AccuGuard Desktop and AccuGuard Server User Guide 1 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
Table of Contents Welcome Backup Simplified Features Protection Plans Archived Data Viewing Archived Data Restoring Best Practices Getting the most from this software Cartridge Rotation Suggestions Use Administrator Level Account Backing up and Restoring Configuration Settings Overview of User Interface Home Explore Storage Options Explore Settings tab New Cartridge tab Rotation tab Results Alerts Creating Protection Plans Start tab Selections tab Excluding Files Plan Name tab Storage tab Schedule tab Advan
Disk Drive Storage Network Drive Storage Removable Disk Storage Use Existing Storage Storage Capacity Storage Remove New Media Importing a Cartridge Trademarks 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 4 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
Welcome Congratulations on your purchase of this software! This backup and restore software is designed for use with hard disk storage. Built on innovative deduplication technology, it virtually eliminates the archiving of redundant data, because unique data is stored only once. The effective storage capacity of the disk is significantly increased, making backup to disk fast, easy and affordable.
Backup Simplified This software simplifies the process of backing up your data so you can focus on your business goals. Backup your important data using either a built-in Protection Plan or your own custom protection plan. There are no incremental or differential backups; each backup contains all of the files in the selected data set as they exist at the time of the plan run. At any time you can see all of the files you have backed up, or archived, using the familiar Windows Explorer interface.
Features This software is fully featured backup and recovery software. During regular use you will work with three main features: • Protection Plans • Archived Data Viewing • Archived Data Restoring 7 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
Protection Plans This software backs up your important data by means of "Protection Plans".
Archived Data Viewing The files stored by this software are always online and available. You do not need to search through multiple "incremental" copies of tapes or other media. Your backup disk will always contain all versions of your stored files. The software detects at a sub file level the data that has changed between backups and stores only the unique data needed to protect the versions of the files it encounters. It can reconstruct and restore all versions of all files that have been protected.
Archived Data Restoring Restoring your data with this software is quick and easy. To find and restore your data use any of the following methods: • • • Use the Search bar and enter whole filenames, partial filenames, or wild card entries such as *.doc Explore a protection plan within Windows Explorer to view folders and files as they existed at a specific time Restore the entire contents of a protection plan run See Explore and Restore for more information. 10 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
Best Practices Please click on the links below for some suggestions that will help you obtain the best experience from this software. • Getting the most from this software • Cartridge Rotation Suggestions • Use Administrator Level Account • Backing up and Restoring Configuration Settings 11 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
Getting the most from this software Introduction This software contains an advanced technology called data "deduplication" or "capacity optimization". This technology can reduce standard business data by as much as a twentieth, or more, of the original size of the data during backup to disk. It achieves this level of optimization by removing all redundant data from the files being archived and storing only the unique data over time while allowing virtually instant point-in-time restore of the data.
projects, customers, etc., can be placed on different disks. The software allows you to designate specific disks for specific protection plans ensuring that you don't place files meant for one disk onto a 'wrong' disk. When determining how you want to store your data using this software, it may help to think about what files you might need to recover most often or which are most important, and schedule the protection plans that protect those files to run most often.
Cartridge Rotation Suggestions The use of multiple removable disk cartridges to store your valuable data is considered a best practice. Cartridge rotation involves removing the active cartridge from the cartridge dock and inserting another cartridge and storing the removed cartridge in a safe off-site location until you are ready to do the next rotation. This software can create a reminder for you to rotate your cartridges (Rotation tab).
Use Administrator Level Account This software uses the features and capabilities of the Microsoft Windows XP Professional (SP2), Windows Server 2003/2008, and Windows Vista operating systems. As a best practice, users of this software should not create administrator accounts with blank passwords. An administrator account with a blank password can have difficulty with backing up and restoring files to/from remote systems (networked computers).
Backing up and Restoring Configuration Settings Backing Up (Export) An off-site copy of your configuration settings should be saved to protect against site-wide disasters. In addition to your original installation media and your purchased license key (if applicable), you should save the following: • Registry keys o HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\dataStor\Stores o HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\dataStor\StoreAlias Note - The contents of a registry key can be saved using the reg.exe command.
