Acronis Backup Recovery Online - Stand-alone User Guide

User Guide

Acronis Backup & Recovery Online Stand-alone

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Table of contents

1 Introduction to Acronis Backup & Recovery Online .................................................................5

1.1 What is Acronis Backup & Recovery Online?............................................................................. 5

1.2 What data can I back up and recover? ...................................................................................... 5

1.3 How long will my backups be kept in the online storage? ........................................................ 5

1.4 How to secure my data? ............................................................................................................ 6

1.5 Backup and recovery FAQ .......................................................................................................... 6

1.5.1 What backup methods are available? ........................................................................................................... 6

1.5.2 What recovery methods are available? ......................................................................................................... 6

1.5.3 Is the online storage available under Acronis bootable media?.................................................................. 7

1.5.4 Can I use Acronis Universal Restore when recovering a system from the online storage? ...................... 7

1.5.5 What if a network connection is lost during online backup or recovery? .................................................. 7

1.5.6 What happens if I run out of space? .............................................................................................................. 7

1.5.7 What is the cleanup task for? ......................................................................................................................... 7

1.5.8 How to make a recovered machine recognize its subscription? ................................................................. 7

1.6 Initial Seeding FAQ ..................................................................................................................... 8

1.6.1 What is Initial Seeding? ................................................................................................................................... 8

1.6.2 Why would I want to use Initial Seeding? ..................................................................................................... 8

1.6.3 Is Initial Seeding a paid service? ..................................................................................................................... 8

1.6.4 What types of hard drive can I use for Initial Seeding? ................................................................................ 8

1.6.5 Can I send more than one backup under a single Initial Seeding license? ................................................. 8

1.6.6 Can I send backups taken from a number of machines on a single hard drive? ........................................ 8

1.6.7 How to buy an Initial Seeding license? .......................................................................................................... 9

1.6.8 How to perform initial seeding?..................................................................................................................... 9

1.6.9 How to package a hard drive for shipment? ................................................................................................. 9

1.6.10 How do I track an Initial Seeding order status? .......................................................................................... 12

1.7 Large Scale Recovery FAQ ........................................................................................................13

1.7.1 What is Large Scale Recovery? ..................................................................................................................... 13

1.7.2 Why would I use Large Scale Recovery? ...................................................................................................... 13

1.7.3 Do I need to perform initial seeding to be able to use Large Scale Recovery?......................................... 13

1.7.4 Is Large Scale Recovery a paid service? ....................................................................................................... 13

1.7.5 Can I perform large scale recovery on a different machine? ..................................................................... 13

1.7.6 Can I obtain backups taken from a number of machines on a single hard drive? ................................... 14

1.7.7 How to buy a Large Scale Recovery license? ............................................................................................... 14

1.7.8 How do I track a Large Scale Recovery order status? ................................................................................. 14

1.7.9 How to perform large scale recovery? ........................................................................................................ 14

1.8 Subscription lifecycle FAQ .......................................................................................................15

1.8.1 How to access my account management Web page? ............................................................................... 15

1.8.2 Where do I find the subscriptions that I purchased? ................................................................................. 15

1.8.3 When does my subscription begin? ............................................................................................................. 15

1.8.4 What happens when my subscription expires? .......................................................................................... 15

1.8.5 How do I renew a subscription? ................................................................................................................... 16

1.8.6 How do I increase a storage quota for a machine? .................................................................................... 16

1.8.7 What is the “Group” column for? ................................................................................................................ 17

1.8.8 Can I revoke a subscription from a machine? ............................................................................................. 17

1.8.9 Can I cancel my subscription? ...................................................................................................................... 17

2 Where do I start? ................................................................................................................. 17

3 Choosing a subscription ....................................................................................................... 18

4 Software installation ............................................................................................................ 19

4.1 What software do I need to install? ........................................................................................19

4.2 Supported operating systems ..................................................................................................19

4.3 Installing Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 .................................................................................19

4.4 Configuring proxy settings .......................................................................................................20

5 Activating online backup subscriptions ................................................................................. 20

5.1 Activating subscriptions ...........................................................................................................21

