Page 1 Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10 Advanced Server SBS Edition User's Guide...
Page 2 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010. All rights reserved. “Acronis” and “Acronis Secure Zone” are registered trademarks of Acronis, Inc. "Acronis Compute with Confidence", “Acronis Startup Recovery Manager”, “Acronis Active Restore” and the Acronis logo are trademarks of Acronis, Inc. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Page 3: Table Of Contents
2.10 Proprietary Acronis technologies ....................44 2.10.1 Acronis Secure Zone ...........................44 2.10.2 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager ......................45 2.10.3 Universal Restore (Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Universal Restore) ............45 2.10.4 Acronis Active Restore ..........................47 2.11 Understanding centralized management ................49 2.11.1 Basic concepts ............................49 2.11.2...
Page 4 3.2.1 Logging level ...............................78 3.2.2 Log cleanup rules ............................78 3.2.3 Event tracing ...............................79 3.2.4 Domain access credentials .........................80 3.2.5 Acronis WOL Proxy .............................80 3.2.6 VM protection options ..........................80 Machine options ........................81 3.3.1 Machine management ..........................82 3.3.2 Event tracing ...............................82 3.3.3 Log cleanup rules ............................84...
Page 5 Location selection ............................ 230 6.7.6 Access credentials for destination ......................231 Acronis Secure Zone ......................232 6.8.1 Creating Acronis Secure Zone ......................... 232 6.8.2 Managing Acronis Secure Zone ....................... 234 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager ..................235 6.10 Bootable media ........................236 6.10.1...
Page 6 6.11.6 Volume operations ..........................260 6.11.7 Pending operations ..........................267 6.12 Collecting system information ....................267 Centralized management ..................... 268 Administering Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server ........268 7.1.1 Dashboard ............................... 268 7.1.2 Backup policies ............................270 7.1.3 Physical machines ............................
Page 7: Introducing Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10
Based on Acronis’ patented disk imaging and bare metal restore technologies, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 succeeds Acronis True Image Echo as the next generation disaster recovery solution. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server SBS Edition inherits the benefits of the Acronis True Image Echo product family: ...
Page 8: Getting Started
1. Install Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server (p. 17). 2. Install Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agents on the machines that need data protection. When installing the agents, register each of the machines on the management server. To do so, enter the server's IP or name and the centralized administrator's credentials in one of the installation wizard's windows.
Page 9 2. Create the deduplicating managed vault on the storage node. 3. Install the Acronis Deduplication add-on to the agent on all machines that will back up to the deduplicating vault. 4. Ensure that the backup plans you create use the managed vault as destination for the backup archives.
Page 10: Using The Management Console
(in the menu, in the main area with the Welcome screen, the Navigation pane, the Actions and tools pane) enabling you to perform agent- specific or server-specific operations. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console - Welcome screen Key elements of the console workspace Name...
Page 11 Tasks. Use this view to manage tasks, run, edit, stop and delete tasks, monitor their states, examine task history.  Log. Use this view to examine the history of centralized management operations, such as creating a managed entities group, applying a policy, managing a centralized vault; as well as Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 12 1.2.1.2 "Actions and tools" pane The Actions and tools pane enables you to easily and efficiently work with Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. The pane's bars provide quick access to program's operations and tools. All items of the Actions and tools bar are duplicated in the program menu.
Page 13: Operations With Panes
All the tools can also be accessed in the Tools menu. "Tools" bar Help Contains a list of help topics. Different views and action pages of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provided with lists of specific help topics. 1.2.1.3 Operations with panes How to expand/minimize panes By default, the Navigation pane appears expanded and the Actions and Tools - minimized.
Page 14: Action Pages
An action page appears in the main area when clicking any action item in the Actions menu, or in the Actions bar on the Actions and tools pane. It contains steps you need to perform in order to create and launch any task, or a backup plan, or backup policy. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 15 Action page - Controls Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 remembers the changes you made on the action pages. For example, if you started to create a backup plan, and then for any reason switched to another view without accomplishing the plan creation, you can click the Back navigation button on the menu.
Page 16: Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Components
Navigation buttons 1.3 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components This section contains a full list of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components with a brief description of their functionality. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 includes the following main types of components.
Page 17: Components For Centralized Management
Universal Restore handles differences in devices that are critical for Windows start-up, such as storage controllers, motherboard or chipset. 1.3.1.2 Deduplication This add-on enables the agent to back up data to deduplicating vaults managed by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node. 1.3.2 Components for centralized management This section lists the components included in the Acronis Backup &...
Page 18: Storage Node
1.3.2.2 Storage Node Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node is a server aimed to optimize usage of various resources (such as the corporate storage capacity, the network bandwidth, or the managed machines' CPU load) required for the enterprise data protection. This goal is achieved through organizing and managing the locations that serve as dedicated storages of the enterprise backup archives (managed vaults).
Page 19: Pxe Server
If the archive is already encrypted by the agent, the storage node-side encryption is applied over the encryption performed by the agent. 1.3.2.3 PXE Server Acronis PXE Server allows for booting machines into Acronis bootable components through the network. The network booting: ...
Page 20: Management Console
Acronis Wake-On-LAN Proxy installs on any server in the subnet where the machines to be backed up are located. 1.4 Supported file systems Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 can back up and recover the following file systems with the following limitations: ...
Page 21: Supported Operating Systems
XFS - volume recovery without the volume resize capability; particular files cannot be recovered from disk backups located on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node  JFS - particular files cannot be recovered from disk backups located on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node ...
Page 22: System Requirements
Support services for the Software, which Acronis shall endeavor to make available twenty four (24) hours a day, seven (7) days per week. Such electronic services may include, but are not limited to: user forums;...
Page 23 Software and supplying patches, updates and other changes that Acronis, at its sole discretion, makes or adds to the Software and which Acronis makes generally available, without additional charge, to other licensees of the Software that are enrolled in Support.
Page 24: Understanding Acronis Backup & Recovery 10
The details can be found in the context help. Backup under operating system 1. To protect data on a machine, install Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent (p. 347) on the machine which becomes a managed machine (p. 356) from this point on.
Page 26 You also specify the destination where to recover the data. You can customize the recovery operation using recovery options, such as pre/post recovery commands, error handling or notification options. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 27 If required, you can connect the console to another machine and configure a recovery operation on that machine. This ability (remote parallel recovery) first appeared in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10; the previous Acronis products do not provide it.
Page 28: Full, Incremental And Differential Backups
2.2 Full, incremental and differential backups Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provides the capability to use popular backup schemes, such as Grandfather-Father-Son and Tower of Hanoi, as well as to create custom backup schemes. All backup schemes are based on full, incremental and differential backup methods.
Page 29 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: ...
Page 30: User Privileges On A Managed Machine
When a user opens a plan or task for editing, which is owned by another user, all passwords set in the task are cleared. This prevents the "modify settings, leave passwords" trick. The program displays Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 31: Gfs Backup Scheme
It is sufficient that the machine be on (that is, not in standby or hibernate) at the scheduled task start time. That's why the Acronis scheduler needs the explicitly specified credentials to be able to start the task.
Page 32 You are free to use any of the varieties when backing up to a locally attached tape device. GFS by Acronis With Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, you can easily set up a backup plan that will regularly back up data and clean up the resulting archive according to the GFS scheme.
Page 33 Schedule: Workdays at 8:00 PM Weekly/Monthly: Friday Acronis uses incremental and differential backups that help save storage space and optimize the cleanup so that consolidation is not needed. In terms of backup methods, weekly backup is differential (Dif), monthly backup is full (F) and daily backup is incremental (I). The first backup is always full.
Page 34 “Dif” stands for differential backup. “I” stands for incremental backup. The backups that outlive their nominal lifetime because of dependencies are marked pink. The initial full backup will be deleted as soon as all differential and incremental backups based on this backup are deleted. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 35: Tower Of Hanoi Backup Scheme
An archive created according to the GFS scheme by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. Schedule: Workdays at 8:00 PM Weekly/Monthly: Friday Keep daily backups: 7 days Keep weekly backups: 2 weeks Keep monthly backups: 6 months 2.6 Tower of Hanoi backup scheme The need to have frequent backups always conflicts with the cost of keeping such backups for a long time.