Overview of User Interface This section provides a general overview of the software user interface components. • Home • Explore • Storage • Options • Results • Alerts 17 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
Home The Home page provides a dashboard view of the software's current status and activities. From the Home page you can add a protection plan, edit a protection plan, remove a protection plan and view the status of a currently running protection plan or a completed protection plan. The Home page also provides navigation to other areas of the software interface via the buttons on the left panel.
The display for a protection plan that has been created, scheduled, and run, shows the schedule information and the date and time the plan was last executed. "Status: OK" (where the OK text is not disabled) indicates that the last run of the plan executed successfully. The results of the run can be viewed by clicking the "OK" link. See Results for more information. In addition to having the scheduler begin the plan, the plan can be started at any time by clicking "Run now" ( ).
Explore You can view the contents of your archived data and restore your files by clicking on the Explore button in the left panel. You can even open the file using the application that created the file. For example, you can view a word processing document, spreadsheet, or text file by right clicking on the file and choosing "Open". You will see the current calendar month and certain dates of the month will be displayed in bold font. The bold font indicates that a protection plan run occurred on that day.
Storage The Storage page shows the storage (such as disk drives and network drives) that has been added to the software. Information such as the name, size of the storage, status (Available or Offline), and the drive designation of the disk are displayed in the top panel of the page. See Storage Status for more information. 21 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
Options This page allows you to specify how you want to identify a new removable disk cartridge, configure rotation reminders and override the default listening port. • Explore Settings tab • New Cartridge tab • Rotation tab When you have completed configuring the options you can make the choices effective by clicking "OK" at the bottom of the screen. If you do not want to apply your choices you can click "Cancel" and you will be brought back to the Home page and your changes will not be applied.
Explore Settings tab The Explore feature of this software uses the Microsoft WebClient service to access archives. If the WebClient service is disabled you must use the Search bar to find individual files to restore or restore all files in a protection plan by clicking the "Restore" button. On Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 platforms, Explore is configured to listen on port 8500.
New Cartridge tab The New Cartridge tab allows you to choose how the software will handle a removable disk cartridge that is being presented to the software for the first time. By default, the software will detect the insertion of a new cartridge and prompt you to enter a name and description of the cartridge. See the New Media topic for more information.
Rotation tab Using multiple removable disk cartridges and creating a rotation strategy is a best practice for ensuring the safety of your valuable data. See Cartridge Rotation Suggestions for ideas on a cartridge rotation strategy. You can configure the software to remind you to change cartridges by choosing a "Remind me to rotate media" option.
Results The Results Page displays the history of all tasks run by the software. A log file will be created for each plan run that is completed or canceled. The log can be displayed by clicking the "View Log" link. Selecting a run for a protection plan in the list shows details of the run in the Result Details area of the page. Individual plan runs are grouped under the plan name so you can see how many times each plan has been run. You can expand each plan result by clicking the + icon.
Alerts This product uses Alerts to provide status alerts of protection plans and disk cartridges used with the software. Alerts range from helpful reminders to error conditions regarding protection plan execution. When an Alert occurs the software will create a popup from the Windows notification area (also known as "system tray"). The popup will be visible for 7 seconds. Additionally, the Alerts page will contain the Alert that matches the popup.
• • • Choosing "Import" will begin the Import operation. Choosing "Ignore" will result in an "Unusable" cartridge (when viewing the Cartridge page the Status column displays "Unusable". The cartridge will not be usable for archiving more files nor will the cartridge be usable for restoring files. Choosing "Eject Cartridge" will eject the cartridge with no action taken. See the Help topic Importing a Cartridge for more information.
Alert - Cartridge has Unsupported Format The software will only archive to cartridges which are formatted with the Microsoft NTFS file system. If a cartridge is inserted which is not formatted with the NTFS format, the software will post an Alert. The cartridge will not be usable to store archives. You may eject the cartridge from within the Alert on the Alerts page. Alert - Cartridge is Inconsistent - Store Missing The software stores data on the cartridge in a "store".
Creating Protection Plans This software allows you to create and save backup Protection Plans to store your data on a local or networked storage location. A Protection Plan is made up of a plan type (for files, Exchange or SQL), selections relevant to the type (which files and where to store the data), and a schedule specifying when the plan runs. Begin the process of creating a Protection Plan by opening the software and clicking "Add a Protection Plan" on the Home page.