5.2 Reassigning an activated subscription .....................................................................................21

6 Backup to the online storage ................................................................................................ 22

6.1 Backing up an individual machine ...........................................................................................23

6.2 Backing up using Initial Seeding...............................................................................................23

6.2.1 Preparation for initial seeding ...................................................................................................................... 24

6.2.2 Creating the full backup ................................................................................................................................ 24

6.2.3 Sending the full backup................................................................................................................................. 24

6.2.4 Creating subsequent backups ...................................................................................................................... 24

7 Accessing backups stored in the online storage ..................................................................... 25

8 Operations with backups stored in the online storage ........................................................... 25

9 Recovery from the online storage ......................................................................................... 25

9.1 Recovering files online .............................................................................................................25

9.2 Recovering volumes online ......................................................................................................26

9.3 Recovering using Large Scale Recovery ...................................................................................27

10 Retrieving files from the online storage by using a Web browser ........................................... 28

11 Limitations of the online storage .......................................................................................... 29

12 Upgrading to Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 ......................................................................... 29

13 Technical Support ................................................................................................................ 30

14 Glossary .............................................................................................................................. 31

This document explains how to do online backups using the Acronis Backup & Recovery Online service and stand-alone editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 11. The stand-alone editions enable you to back up an individual server or workstation to Acronis Online Backup Storage.

This document contains an overview of Acronis Backup & Recovery Online and step-by-step instructions for the typical software installation and usage scenarios. The instructions are intended to help users who are not familiar with Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 with their first online backups. For detailed information about the functionality provided by Acronis Backup & Recovery 11, please refer to the product help system. Context-sensitive help is available in every program window by pressing F1.

1 Introduction to Acronis Backup & Recovery

Online

This section contains a brief overview of Acronis Backup & Recovery Online and answers questions that may arise during evaluation and usage of this product.

1.1 What is Acronis Backup & Recovery Online?

Acronis Backup & Recovery Online is a service that enables you to back up data to Acronis Online Backup Storage. To use this service, you need to buy a subscription that determines the amount of storage space reserved for your backups (storage quota) and how long the online service will be available to you.

A separate subscription is required for each physical machine you are going to back up. The server or workstation subscription that you buy will depend on the Windows operating system that the machine is running. Other operating systems are not supported by Acronis Backup & Recovery Online.

Example: A 250 GB/ 1 year workstation subscription means that you can back up data from a machine running a non-server Windows operating system for a period of 1 year. The backups can occupy no more than 250 GB.

1.2 What data can I back up and recover?

You can back up any files, volumes, or the entire physical machine as often as you wish. Unlike most online backup solutions, Acronis Backup & Recovery Online enables bare metal recovery directly from the online storage. Files can be recovered from disk-level backups as well as from file-level backups.

1.3 How long will my backups be kept in the online

storage?

Your backups remain in the online storage until you delete them or until the subscription expires. Recovering data from the online storage is possible for 30 days following the subscription expiration date.

For effective use of the storage space, you have the option to set up the "Delete backups older than" retention rule.

Example

You might want to use the following backup strategy for a file server.

Back up the critical files twice a day on a schedule. Set the retention rule "Delete backups older than" 7 days. This means that after every backup the software will check for backups older than 7 days and delete them automatically.

Run backup of the server's system volume manually as required. For example, after the operating system updates. Manually delete the backups that you do not need.

1.4 How to secure my data?

Backups can be encrypted using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cryptographic algorithm and the password you set. This guarantees that your data is not accessed by anyone else.

1.5 Backup and recovery FAQ

This section answers questions related to backup and recovery processes.

1.5.1 What backup methods are available?

Full and incremental backup methods are available through several backup schemes. Regardless of the backup scheme, the first task run produces a full backup; subsequent task runs produce incremental backups. The following backup schemes are available:

 Manual start (postponed start). You can run the task again manually.  Simple (start on schedule). With this backup scheme, you can set up a retention rule to

automatically delete old backups.

 GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) (start on schedule). You specify which of the daily backups to

consider as weekly backups and monthly backups. You can set up separate retention rules for daily, weekly, and monthly backups.