Page 36 The Tower of Hanoi backup scheme is generally too complex to mentally calculate the next media to be used. But Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provides you with automation of the scheme usage. You can set up the backup scheme while creating a backup plan.
Page 37: Retention Rules
Differential backup (D) created at session 9 will be deleted at session 25 after creation of a new differential backup is completed. This way, a backup archive created in accordance with the Tower of Hanoi scheme by Acronis sometimes includes up to two additional backups over the classical implementation of the scheme.
Page 38 (too small) or a regular backup turns out to be too large. To protect the recent backups from deletion, select the Never delete backups younger than check box and specify the maximum age of backups that must be retained. The diagram below illustrates the resulting rule. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 39 The consolidation, however, may take a lot of time and system resources. And you still need some extra space in the vault for temporary files created during consolidation. What you need to know about consolidation Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 40: Backing Up Dynamic Volumes (Windows)
2.8 Backing up dynamic volumes (Windows) This section explains in brief how to back up and recover dynamic volumes (p. 355) using Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. Basic disks that use the GUID Partition Table (GPT) are also discussed.
Page 41: Recovering Dynamic Volumes
Basic MBR volume Basic MBR volume Basic MBR volume Basic GPT volume Basic GPT volume Basic GPT volume Basic GPT volume Basic MBR volume Basic MBR volume Basic MBR volume Unallocated space (basic MBR disk) Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 42: Tape Support
A tape device can be locally attached to a managed machine (in this case, the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent writes and reads the tapes) or accessed through the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node (p. 18). Storage nodes ensure fully automatic operation of tape libraries and autoloaders (p.
Page 43: Using A Single Tape Drive
5. Because the presence of an operating system cannot be detected in a backup located on a tape, Acronis Universal Restore (p. 359) is proposed at every disk or volume recovery, even when recovering a Linux or non-system Windows volume.
Page 44: Proprietary Acronis Technologies
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.
Page 45: Acronis Startup Recovery Manager
This feature has the trade name "Acronis Startup Recovery Manager". 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.
Page 46 Universal Restore is not a system preparation tool. You can apply it to any Windows image created by Acronis products, including images of systems prepared with Microsoft System Preparation Tool (Sysprep). The following is an example of using both tools on the same system.
Page 47: Acronis Active Restore
Limitation The only supported archive location is a local drive, or more precisely, any device available through the machine’s BIOS. This may be Acronis Secure Zone, a USB hard drive, a flash drive or any internal hard drive. How it works When configuring a recovery operation, you select disks or volumes to recover from a backup.
Page 48: Usage Scenarios
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.
Page 49: Understanding Centralized Management
2.11 Understanding centralized management This section contains an overview of centralized data protection with Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. Please be sure you have an understanding of how data is protected on a single machine (p. 24) before reading this section.
Page 50: Setting Up Centralized Data Protection In A Heterogeneous Network
(3). The console enables you to access and manage other Acronis components through Graphical User Interface. 2. Install Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server [AMS] on one of the Windows servers (2). The management server is your single entry point to the Acronis infrastructure.
Page 51: Protecting The Servers
3. Install Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent on each of the machines to back up the machine's disks, volumes or files.  Agent (W) - Agent for Windows  Agent (L) - Agent for Linux. When installing the agents, register each of the machines on the management server. To do so, enter the server's name or IP address and the server's administrator credentials in the appropriate window of the installation wizard.
Page 53: Grouping The Registered Machines
Please familiarize yourself with this section to be sure that your actions yield the desired result and to understand the result of the automated Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server operations.
Page 54: A Policy On A Machine Or A Group
1. The same policy can be applied to a group and to a machine. Nothing changes on the machine at the second application of the same policy, but the server remembers that the policy has been applied twice. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 55: Operations With A Machine
The "blue" policy is applied, but the "orange" policy remains on the machine. 4. Remove from the group: Machine #3 is removed from the group. The "orange" policy is revoked from the machine. The machine remains in the All machines group. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 56: Inheritance Of Policies
In the diagram below, the container stands for a group; the two-color circle stands for a machine with two applied policies; the three-color circle stands for a machine with three applied policies and so on. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 57 All machines -> #1 or #2 or #3 "orange" Inherited G1 -> #1 or #2 or #3 "green" Inherited All machines -> #4 "orange" Inherited G1 -> G2 -> #4 "blue" Inherited G2 -> #4 "violet" Applied directly Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 58: Backup Policy's State And Statuses
In this case, the first policy's state on the machine will be Revoking and the second policy's state will be Deploying. The policies can appear in the GUI simultaneously or one after another. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 59: Policy Status On A Machine
The policy that has to back up the [System] and the /dev/sda1 volumes, will get the Warning status on the Windows machines (since /dev/sda is not found) and on the Linux machines that have the Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 60: Policy Deployment State On A Group
The status of the corresponding backup plan is Warning The status of the corresponding backup plan is OK Updating Error The updating log has errors: cannot delete the locked task, the Acronis service is stopped… Warning The updating log has warnings...
Page 61: Deduplication
In Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, deduplication consists of two steps: Deduplication at source Performed on a managed machine during backup. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent uses the storage node to determine what data can be deduplicated, and does not transfer the data whose duplicates are already present in the vault.
Page 62: How Deduplication Works
How deduplication works Deduplication at source When performing a backup to a deduplicating vault, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent reads items being backed up—disk blocks for disk backup or files for file backup—and calculates a fingerprint of each block. Such a fingerprint, often called a hash value, uniquely represents the item's content within the vault.
Page 63: When Deduplication Is Most Effective
Follow these recommendations when using deduplication:  When creating a deduplicating vault, place the vault and its deduplication database on different disks. This will make deduplication faster, because deduplication involves extensive simultaneous use of both the vault and the database. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 64: Deduplication Ratio
When backing up multiple systems with similar content, back up one of the similar systems first, so that Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node indexes all the system's files as potential deduplication items. This will lead to faster backup processes and less network traffic (because of effective deduplication at source), regardless of whether the backups are performed simultaneously or not.
Page 65: Privileges For Centralized Management
This section describes the users' privileges that are required to manage a machine locally and remotely, to manage a machine registered on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server, and to access and manage Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node.
Page 66: Remote Connection
10 Management Server are being installed. During installation, you can specify what users to include in each group. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agents When Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows is being installed on a machine, the Acronis Remote Users group is created (or updated). Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 67: User Privileges On A Storage Node
A user who is a member of this group can manage the machine remotely by using Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console, according to the management rights described in Users' privileges on a managed machine (p. 30). By default, this group includes all members of the Administrators group.
Page 68: Management Server Administrator Rights
Normally, the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server administrator operates on a registered machine on behalf of the Acronis Managed Machine Service (also known as the Acronis service) on that machine and has the same privileges as the service has.
Page 69: Rights For Acronis Services
In this case, the user account must exist on all the machines to which the centralized policy 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.
Page 70: Communication Between Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Components
For example, if Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console is connecting to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent on a remote machine, the former is the client and the latter is the server. An Acronis component can act as a client application, a server application, or both, as shown in the following table.
Page 71: Configuring Communication Settings
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 (each option is explained later in this topic): ...
Page 72 SSL certificates such as certificates created during the installation of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components—see SSL certificates (p. 74). You should keep this check box selected, unless you have a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) in your environment.
Page 73: Network Port Configuration
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.
Page 74: Ssl Certificates
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 & Recovery 10 Bootable Agent. The choice is available between: ...
Page 75 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 & Recovery 10 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.
Page 76: Options
3 Options This section covers Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 options that can be configured using Graphical User Interface. The content of this section is applicable to both stand-alone and advanced editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. 3.1 Console options The console options define the way information is represented in the Graphical User Interface of Acronis Backup &...
Page 77: Time-Based Alerts
To make a selection, choose the desired value from the Number of tasks drop-down menu. 3.1.5 Fonts This option is effective when the console is connected to a managed machine or to the management server. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 78: Management Server Options
The option defines the fonts to be used in the Graphical User Interface of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. The Menu setting affects the drop-down and context menus. The Application setting affects the other GUI elements. The preset is: System Default font for both the menus and the application interface items.