Start tab When "Add a Protection Plan" is clicked on the Home page the software will display the "Create a Protection Plan" screen. The Start tab is where you begin to create protection plans for your data. Choosing a Protection Plan The software helps you begin protecting your data by offering different types of protection plans for archiving your data.
Choosing the "Everything" option instructs the software to archive all files and folders on the local hard drive (usually drive C:). It is recommended that your first archive be performed by choosing the Everything option. See "Items that this software will not archive" to see what files will not be archived. Two additional protection plans are only available with Server versions of this software.
• Windows System Volume Information files, System Restore files, Automated System Restore ( ASR ) files 33 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
Selections tab The second step in creating a protection plan is to confirm or change the files you want to archive. Selections for the 'Personal Data and Settings' plan When the Personal Data and Settings plan is chosen in the Start tab, the Selections tab will present all the users of the computer that are available in the Users Accounts. In the example at right, we see five users of the computer have been created. Each user's settings will be archived.
The process of adding folders and files to a Custom protection plan is easy. The method is the same as using Windows Explorer to view your files. Using your mouse to click the expansion icon, , will expand the view of the disk drive. The screen excerpt below left shows the Documents and Settings folder and some subfolders as an example. If a check mark is placed by using the mouse and left click on a check box, then that folder and all subfolders and files will be archived.
Excluding Files Your computer contains many types of files. The types of files could range from simple text files to word processing files, spreadsheets, pictures, projects, music, video files and so on. When the software is run for the first time, it will perform data compression and data deduplication on all the files in your protection plan and build an index so that the current and subsequent plan runs will perform the best data reduction possible.
Plan Name tab The third step in creating a protection plan is to give the plan a name and a description. It is recommended that you choose a plan name that easily and briefly describes the data that the plan will archive. Then you can enter a longer description that can remind you of the purpose and contents of the archive. After entering a plan name and description you can use your mouse to click the "Storage" tab or click "Next". 37 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
Storage tab The fourth step in creating a protection plan is choosing the storage that will receive the data from your plan. If necessary, click "Add storage..." to add a storage location and give it a short, descriptive name, then click "OK" to return to the Storage tab. See Storage for information on how to change storage location names. You may check or uncheck any storage for a particular plan.
Schedule tab The final step in creating a protection plan is to set a schedule for when the plan will execute. The software allows you to schedule a protection plan to run daily, weekly, monthly or even hourly. You can also finish creating your protection plan without setting a schedule. Choosing No Schedule Creating a schedule for your protection plan is highly recommended. However, the software does not force you to create a schedule if you do not want to create a schedule.
Click "Finish" to complete your protection plan. The plan will be saved and appear on the Home page under "My Saved Protection Plans". If you want to change any of your choices click "Previous" to view the prior tabs or click the tab itself. When you have completed your changes click "Next" to move to the Schedule tab, or click the "Schedule" tab, and click "Finish". The software will change to the Home page and the saved protection plan will be shown. See the Home topic for more information.
Advanced The Advanced scheduling option allows you to run a protection plan as an alternate user. That is, a user account that is different from the user which is currently logged in to the computer where the software is installed. See "Run as" below. The Advanced option also allows you to create advanced scheduling behavior for your protection plan. See "Next run time" below.
• When idle The field "Start Time" specifies the starting time of the protection plan if the plan is scheduled to run Daily, Weekly, Monthly or only Once. The field "Schedule Task Daily" (or Weekly) specifies how often, in days or weeks, the plan will run. An additional set of options to create enhanced schedules is available by clicking "Advanced". The "Start Date" field allows you to choose the starting day for the plan to run.
Run this plan only when logged on This option is enabled when setting a schedule for a protection plan. When creating a scheduled task in Windows, Windows asks for your credentials, that is, your User account and password that you used to log in to your computer. As a best practice, your administrator level account should contain a non-blank password. This is particularly true if you are using this software to backup network drives.
