430).
Validation of a file backup imitates recovery 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. Both
procedures are resource-intensive.
While the successful validation means a high probability of successful recovery, it does not check all
factors that influence the recovery process. If you back up the operating system, only a test recovery
under the bootable media to a spare hard drive can guarantee successful recovery in the future.
Vault
A place for storing backup archives (p. 430). A vault can be organized on a local or networked drive or
detachable media, such as an external USB drive. There are no settings for limiting a vault size or the
number of backups in a vault. You can limit the size of each archive using cleanup (p. 433), but the
total size of archives stored in the vault is limited by the storage size only.
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Virtual machine
On Acronis Backup Management Server (p. 439), a machine (p. 438) is considered virtual if it can be
backed up from the virtualization host without installing an agent (p. 430) on the machine. Such
machine appears in the Virtual machines section. If an agent is installed into the guest system, the
machine appears in the Machines with agents section.
W
WinPE (Windows Preinstallation Environment)
A minimal Windows system commonly used by OEMs and corporations for deployment, test,
diagnostic and system repair purposes. A machine can be booted into WinPE via PXE, CD-ROM, USB
flash drive or hard disk. Acronis Plug-in for WinPE (p. 429) enables running the Acronis Backup Agent
(p. 430) in the preinstallation environment.
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