Page 79: Event Tracing
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) managers. You can choose the types of events to be sent. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provides the following Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) objects to SNMP management applications: 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.1.0 - string identifying the type of event (Information, Warning, Error) 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.0 - string containing the text description of the event (it looks identical...
Page 80: Domain Access Credentials
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.
Page 81: Machine Options
ESX/ESXi is deployed (p. 294) to the virtual machine's host. Such machines appear as not manageable (grayed out). Once the agent is deployed to an ESX/ESXi host (this requires a license for Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server Virtual Edition), the virtual machines from this host are ready for applying a backup policy or individual backup.
Page 82: Machine Management
3.3.1 Machine management This option defines whether the machine has to be managed centrally by the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server. To be able to use this option, you must be logged on as a member of the Administrators group on the machine.
Page 83: Snmp Notifications
The settings you obtain in this case will be plan-specific or task- specific. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provides the following Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) objects to SNMP management applications: 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.1.0 - string identifying the type of event (Information, Warning, Error) 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.0 - string containing the text description of the event (it looks identical...
Page 84: Log Cleanup Rules
/etc/snmp/snmptrapd.conf - configuration file for the Net-SNMP trap daemon. 3.3.3 Log cleanup rules This option specifies how to clean up the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent log. This option defines the maximum size of the agent log folder (in Windows XP/2003 Server, %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\LogEvents).
Page 85: Customer Experience Program
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.
Page 86 Dest: Dest: Dest: Tape support (p. 103) managed managed managed managed vault on a vault on a vault on a vault on a tape library tape library tape library tape library Additional settings (p. 105): Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 87: Archive Protection
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 88: Source Files Exclusion
MyFolder and the file MyFile.tmp outside that folder, and selected to skip all .tmp files. In this case, all .tmp files in the folder MyFolder will be skipped during the backup process, but the file MyFile.tmp will not be skipped. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 89 Selected Cleared Cleared Do not back up until the command execution is complete Result Preset Perform the Perform the backup backup after the concurrently with Perform the backup command is the command only after the Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 90: Post-Backup Command
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) performed by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 at the beginning of the backup procedure.
Page 91: Pre-Data Capture Command
5. Click Test command to check if the command is correct. Check box Selection Selected Cleared Selected Cleared Fail the task if the command execution fails Selected Selected Cleared Cleared Do not back up until the command execution is Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 92: File-Level Backup Snapshot
(The File-level backup snapshot (p. 92) 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 93: Compression Level
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. Data consistency, in turn, ensures that the application will be recovered in the correct state and become operational immediately after recovery.
Page 94: Backup Performance
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 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 95: Network Connection Speed
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.
Page 96 The Messenger service is not started by default in the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 family. Change the service Startup mode to Automatic and start the service. To configure WinPopup notifications: 1. Select the Send WinPopup notifications check box. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 97: Windows Event Log
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 98: Fast Incremental/Differential Backup
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provides the following Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) objects to SNMP management applications: 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.1.0 - string identifying the type of event (Information, Warning, Error) 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.0 - string containing the text description of the event (it looks identical to messages published by Acronis Backup &...
Page 99 Automatic With this setting, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 will act as follows.  When backing up to a hard disk: 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.
Page 100: Media Components
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.
Page 101: Dual Destination
If you select the password-protected Acronis Secure Zone as the primary destination, keep in mind that the archive in the secondary destination will not be protected with a password.
Page 102: Task Start Conditions
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. Time diagram: Wait until conditions are met Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 103: Task Failure Handling
An archive can occupy several tapes. In such cases a so-called tape set is used for keeping the data backups. Tape set is a logical group of one or more tapes which contain backups of the specific protected data. A tape set can contain backups of other data as well. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 104 The preset is: Disabled. When this option is enabled, each incremental backup will be written onto a free tape. This option is available only when using free tape for each full and differential backup is selected. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 105: Additional Settings
When the Reset archive bit check box is selected, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 will reset the archive bits of all files being backed up. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 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.
Page 106 The preset is: Disabled. Enabling this option turns off deduplicating backups at source, meaning that deduplication will be performed by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node after the backup is saved to the vault (this is called deduplication at target).
Page 107: Default Recovery Options
3.4.2 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.
Page 108: Pre-Recovery Command
(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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 109: Post-Recovery Command
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 110 NTFS permissions from the folder to which they are recovered. 3.4.2.4 Notifications Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provides the ability of notifying users about recovery completion through e-mail or the messaging service. E-mail This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems.
Page 111 3.4.2.5 Event tracing It is possible to duplicate log events of the recovery operations, performed on the managed machine, in the Application Event Log of Windows; or send the events to the specified SNMP managers. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 112 Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) managers. You can choose the types of events to be sent. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provides the following Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) objects to SNMP management applications: 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.1.0 - string identifying the type of event (Information, Warning, Error)
Page 113: Error Handling
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 backup before recovery The preset is Disabled. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 114 Change SID after the recovery is finished This option is not effective when recovery to a virtual machine is performed by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for ESX/ESXi or Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Hyper-V. The preset is Disabled.
Page 115: Vaults
A vault can be organized on a local or networked drive, detachable media or a tape device attached to the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node. There are no settings for limiting a vault size or number of backups in a vault. You can limit the size of each archive using cleanup, but the total size of archives stored in the vault is limited by the storage size only.
Page 116: Centralized Vaults
Members of the Administrators group can view and manage any archive stored on the storage node. A user who is a member of the Administrators group on a managed machine can view and manage archives created by any user of this machine. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 117: Working With The "Centralized Vault" View
The Disk archives tab lists all the archives that contain disk or volume backups (images).  The File archives tab lists all the archives that contain file backups. Related sections: Operations with archives stored in a vault (p. 148) Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 118: Actions On Centralized Vaults
The plans and tasks that use this vault will fail. If you choose to keep the archives for a managed vault, the vault will be detached from the storage node. Later on, you'll be able to attach this vault to the same or to Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 119: Creating A Managed Centralized Vault
Type Select the Managed type. Storage node Select the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node that will manage the vault. You may need to enter access credentials for the storage node. Path (p. 120) Specify where the vault will be created. Managed centralized vaults can reside on a network share, SAN, NAS, or on a hard drive local to the storage node.
Page 120 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. 2. Click OK. When choosing a folder for the vault's database, follow these considerations: Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 121: Vault Encryption
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. 122) Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 122: Attaching A Managed Vault
To attach a managed vault to a storage node, perform the following steps. Vault Storage node Select the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node that will manage the vault. Path Specify the path to the location where the archives are stored.
Page 123: Tape Libraries
Tape compatibility table (p. 42) section. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 enables you to set up distribution of backups by media. For example, a separate tape set can be used to back up some specific data, and the backups of all other data will be written onto any currently mounted tape, which does not belong to the tape set.
Page 124: Rsm Media Pools
To get information about the readability of the archives on tapes, written by different components of other versions of the product by means of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, see the Tape compatibility table (p. 42) section.
Page 125: Getting Started With A Tape Library
So the tape data will be lost. If all the backups are deleted from a tape, it will not return to the Free pool. It remains in the Acronis pool as a free tape to be reused. So if a storage node needs a new tape, it finds a free tape first in the Acronis pool, then in the Free pool.
Page 126: Tape Library As A Managed Vault
You should have Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server and Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console installed on local or remote machines, as well as Acronis Backup &...
Page 127: Actions With Archives On Tapes In A Library
At task creation, the program uses the storage node database instead of accessing tapes. However, selection of data to recover (e.g. some files or specific volumes) requires reading of one or more tapes, so it might be durational. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 128: Managing A Tape Library
To launch the procedure select the tape library vault in the Navigation pane of the console, click Manage tapes and then click Start inventory on the Tape Management window. When inventorying is completed a user has the list of tapes currently loaded into the library. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 129 Manage tapes on the toolbar. Then the Tape Management window will show a list of the library slots that contain tapes. For every tape belonging to the Free pool or to the Acronis pool, the slot data field indicates the tape label. Labels are also displayed for tapes that are in the Imported pool and contain backups written by Acronis (such might be the case when you bring a tape from another tape library).