Run, Edit, Remove a Plan Click on the links below for details on running, editing and removing protection plans. • Running Protection Plans • Editing Protection Plans • Removing Protection Plans 44 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
Running a Plan Protection Plans may be executed either as Unscheduled or Scheduled plans. An Unscheduled plan can only be executed by clicking "Run Now" ( ). A Scheduled plan can be executed by waiting for the chosen day and time to start the plan or by clicking "Run Now". Run an Unscheduled plan When a protection plan is created, the plan name and scheduling behavior that you selected will be displayed in the panel "My Saved Protection Plans".
Editing a Plan A saved protection plan can be edited anytime the plan is not running. The plan can be edited by clicking "Edit settings" ( ). The layout for editing a plan is the same as creating a plan. Editing a plan begins with the Selections tab instead of the Start tab. You cannot change a plan's starting type. Also, the numbers on the tabs (shown when creating a protection plan) are not shown. You can edit a saved plan in any tab order or edit just the tabs you desire.
Removing a Plan A protection plan can be removed from the software by clicking "Remove plan" ( ). The plan will be removed from the "My Saved Protection Plans" panel on the Home page. Removing a plan does not delete the data stored by the plan. You can still restore data from the plan you remove by clicking "Explore" in the left panel of the Home screen and finding the plan name you removed. 47 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
Explore and Restore Restoring your data with this software is quick and easy. To find and restore your data use any of the following methods: • • • Use the Search bar and enter whole filenames, partial filenames, or wild card entries such as *.
Finding a Plan's Archive Times When you open the Explore page by clicking on the Explore button in the left panel, you will be presented with a calendar showing the current day of the current month. Dates of the month that are in bold font are days when a protection plan has run. (Please refer to View Options, below, for more information.) Clicking on one of those dates will show the protection plans that were executed for that day in the panel on the bottom of the page.
Exploring and Restoring Folders and Files This software provides instant access to the data you have archived by taking advantage of the random access capabilities of hard disk drives. The process of finding and restoring your data is easy because the software can display your data using the same Windows Explorer interface that you use every day. You can restore your entire protection plan or even restore single files using drag and drop (or copy and paste).
Using the Search Bar The Search function is a quick and easy way to find any version of any file that you have archived with this software. You can search for a filename by typing part of the filename in the Search bar or by typing in a wildcard. The Search function will look for all files that this software has ever archived. A disk does not need to be present when performing a search.
Interpreting the Search Results When a search parameter is entered into the Search bar, the software displays the: • • • name of the file. folder where the file resides. the number of versions of the file. Entering a wildcard type search will show all files matching the search parameters. For instance, entering apps9*.doc will list all files beginning with apps9 and ending with .doc.
Restoring from the Search Results You can restore a single file from the Search Results by right clicking on the file and choosing "Save As". You will be presented with a "Save As" dialog and you can then choose the folder to save your restored file. When "Save As" is chosen the standard Windows Save As dialog opens. Note - Windows Vista may display a dialog window requesting the User ID and password that you used to log in to the computer. You can restore your file to any folder you choose.
Exploring a Plan Note - The Explore feature uses the Microsoft WebClient service to access archives. If the WebClient service is disabled you must use the Search bar to find individual files to restore, or restore all files in a protection plan by clicking the "Restore" button. On Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 platforms, Explore is configured to listen on port 8500. On these platforms you can change the listening port from the Options, Explore Settings tab.
Drag & Drop Restore You can restore a single file or groups of files using the same standard drag and drop or copy and paste methods that you use when transferring your files within Microsoft Windows My Computer or Explorer. Restoring a file begins with finding the protection plan recovery point you want to explore. See Finding a Plan's Archive Times for more information. Click on a protection plan name to highlight the recovery point and the "Explore" and "Restore" buttons will become active.
Restoring a Plan Step 1 - Find the plan In addition to restoring an individual file or a group of files, the software can restore the entire protection plan. Generally, you would only need to restore an entire protection plan in the case of moving files, accidental deletion, or restoring a system after a disk change or crash. The process of restoring an entire protection plan begins with finding the protection plan recovery point you want to restore. Refer to Finding a Plan's Archive Times.
• Choose Missing files if you do not want the restore operation to copy over files that are already on your hard disk. This option will only restore files that are not present in the folder you have chosen to restore the files. You might choose this option to only copy files you believe are missing from a folder.