Page 130 Use a separate tape set option. With some of the options below enabled, the program will add new tapes to the tape set every time when a full, incremental or differential backup is created. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 131: Tape Rotation
The same tape rotation enables you to get by with the minimum number of cartridges and not to be buried in used tapes. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 enables you to achieve full automation of tape rotation while backing up onto tape libraries.
Page 132: Criteria Of The Choice
Legend for the case example figures Any daily/incremental backup (16 GB) is shown in the figures as a green rectangle: Weekly/differential backups (40 GB) are displayed as a blue rectangle: Any full monthly backup (320 GB) is drawn in orange: Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 133 The tape is marked with number 01 in the figure below. In accordance with the legend described in the Case to analyze (p. 132) section, the full data backup is displayed as an orange rectangle in the figure. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 134 This task deletes all the outdated backups. The next figure shows dark-gray rectangles instead of the backups deleted up to the current time. Physically the deleted backups are still on the tapes; however information about the backups is deleted from the storage node database. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 135 The next figure shows the actual usage of the tapes with free space instead of the deleted backups on the first Friday of the following year. At the time the differential backup (blue rectangle) is written onto tape 24. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 136 Below, the figure shows the deleted backups as actual, but demonstrates tape usage during the whole year for the GFS backup scheme in combination with the specified tape options. A number in the green rectangle marks an incremental backup created on Monday of the corresponding week of the year. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 137 If all the backups have to be kept during the year, the archive will require 28 tapes. As the GFS backup scheme forces automatic deletion of the outdated backups, on the first Friday of the second year the tapes keep only the backups displayed in the next figure. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 139 ToH Example 2 requires 4 tapes, which is the minimum for the case. So its tape options settings are the best in comparison with options for other examples. ToH Example 1 Suppose, the backup plan has the following tape options: Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 140 (one tape - 16%, two tapes - 72%, three tapes - 12%) as well as rewinding and reading of one (6%), two (50%) or three (44%) backups  five-level scheme requires up to five tapes for this case. ToH Example 2 Suppose, the backup plan has the following tape options: Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 141 So in this specific case the selection of the Always use a free tape: For each full backup option considerably increases the usage efficiency of the tapes in the library. ToH Example 3 Imagine the backup plan has the following tape options:  the Use a separate tape set option is selected Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 142: Tape Planning
It is implied that the Use a separate tape set option is enabled. To calculate the number of tapes you should take into account the following considerations:  full backup size  average size of incremental backups  average size of differential backups Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 143 ( (2*320 + 12*16 + 11*40) * 1 / 400 ) + 1 = round up ( 3.18 ) + 1 = 5 (tapes). Tape planning: Example 2 Imagine the case with the following features:  full backup size is F_GB  average size of incremental backups is I_GB  average size of differential backups is D_GB Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 144 What if I have to move tapes with backups from one tape library to another? 1. If both tape libraries are attached to the same machine with Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node installed (i.e. the libraries are managed by the same storage node), the storage node database has all the required information about the content of the moved tapes.
Page 145: Personal Vaults
 What if I need to recover data from an Echo tape? Use the table from the Tape compatibility table (p. 42) section to find out which Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components can read data from your tape. 4.2 Personal vaults A vault is called personal if it was created using direct connection of the console to a managed machine.
Page 146: Actions On Personal Vaults
All the operations described below are performed by clicking the corresponding buttons on the toolbar. These operations can be also accessed from the [Vault name] actions bar (on the Actions and Tools pane) and from the [Vault name] actions item of the main menu respectively. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 147: Creating A Personal Vault
In the appearing dialog box, provide the credentials required for accessing the vault. Create Acronis Secure Click Create Acronis Secure Zone. Zone The procedure of creating the Acronis Secure Zone is described in-depth in the Creating Acronis Secure Zone (p. 232) section. Explore a vault's Click Explore. content In the appearing Explorer window, examine the selected vault's content.
Page 148: Common Operations
The export of an archive creates a duplicate of the archive with all its backups in the location you specify. Delete a single archive 1. Select the archive or one of the archives you want to delete. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 149: Operations With Backups
Select one of the backups you want to delete, then click Delete. multiple backups The program duplicates your selection in the Backups deletion (p. 150) window that has check boxes for each archive and each backup. Review the selection and correct Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 150: Deleting Archives And Backups
Configuring the archives table By default, the table has seven columns that are displayed, others are hidden. If required, you can hide the displayed columns and show hidden ones. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 151 1. Right-click any column header to open the context menu. The menu items that are ticked off correspond to the column headers presented in the table. 2. Click the items you want to be displayed/hidden. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 152: Scheduling
5 Scheduling Acronis scheduler helps the administrator adapt backup plans to the company’s daily routine and each employee’s work style. The plans’ tasks will be launched systematically keeping the critical data safely protected. The scheduler uses local time of the machine the backup plan exists on. Before creating a schedule, be sure the machine’s date and time settings are correct.
Page 153: Daily Schedule
Advanced scheduling settings (p. 159) are available only for machines registered on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server. To specify these settings, click Change in the Advanced settings area.
Page 154 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 155: Weekly Schedule
Advanced scheduling settings (p. 159) are available only for machines registered on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server. To specify these settings, click Change in the Advanced settings area.
Page 156 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: Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 157: Monthly Schedule
Advanced scheduling settings (p. 159) are available only for machines registered on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server. To specify these settings, click Change in the Advanced settings area.
Page 158 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. Months: December, January, February. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 159: Advanced Scheduling Settings
Use Wake-On-LAN When this setting is enabled, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server will use the Wake- On-LAN (WOL) functionality to wake up turned-off registered machines when a backup, cleanup or validation is scheduled to start. If the backup task on each machine starts with a delay (see the next setting), the management server will wake up the machines according to those delays.
Page 160: At Windows Event Log Event
6. 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. 5.5 At Windows Event Log event This type of schedule is effective only in Windows operating systems. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 161 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- Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 162: Conditions
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. Adding multiple conditions Multiple conditions must be met simultaneously to enable task execution. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 163: User Is Idle
It is assumed that the backup task should not be started at all rather than failed.  Event: Weekly, Every 1 week(s) on <workdays>; Once at 09:00:00 PM.  Condition: Location's host is available  Task start conditions: Skip the task execution. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 164: Fits Time Interval
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 165: User Logged Off
(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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 166: Direct Management
Use the Dashboard to estimate at a glance whether the data is successfully protected on the machine. The dashboard shows the summary of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent's activities and enables you to rapidly identify and resolve any issues.
Page 167 Activities The calendar lets you explore the history of the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent's activities on the machine. Right-click on any highlighted date and select View log to see the list of log entries filtered by date.
Page 168: Backup Plans And Tasks
Use the toolbar's buttons to take an action on the selected plan (task). See the Actions on backup plans and tasks (p. 172) section for details. You can run, edit, stop and delete the created plans and tasks. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 169: Understanding States And Statuses
-> Stop the tasks or enable the tasks to run (change media; provide additional space on Otherwise, see 2. the vault; ignore the read error; create the missing Acronis Secure Zone). Running At least one task is No action is required.
Page 170: Task States
The next state may be Stopping (if the user chooses to stop the task) or Running (on selecting Ignore/Retry or another action, such as Reboot, that can put the task to the Running state.) Stopping Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 171: Task Statuses
No action is required. "Succeeded", "-", or The "-" state means that the task has never been started or has "Stopped" been started, but has not finished yet and so its result is not available. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 172: Working With Backup Plans And Tasks
Do not have the appropriate privilege Without the Administrator privileges on the machine, a user cannot run plans owned by other users. Task Click Run. The task will be executed immediately in spite of its schedule and conditions. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 173 Some files may be recovered, but some not, depending on the moment when you stopped the task. To recover all the files, you will have to run the task once again. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 174 Only the management server administrator can do so.  Do not have the appropriate privilege Without the Administrator privileges on the machine, a user cannot modify tasks owned by other users. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 175: Filtering And Sorting Backup Plans And Tasks
As a result you will see the list of tasks, whose names/owners' names fully or just partly coincide with the entered value. Filter plans and tasks by state, In the field below the corresponding header, select the required value from the status, type, origin, last result, list. schedule. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 176: Run Backup Plan
Types of tasks The following table summarizes all types of tasks that exist in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. The actual types of tasks you might observe depend on the product edition and the product component the console is connected to.
Page 177 Deleting backups from a backup archive in accordance with retention rules ASZ creation Creating Acronis Secure Zone ASZ management Resizing, changing password, deleting Acronis Secure Zone Disk management Disk management operations Compacting Service task performed on a storage node Indexing...
Page 178: Backup Plan Details
Backup scheme - the selected backup scheme and all its settings with schedules.  Validation (if selected) - events before or after which the validation is performed, and validation schedule.  Backup options - backup options changed against the default values. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 179: Log
6.1.3 The Log stores the history of operations performed by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 on the machine, or actions a user takes on the machine using the program. For instance, when a user edits a task, the respective entry is added to the log. When the program executes a task, it adds multiple entries.
Page 180: Filtering And Sorting Log Entries
1. Right-click any column header to open the context menu. The menu items that are ticked off correspond to the column headers presented in the table. 2. Click the items you want to be displayed/hidden. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 181: Creating A Backup Plan
 Code - the program code of the event. Every type of event in the program has its own code. A code is an integer number that may be used by Acronis support service to solve the problem.  Module - 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.
Page 182: Archive Validation
[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. 85) will be used. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 183: Why Is The Program Asking For The Password
Specify the conversion schedule if required. Host (p. 199) Specify the machine that will perform the conversion. The machine has to have Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows, Agent for ESX/ESXi or Agent for Hyper-V installed. Virtualization server (p. 199) Here you select the resulting virtual machine type and location.
Page 184: Source Type
Files Available if the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows (or for Linux) is installed. Select this option to back up specific files and folders. If you are not concerned about recovery of the operating system along with all the settings and applications, but plan to keep safe only certain data (the current project, for example), choose file backup.
Page 185: Selecting Disks And Volumes
Use the table in the right part of the window to browse and select the nested items. Selecting the check box beside the Name column’s header automatically selects all items in the table. Clearing this check box automatically deselects all items. 3. Click OK. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 186: Access Credentials For Source
Doc*.txt yields files such as Doc.txt and Document.txt The question mark (?) substitutes for exactly one character in a file name; for example, the file mask Doc?.txt yields files such as Doc1.txt and Docs.txt — but not the files Doc.txt or Doc11.txt Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 187: Archive
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 188: Access Credentials For Archive Location
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 189: Backup Schemes
Specify when to start the backup. The task will be Select this check box, if you do not need to put the backup task on a schedule and started manually wish to start it manually afterwards. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 190: Simple Scheme
Weekly ("Father") backups are differential;  Daily ("Son") backups are incremental. 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 191 For instance, a daily backup of Sunday, January 1, will be available through next Sunday, January 8; the first weekly backup, the one of Saturday, January 7, will be stored on the system until February 7. Monthly backups will never be deleted. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 192 The following GFS scheme suits such purposes:  Start backup at: 11:30 PM  Back up on: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday  Weekly/monthly: Friday  Keep backups:  Daily: 6 months  Weekly: 6 months  Monthly: 5 years Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 193: Tower Of Hanoi Scheme
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. Example Schedule parameters are set as follows Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 194 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). Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 195: Custom Backup Scheme
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 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 196 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.
Page 197 In the first of the previous examples, we set up a schedule only for full backups. However, the scheme will still result in three backup tasks, enabling you to manually start a backup of any type:  Full backup, runs every Friday at 10:00 PM Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 198: Archive Validation
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 199 6.2.11.2 Selecting a host that will perform conversion Specify the machine that will perform the conversion. The machine has to have Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows, Agent for ESX/ESXi or Agent for Hyper-V installed. Take into account the following considerations.
Page 200: Recovering Data
(p. 350) or using Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (p. 45). Then, create a recovery task. Acronis Universal Restore (p. 45) lets you recover and boot up Windows on dissimilar hardware or a virtual machine.
Page 201: When To Recover
[Optional] Acronis Universal Restore Applies to: Windows OS and system volume recovery Universal Restore (p. 212) Use the Acronis Universal Restore when you need to recover and boot up Windows on dissimilar hardware. Automatic drivers search Specify where the program should search for HAL, mass storage and network adapter drivers.
Page 202: Task Credentials
Password. The password for the account. 2. Click OK. To learn more about using credentials in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, see the Owners and credentials (p. 30) section. To learn more about operations available depending on the user privileges, see the User privileges on a managed machine (p.
Page 203: Data Type
Specify the items to recover. By default, all items of the selected backup will be selected. If you do not want to recover certain items, just uncheck them. To obtain information on a disk/volume, right-click it and then click Information. 2. Click OK. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 204: Access Credentials For Location
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 & Recovery 10 recovers Track 0, which does not affect the target disk’s partition table and partition layout. Acronis Backup &...
Page 205: Destination Selection
Available disk destinations depend on the agents operating on the machine. Recover to: Physical machine Available when the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux is installed. The selected disks will be recovered to the physical disks of the machine the console is connected to.
Page 206: Disk Destination
The program will leave the existing NT signature of the target hard disk as is. 6.3.6.2 Volumes Available volume destinations depend on the agents operating on the machine. Recover to: Physical machine Available when the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux is installed. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 207: Mbr Destination
Then you proceed to the regular volume mapping procedure described below. Existing virtual machine Available when the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for ESX/ESXi is installed. On selecting this, you specify the virtualization server and the target virtual machine. Then you proceed to the regular volume mapping procedure described below.
Page 208: Volume Properties
Change the volume file system, if required. By default, the program selects the original volume's file system. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 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.
Page 209: Virtual Machine Settings
Virtual machine type / virtualization server selection The new virtual machine can be created either on a virtualization server (this requires Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for ESX/ESXi to be installed) or in any accessible local or networked folder.
Page 210: File Destination
Doc*.txt yields files such as Doc.txt and Document.txt The question mark (?) substitutes for exactly one character in a file name; for example, the file mask Doc?.txt yields files such as Doc1.txt and Docs.txt — but not the files Doc.txt or Doc11.txt Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 211: Access Credentials For Destination
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. 6.3.8 When to recover Select when to start the recovery task: Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 212: Universal Restore
6.3.9 Universal Restore Use Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Universal Restore when you need to recover and boot up Windows on dissimilar hardware. Universal Restore handles differences in devices that are critical for the operating system startup, such as storage controllers, motherboard or chipset.
Page 213: How To Convert A Disk Backup To A Virtual Machine
Rather than converting a TIB file to a virtual disk file, which requires additional operations to bring the virtual disk into use, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 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.
Page 214: Bootability Troubleshooting
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 automatically updates Windows loaders after recovery. Other loaders might also be fixed, but there are cases when you have to re-activate the loaders.
Page 215 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. ...
Page 216 Generally, you should refer to the boot loader manual pages for the appropriate procedure. There is also the corresponding Knowledge Base article on the Acronis Web site. The following is an example of how to reactivate GRUB in case the system disk (volume) is recovered to identical hardware.
Page 217: Recovering A Vast Number Of Files From A File Backup
Recover the files as two or more groups. For example, if the problem occurs when recovering 1 million files, try recovering the first 500,000 of them and then the remaining 500,000.  Modify the registry as follows: Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 218: Recovering The Storage Node
6.3.13 Recovering the storage node In addition to backing up data to centralized vaults managed by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node, you may want to perform a disk backup of the machine where the storage node itself is installed.
Page 219: Validating Vaults, Archives And Backups
[Optional] Provide credentials for accessing the source if the task account does not have enough privileges to access it. To access this option, select the check box for Advanced view. When to validate Validate (p. 222) Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 220: Task Credentials
Password. The password for the account. 2. Click OK. To learn more about using credentials in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, see the Owners and credentials (p. 30) section. To learn more about operations available depending on the user privileges, see the User privileges on a managed machine (p.
Page 221: Backup Selection
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 222: Access Credentials For Source
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 223: Archive Selection
Limitation: Mounting of volume backups stored on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node is not possible. Usage scenarios:  Sharing: mounted images can be easily shared to networked users.  "Band aid" database recovery solution: mount up an image that contains an SQL database from a recently failed machine.
Page 224: Backup Selection
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 225: Volume Selection
 Assign letter (in Windows) - Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 will assign an unused letter to the mounted volume. If required, select another letter to assign from the drop-down list.