Restoring Exchange Storage Groups An Exchange Protection Plan backs up Exchange databases and log files in each Storage Group selected. After the plan runs, eligible logs are truncated. This page discusses the process of restoring and recovering Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007 databases. This software protects Microsoft Exchange using the VSS Writer included in newer versions of Windows.
Restoring SQL Server Databases A SQL Server Protection Plan backs up all files for each SQL Server database selected. This page discusses the process of restoring and recovering SQL Server databases. In addition to restoring an individual file or a group of files, the software can restore the entire protection plan. Generally, you would only need to restore an entire protection plan in the case of moving files, accidental deletion, or restoring a system after a disk change or crash.
Interpreting Results Click on the link below for an explanation of Protection Plan results. • Protection Plan Results 60 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
Protection Plan Results You can access the results of plan runs using one of two methods. One method is to select the "Status" link when the plan is finished. The "Status" line will change to show a link. The link may say OK, Alert, Cancelled, Error, or Warning. When the link next to "Status" is clicked, the software will display the result for the plan.
Storage The Storage page shows the current availability of storage and its physical free space. The "Status" column shows the availability status of the storage location. If the status is "Available" then this location is available for use. An "Offline" status means that this location is known to the software but is currently not available. The "Size" column displays the native capacity of the storage. The "% Free" column displays the native free space of the storage.
Storage Add A new installation of the software will not have any storage locations assigned to it. You can add new storage locations either as you create or edit a protection plan (via the Storage tab) or at any time from the Storage page. You can also reattach removed storage locations (Storage Remove) that contain archives stored by this software in the same manner. An Add operation must be performed before the storage location can be used to restore data or archive data.
Disk Drive Storage Disk Drive should be chosen if you want to use a locally attached hard disk. This option will create a storage location at the root of the disk you select on the Add Storage screen. Choose a disk, then click the "OK" button. If there are storage locations already on this disk (perhaps from a previous installation of this software) you can reattach by choosing the "Use existing" option and selecting a storage location from the drop-down list. See Use Existing Storage for more information.
Network Drive Storage Choose Network Drive if you want to use network-attached storage (NAS). This option will create a storage location at the root of the network storage you select on the Add Storage screen. Choose a network drive, then click the "OK" button.
Removable Disk Storage Removable Disk storage should be chosen if you want to use a removable disk drive. This option will create a storage location at the root of the drive you select on the Add Storage screen. Choose a removable disk drive, then click the "OK" button. If there are storage locations already on this disk (perhaps from a previous installation of this software) you can reattach by choosing the "Use existing" option and selecting a storage location from the drop-down list.
Use Existing Storage You can reattach a storage location to this software if it had been removed with the "Keep the data on the media for future use" option. See Storage Remove for more information. You can also add existing storage locations from another system in the same manner. To use existing storage locations first click the "Add storage..." button from the Storage page. The software will detect that there are storage locations already on the storage media and will enable the "Use existing" option.
Storage Capacity The information displayed in the Storage page helps show how efficiently archives are using storage. The physical free space of the each disk is displayed under the "% Free" column and is recalculated after each backup. Also, a graph is displayed in the lower panel which shows the trend of the physical free space of the currently highlighted storage. The number of protection plan runs that have been stored on the highlighted storage location is shown at the bottom left of the panel.
Storage Remove You can remove storage locations from this software. You might remove a storage location if you want to set the storage aside for just restoring data. This helps reduce the number of storage locations you are viewing in the Storage Status panel to just the current ones being used by your protection plans. Note that removing storage locations is an optional procedure.
New Media When a removable disk cartridge is used with this software for the first time, the software will display a New Media window. Choosing "Yes" If the Yes option is chosen, the software will display a screen that allows you to enter a name for the cartridge and a description for the cartridge. You may wish to enter a name and description that matches your usage of the cartridge. For example, you could enter a name for the cartridge such as, "Business Finances".
Importing a Cartridge You can move a removable disk cartridge that contains archives stored by the software to any other software installation. For example, you may have software installations on computers named A and B. A cartridge that has archives stored from computer A can be moved to the installation on computer B. When installation B detects the cartridge, the software will post an Alert popup above the software's icon in the Windows system tray.
Trademarks Copyright © 2010 Tandberg Data and © 2005 - 2010 Data Storage Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective companies. 72 AccuGuard Desktop and Server User Guide v1.