Page 226  an entire vault that can be exported by using the command line interface. For more information, please refer to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Command Line Reference. 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.
Page 227 Backups (p. 229) - specify the archive first, and then select the desired backup(s) in this archive Access credentials (p. 229) [Optional] Provide credentials for accessing the source if the task account does not have enough privileges to access it. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 228: Task Credentials
Password. The password for the account. 2. Click OK. To learn more about using credentials in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, see the Owners and credentials (p. 30) section. To learn more about operations available depending on the user privileges, see the User privileges on a managed machine (p.
Page 229: Backup Selection
To specify credentials 1. Select one of the following:  Use the task credentials The program will access the location using the credentials of the task account specified in the General section.  Use the following credentials Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 230: Location Selection
To export data to a locally attached tape device, expand the Tape drives group, then click the required device. For the management server the folders tree contains:  Local folders group to export data onto the hard drives that are local to the storage node. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 231: Access Credentials For Destination
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 232: Acronis Secure Zone
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 or a disk using the GPT partitioning style. To allocate space for Acronis Secure Zone 1.
Page 233: Acronis Secure Zone Size
6.8.1.2 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.
Page 234: Managing Acronis Secure Zone
6.8.2 Managing Acronis Secure Zone Acronis Secure Zone is considered as a personal vault (p. 360). 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.
Page 235: Acronis Startup Recovery Manager
(if you have GRUB). If the system fails to boot, you will be able to start the bootable rescue utility, by pressing F11 or by selecting it from the menu, respectively. The system disk (or, the /boot partition in Linux) should have at least 70 MB of free space to activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.
Page 236: Bootable Media
Bootable media is physical media (CD, DVD, USB drive or other media supported by a machine BIOS as a boot device) that boots on any PC-compatible machine and enables you to run Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent either in a Linux-based environment or Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE), without the help of an operating system.
Page 237: How To Create Bootable Media
The wizard will guide you through the necessary operations. Please refer to Linux-based bootable media (p. 238) for details. PE-based bootable media Acronis Plug-in for WinPE can be added to WinPE distributions based on any of the following kernels:  Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (PE 1.5) ...
Page 238 AIK. To access the documentation, select Microsoft Windows AIK -> Documentation from the start menu. Using Bart PE You can create a Bart PE image with Acronis Plug-in using the Bart PE Builder. Please refer to Building Bart PE with Acronis Plug-in from Windows distribution (p. 244) for details. 6.10.1.1...
Page 239: Kernel Parameters
8. [optional] Windows system drivers to be used by Acronis Universal Restore (p. 241). This window appears only if the Acronis Universal Restore add-on is installed and a media other than PXE or WDS/RIS is selected. 9. Path to the media ISO file or the name or IP and credentials for PXE or WDS/RIS.
Page 240: Network Settings
These calls might not work properly on some machines. But this may be the only way to get the interrupt routing table. 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: ...
Page 241: Network 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 & Recovery 10 Management Console. Drivers for Universal Restore While creating bootable media, you have an option to add Windows drivers to the media.
Page 242: Adding The Acronis Plug-In To Winpe 1.X
Bootable Media Builder provides three methods of integrating Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 with WinPE 2.x or 3.0:  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. ...
Page 243 You will have to repeat this procedure for each driver you want to be included in the resulting WinPE boot media. 5. Choose whether you want to create ISO or WIM image or upload the media on Acronis PXE Server.
Page 244: Connecting To A Machine Booted From Media
7. Start the Bart PE builder. 8. Specify the path to the Windows installation files or Windows distribution CD. 9. Click Plugins and check whether the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 plug-in is enabled. Enable if disabled. 10. Specify the output folder and the full path to the resulting ISO file including the file name or the media to create.
Page 245: Setting Up A Display Mode
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 246: List Of Commands And Utilities Available In Linux-Based Bootable Media
Acronis command line utilities  acronis  asamba  lash  restoreraids  trueimagecmd  trueimagemnt Linux commands and utilities busybox ifconfig init rmmod cdrecord insmod route chmod iscsiadm chown kill scsi_id chroot kpartx sg_map26 lspci sleep Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 247: Recovering Md Devices And Logical Volumes
6.10.5.1 Creating the volume structure automatically Suppose that you saved the volume structure to the /etc/Acronis directory—see Backing up LVM volumes (Linux)—and that the volume with this directory is included in the archive. To recreate the volume structure in Linux-based bootable media, use either of the methods described below.
Page 248: Creating The Volume Structure Manually
6. Click Recover, then specify the path to the archive and any other required parameters, and then click OK. If Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 could not create the volume structure (or if it is not present in the archive), create the structure manually.
Page 249 8. Click Recover, then specify the path to the archive and any other required parameters, and then click OK. Note: This procedure does not work when connected to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Bootable Agent remotely, because the command shell is not available in this case.
Page 250 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. 246). For detailed descriptions of the trueimagecmd and trueimagemnt utilities, see the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 command line reference.
Page 251: Acronis Pxe Server
3. 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.
Page 252: Disk Management
PXE and DHCP on the same server If Acronis PXE Server and the DHCP server are on the same machine, add to the DHCP server option 60: “Client Identifier” with string value “PXE Client”. This can be done as follows: C:\WINDOWS\system32>netsh...
Page 253: Basic Precautions
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. 350) created with the Acronis Bootable Media Builder;...
Page 254: Choosing The Operating System For Disk Management
The disk layout will be displayed according to the operating system you select. 6.11.4 "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.
Page 255: Disk Operations
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.
Page 256: Selecting Source And Target Disks
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. 347) (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.
Page 257 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 258 Convert to MBR. 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. 259) using the Convert to basic operation.
Page 259 Convert to basic. 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.
Page 260: Volume Operations
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.
Page 261: Creating A Volume
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.
Page 262: Create Volume Wizard
After you click the Next button, you will proceed forward to the next wizard page: Select destination disks (p. 262). Select destination disks The next wizard page will prompt you to choose the disks, whose space will be used for the volume creation. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 263: Set The Volume Size
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 264: Delete Volume
6.11.6.2 Delete volume This version of Acronis Disk Director Lite has reduced functionality because it is mainly a tool for preparing bare-metal systems for recovering previously saved volume images. 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.
Page 265: Set Active Volume
(To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 267) 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 266: Change Volume Label
(To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 267) 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 267: Pending Operations
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.
Page 268: Centralized Management
Use the Dashboard to estimate at a glance the health of data protection on the registered machines. The Dashboard displays the summary of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agents' activities, lets you check for free space available in managed vaults, and rapidly identify and resolve any issues.
Page 269 Options > Console options > Time-based alerts. Activities The stacked column chart lets you explore the daily history of the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agents' activities. The history is based on the log entries, collected from the registered machines and from the management server.
Page 270: Backup Policies
To be able to manage and protect multiple machines as a whole, you can create a backup plan template called a "backup policy". By applying this template to a group of machines, you will deploy multiple backup plans with a single action. Backup policies exist only on the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server.
Page 271: Backup Policy Deployment States
In the Tasks view, apply the Last result -> Failed filter if there are too many tasks. You can also sort the failed tasks by backup plans or by machines. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 272: Actions On Backup Policies
In the Machines selection (p. 273) window, specify the machines (groups) the selected backup policy will be applied to. If the machine is currently offline, the policy will be deployed when the machine comes online again. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 273: Machines Selection
In the group tree, select the required group. Then, in the right part of the window, select the machines to apply the backup policy to. 2. Click OK. The Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server will deploy the policy to the selected machines and machines belonging to the selected groups. Filtering and sorting backup policies The following is a guideline for you to filter and sort backup policies.
Page 274: Policy Details
In the Machine details (p. 282)/Group details (p. 291) window, examine all information on the selected machine (or the selected group). View tasks of the machine Click View tasks. (group). The Tasks (p. 300) view will display a list of the tasks, pre-filtered by the selected Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 275: Physical Machines
7.1.3 Physical machines Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 lets the administrator protect data and perform management operations on multiple machines. The administrator adds a machine to the management server using the machine's name or IP address, imports machines from Active Directory, or from text files. Once a machine is registered (p.
Page 276: Actions On Machines
In the Import machines from Active Directory (p. 279) window, specify the machines or organizational units whose machines you need to import to the management server. Import machines from a text Click Import machines from file. file Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 277: Applying Policies
Delete a machine from the Click Delete machine from AMS. management server As a result, backup policies are revoked and shortcuts to centralized vaults are deleted from the machine. If the machine is not available at the moment, these Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 278 Manual refresh guarantees that the most recent data is displayed. Adding a machine to the management server To be able to deploy backup policies from Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server to a managed machine and perform other centralized management operations, you need to register the machine on the management server.
Page 279: Importing Machines From Active Directory
The registration procedure can be initiated on the machine side. 1. Connect the console to the machine where Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent is installed. If prompted for credentials, specify credentials of a member of the Administrators group on the machine.
Page 280 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 & Recovery 10 Management Server has been installed—by default: C:\Program Files\Acronis\AMS.
Page 281: Importing Machines From A Text File
1. In the groups tree, select the group whose machines you need to add. 2. In the right part of the window, select the machines. 3. To add more machines from other groups, repeat the steps 1 and 2 for each group. 4. Click OK to add machines. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 282: Machine Details
Expired - the trial period of the machine's agent has expired. To specify a full license key, use the Change License functionality, or run the setup program and follow its instructions.  Installed agents - full name of Acronis agents, installed on the machine.  Operating system - the operating system the machine's agent runs.
Page 283 View details. In the Plan Details (p. 178) window, review the plan details. Task Click View details. In the Task Details (p. 176) window, review the task details. View plan's/task's log Backup plan Click View log. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 284 (from the file backup): The aborted operation may cause changes in the destination folder. Some files may be recovered, but some not, depending when you stopped the task. To recover all the files, you will have to run the task once again. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 285 The backup plan has a centralized origin. A centralized plan can be deleted by the management server administrator by revoking the backup policy that produced the plan. Task Click Delete. Why can't I delete the task? Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 286 Create a dynamic group. The created group will be accessible in the Virtual machines view (p. 293). Inheritance order The Inheritance order window lets you examine where the policy applied to the machine came from. The policy that was directly applied to the machine is displayed as follows: Machine name Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 287: Filtering And Sorting Machines
Create group. dynamic group In the Create group (p. 288) window, specify the required parameters of the group. Custom groups can be created in the root folder ( Physical machines), or in other custom groups. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 288: Creating A Custom Static Or Dynamic Group
All the machines running the selected operating system will be members of the dynamic group.  Organizational unit (p. 289) All the machines belonging to the specified organizational unit (OU) will be members of the dynamic group.  IP address range Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 289: Organizational Unit Criterion
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 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 290: Listed In Txt/Csv File Criterion
 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 291: Group Details
Filtering and sorting of the backup policies is performed in the same way as for the Backup policies view. See the Filtering and sorting backup policies (p. 273) section for details. Inheritance order The Inheritance order window lets you examine where the policy applied to the group came from. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 292: Virtual Machines
Adding ESX/ESXi virtual machines 1. VMware Tools have to be installed in the guest systems. 2. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for ESX/ESXi is delivered as a virtual appliance. Do either of the following: Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 293: Virtual Machines On A Management Server
You can create both static and dynamic groups of virtual machines. Any virtual machine that is currently available can be added to a static group. You cannot create groups that contain both physical and virtual machines. The dynamic membership criteria for virtual machines are as follows: Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 294 7.1.4.3 Deploying and updating Agent for ESX/ESXi Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server provides an easy way to deploy Agent for ESX/ESXi to every VMware ESX or ESXi server whose virtual machines you want to back up. A virtual appliance with an agent will be created on every ESX/ESXi server you specify and registered on the management server.
Page 295 You can change the time zone directly in the virtual appliance GUI as described in "Installing ESX/ESXi Virtual Appliance." Changing the account or network settings is also possible but is not recommended, unless it is absolutely necessary. 5. Licenses Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 296: Support For Vcenter Clusters
When installing the purchased product, select Use a license from the following Acronis License Server and specify the license server that has the appropriate number of licenses for Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server Virtual Edition. You need one license for every host you selected.
Page 297: Storage Nodes
(p. 355). To learn more about Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node, see the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node (p. 18) section.
Page 298 Though the list of storage nodes 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 299: Adding A Storage Node
7.1.5.2 Storage node details The Storage node details window accumulates in four tabs all information on the selected Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node. This information is also duplicated on the Information pane. Storage node properties The tab displays the following information about the selected storage node: ...
Page 300: Tasks
View log. The Log (p. 302) view will display a list of the log entries related to the selected task. Run a task Click Run. The task will be executed immediately in spite of its schedule. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 301 Though the list of tasks is refreshed automatically based on events, the data may not be retrieved immediately from the managed machine due to some latency. Manual refresh guarantees that the most recent data is displayed. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 302: Log
7.1.7 The Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 log stores the history of actions the software does on a machine or a user does on a machine using the software. For example, when a user edits a task, an entry is added to the log.
Page 303 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node has its own local event log. This log's events are accessible through the centralized log only. Centralized event log Way of working with log entries  The maximum number of entries stored in the centralized log is 50000. The maximum number of entries that can be displayed is 10000.
Page 304 Configuring the log table By default, the table has seven columns that are displayed, others are hidden. If required, you can hide the shown columns and show the hidden ones. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 305: Reporting
 Module - Blank or the number of 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 - User name of the policy/backup plan owner (p. 30) ...
Page 306: Generating Reports
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 & Recovery 10 Management Server offers report templates for:  Registered machines ...
Page 307: Report About The Backup Policies
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 308: Report About The Tasks
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 309: Report About The Archives And Backups
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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 310: Report About The Task Activities
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 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 311: Configuring Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Components
7.2.1 Parameters set through administrative template The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components that can be set by using Acronis Administrative Template. For information on how to apply the administrative template, see How to load Acronis Administrative Template (p. 311).
Page 312 7.2.1.2 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node that can be set by using Acronis Administrative Template. Client Connection Limit Description: Specifies the maximum number of simultaneous connections to the storage node by the agents that perform backup or recovery.
Page 313 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agents connect to the storage node to access its managed vaults during backup or recovery. The Client Connection Limit parameter determines the maximum number of such connections that the storage node can handle simultaneously. When this limit is reached, the storage node will use the backup queue (see the next parameter) for the agents that are awaiting connection.
Page 314 Database path when creating the vault. 7.2.1.3 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server that can be set by using Acronis Administrative Template. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 315 Collecting Logs Specifies when to collect log entries from machines managed by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server. This parameter contains two settings: Trace State Description: Specifies whether to collect the log entries about the components' events from the registered machines.
Page 316 Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long Default value: public Synchronization Specifies how Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server connects to registered machines for deployment of centralized policies, retrieval of logs and backup plan states, and similar actions—collectively called synchronization.
Page 317 Synchronization connections are unrelated to connections such as those between Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server and Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 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—...
Page 318 IP address after an attempt to connect to it by using its host name has failed. Possible values: True or False Default value: False When connecting to a registered machine, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server first uses the machine's network name—provided that the machine was added to the management server by name.
Page 319 The size of the snapshot storage does not affect the size of the backup. 7.2.1.4 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows The following are the parameters of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 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.
Page 320 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 & Recovery 10 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.
Page 321 This parameter is used when creating a backup plan. Changes to this parameter do not affect already existing backup plans. This parameter has the following settings: Snapshot Storage Path Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 322: Connection Parameters
The size of the snapshot storage does not affect the size of the backup. 7.2.1.5 Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 This section of the administrative template specifies the connection parameters and event tracing parameters for the following Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components:  Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server ...
Page 323 SSL certificates such as certificates created during the installation of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components—see SSL certificates (p. 74). You should keep this check box selected, unless you have a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) in your environment.
Page 324 The same as Not configured. Event tracing parameters In Windows, the events occurring in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 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...
Page 325: Parameters Set Through Gui
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.
Page 326: Parameters Set Through Windows Registry
7.2.3 Parameters set through Windows registry The following two parameters determine paths to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node's internal databases, which contain information about managed vaults. They can be modified only by editing the registry. When to modify...
Page 327 Backup options Settings [Optional] Configure parameters of the backup operation, such as pre/post backup commands, maximum network bandwidth allocated for the backup stream or the backup Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 328: Policy Credentials
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 policy.
Page 329: Items To Back Up
Password. The password for the account. 2. Click OK. To learn more about Acronis service credentials, see the Rights for Acronis services (p. 69) section. To learn more about operations available depending on the user privileges, see the User privileges on a managed machine (p.
Page 330 The names of templates are case-sensitive. Note: When backing up virtual machines by using Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for ESX/ESXi, [All Volumes] is the only template that can be used. What does a disk or volume backup store? For supported file systems, a disk or volume backup stores only those sectors that contain data.
Page 331 Since backup policies are commonly applied to multiple machines with various operating systems, Acronis recommends that you always select both the system and the boot volumes for backup, to ensure the integrity of every operating system. Note on Linux machines You can include both Windows and Linux volumes (partitions) in one centralized backup policy.
Page 332: Files To Back Up Selection Rules
To include In the Files and folders column, type or select: File Text.doc in folder D:\Work\Text.doc D:\Work Folder C:\Windows C:\Windows Environment variables Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 333: Access Credentials For Source
Settings\All Users in Windows XP and C:\ProgramData in Windows Vista) You can use other environment variables or a combination of environment variables and text. For example, to refer to the Acronis folder in the machines' Program Files folder, type: %PROGRAMFILES%\Acronis Templates Templates are similar to environment variables, but are already pre-customized.
Page 334: Exclusions
Doc?.txt yields files such as Doc1.txt and Docs.txt — but not the files Doc.txt or Doc11.txt Exclusion examples Criterion Example Description By name File1.log Excludes all files named File1.log. By path C:\Finance\test.log Excludes the file named test.log located in the folder C:\Finance Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 335: Archive
Store each machine's archive in the machine's Acronis Secure Zone Acronis Secure Zone has to be created on each machine the policy will be applied to. For information on how to create Acronis Secure Zone, see the Creating Acronis Secure Zone (p. 232) section.
Page 336: Access Credentials For Location
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 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 337 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 338 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 339  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: Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 340 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 341 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 342 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. 7.3.7.6 Custom backup scheme At a glance  Custom schedule and conditions for backups of each type  Custom schedule and retention rules Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 343 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.
Page 344 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 Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 345: Archive Validation
On the other hand, if the validation is a major part of your data 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. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 346 Validation of the archive will validate all the archive’s backups and may take a long time and a lot of system resources. 3. Validation schedule (appears only if you have selected the on schedule in step 1) - set the schedule of validation. For more information see the Scheduling (p. 152) section. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 347: Glossary
 can serve as the primary location for dual destination backup. Limitation: Acronis Secure Zone cannot be organized on a dynamic disk (p. 353) or a disk using the GPT partitioning style. Acronis Secure Zone is considered as a personal vault (p. 357).
Page 348: Agent-Side Cleanup
(p. 356), 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 & Recovery 10 includes the agents for backing up disks and files and the agents for backing up virtual machines residing on virtualization servers.
Page 349: Backup Plan (Plan)
4. On each machine, the agent (p. 347) installed on the machine finds data items using the selection rules. For example, if the selection rule is [All volumes], the entire machine will be backed up. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 350: Backup Scheme
(p. 350) or Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) (p. 360) with the Acronis Plug-in for WinPE (p. 347). A machine can also be booted into the above environments using the network boot from Acronis PXE Server or Microsoft Remote Installation Service (RIS).
Page 351: Centralized Backup Plan
(p. 349) from the management server (p. 357). Such plan can be modified only by editing the backup policy. Centralized management Management of the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 infrastructure through a central management unit known as Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server (p. 357). The centralized management operations include: ...
Page 352: Deduplicating Vault
For more information please refer to Retention rules (p. 37). Console (Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console) A tool for remote or local access to Acronis agents (p. 347) and Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server (p. 357).
Page 353: Disk Group
A backup (p. 348) 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 & Recovery 10 provides an option to take a raw image, that is, copy all the disk sectors, which enables imaging of unsupported file systems.
Page 354: Dynamic Disk
Dynamic group A group of machines (p. 356) which is populated automatically by the management server (p. 357) according to membership criteria specified by the administrator. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 offers the following membership criteria:  Operating system ...
Page 355: Dynamic Volume
Full backup A self-sufficient backup (p. 348) containing all data chosen for backup. You do not need access to any other backup to recover the data from a full backup. Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010...
Page 356: Gfs (Grandfather-Father-Son)
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. 356), either physical or virtual, where at least one Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent (p. 347) is installed. Managed vault A centralized vault (p.
Page 357: Media Builder
Physical machine On Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server, a physical machine is the same as a registered machine (p. 358). A virtual machine is considered physical if an Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agent is installed on the machine and the machine is registered on the management server.
Page 358: Recovery Point
A machine remains in a static group until the administrator removes it from the group or from the management server. Storage node (Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 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.
Page 359: Storage Node-Side Validation
CPU load. Task In Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, a task is a set of sequential actions to be performed on a managed machine (p. 356) when a certain time comes or a certain event occurs. The actions are described in an xml script file.
Page 360: Unmanaged Vault
Virtual machine On Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server, a machine (p. 356) is considered virtual if it can be backed up from the virtualization host without installing an agent (p. 347) on the machine. A virtual machine appears on the management server after registration of the virtualization server that hosts the machine, provided that Acronis Backup &...
Page 361 A machine can be booted into WinPE via PXE, CD-ROM, USB flash drive or hard disk. The Acronis Plug-in for WinPE (p. 347) enables running the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent (p. 347) in the preinstallation environment.
Page 362: Index
Access credentials for source • 182, 186, Actions with archives on tapes in a library • 219, 222, 227, 229, 327, 333 Acronis Active Restore • 43, 47, 200, 201, Adding a machine to another group • 277, 212, 347, 360 Acronis Backup &...
Page 363 Backup • 24, 28, 348, 351, 352, 353, 355, 356, 360 Bootable Media Builder • 20 Backup archive (Archive) • 17, 24, 348, Building Bart PE with Acronis Plug-in from 349, 351, 352, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359, Windows distribution • 238, 244 Built-in group • 53, 350 Backup operation •...
Page 364 Creating a personal vault • 147 356, 357 Creating a volume • 260, 261 Disk backup (Image) • 198, 347, 353, 356 Creating Acronis Secure Zone • 147, 232, Disk conversion basic to dynamic • 255, 258 Creating an unmanaged centralized vault •...
Page 365 Importing machines from Active Directory • 303, 304 276, 279 Filtering and sorting machines • 276, 287 Increasing Acronis Secure Zone • 234 Filtering and sorting tasks • 300, 302 Incremental backup • 348, 350, 352, 356 Fits time interval • 164 Inheritance of policies •...
Page 366 Management server administrator rights • Kernel parameters • 238, 239 Management server options • 78 Managing a tape library • 119, 128 Managing Acronis Secure Zone • 234 Labeling • 128, 129 Managing mounted images • 225 License Server • 20 MBR destination •...
Page 367 PXE and DHCP on the same server • 252 Parameters set through Windows registry • PXE Server • 19 Password for Acronis Secure Zone • 232, Recovering a vast number of files from a Pending operations • 254, 255, 257, 258, file backup •...
Page 368 Static group • 351, 358 337, 343, 344, 345, 352 Storage Node • 9, 18, 42, 50, 297 Rights for Acronis services • 69, 329 Storage node (Acronis Backup & RSM Media Pools • 123, 124 Recovery 10 Storage Node) • 18, 49, 351, 352, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359 Run backup plan •...
Page 369 Volume operations • 260 Universal Restore • 17, 20, 201, 212, 241 Volume properties • 207, 208 Universal Restore (Acronis Backup & Volume selection • 223, 225 Recovery 10 Universal Restore) • 43, Volume Shadow Copy Service • 86, 90, 93 45, 200, 212, 359 Volumes •...

ACRONIS Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server SBS Edition User Manual

1 Introducing Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10

2 Understanding Acronis Backup & Recovery 10

3 Options

4 Vaults

5 Scheduling

6 Direct Management

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Summary of Contents for ACRONIS Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server SBS Edition