 Tower of Hanoi (start on schedule). You set up the number of levels. This is the number of

backups stored at a time. The excessive backups will be deleted in a manner that leaves more recovery points for recent dates and fewer recovery points for older dates.

 An additional backup scheme that is available only for online storage is Initial seeding. With this

scheme, the backup starts immediately to a local destination and using the full backup method. To use this scheme, you need a license for the Initial Seeding (p. 31) service.

1.5.2 What recovery methods are available?

There are two methods to recover your data from Acronis Online Backup Storage:

 Recovering (p. 25) disks or files by using Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 GUI or command line

interface. This method enables you to use a wide range of Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 functionality.

 Retrieving files (p. 28) from file-level backups by using a Web browser. To do this, you only need

a machine with Internet access.

1.5.3 Is the online storage available under Acronis bootable

media?

Recovery from Acronis Online Backup Storage is available but backup to the storage is not.

1.5.4 Can I use Acronis Universal Restore when recovering a

system from the online storage?

Yes. Acronis Universal Restore is always available when recovering a system from the online storage. Using Acronis Universal Restore when recovering from other types of storage will require a separate license.

1.5.5 What if a network connection is lost during online backup or

recovery?

The software will try to reach the online storage every 30 seconds. After five unsuccessful attempts the backup or recovery task will fail.

You can change the number of attempts and the interval between the attempts in the Error handling > Re-attempt, if an error occurs option. Every backup plan or recovery task includes this option.

1.5.6 What happens if I run out of space?

When a machine's backups are about to exceed the storage space allowed by its subscription, you receive an e-mail notification with an alert. In addition, you can see this alert on the account management web page near the machine. This means you have to free some space for future backups. Or, you can consider increasing the storage quota (p. 16). You may also want to set or edit the retention rule (p. 5) so that an overflow does not occur in future. Once the occupied space reaches the limit, the backups will cease to run.

1.5.7 What is the cleanup task for?

Any backup plan where the retention rule is set contains a cleanup task in addition to a backup task. The cleanup task checks the archive created by the backup plan for backups that have outlived their lifetime. If such backups are found, the task makes the online storage delete them. Since the deletion is performed on the online storage side, it does not take your machine's CPU resource.

The cleanup task runs after every online backup, even if the backup has failed. The last successful backup is always kept though. For more information about the retention rule please refer to "How long will my backups be kept in the online storage? (p. 5)"

Normally, there is no need to start and stop the cleanup task manually. But it is possible to do so in the Backup plans and tasks view.

1.5.8 How to make a recovered machine recognize its

subscription?

When you recover a physical machine from a backup, a new machine identifier is created. Therefore, the machine is not able to back up to the subscription it used before recovery.

To continue backing up the machine to the same subscription, reassign (p. 21) the subscription to the machine. If you do this, the next machine's backup can be incremental. If you assign a new subscription to the machine, the software will have to do a new full backup.

1.6 Initial Seeding FAQ

This section explains what Initial Seeding is, why you would want to use it and provides some usage details.

1.6.1 What is Initial Seeding?

Initial Seeding is an extra service that lets you save an initial full backup locally and then send it to Acronis on a hard disk drive.

Acronis uploads the backup to the online storage. After that, you can add incremental backups to this full backup, either manually or on a schedule.

The hard disk drive is sent back to you but it is not possible to recover from it. However, recovery from a locally attached device is possible with the Large scale recovery (p. 13) option.

1.6.2 Why would I want to use Initial Seeding?

This service helps you save time and network traffic during the initial full backup. It is useful when backing up very large volumes of data or entire machines to the online storage.

1.6.3 Is Initial Seeding a paid service?

Yes, you need to buy one Initial Seeding license per machine.

1.6.4 What types of hard drive can I use for Initial Seeding?

Acronis accepts hard disk drives of the following interface types: IDE, ATA, SATA, USB connected drives. SCSI drives are not accepted.

You can back up directly to the device or back up to a local or network folder and then copy the backup to the device. Make sure that the device has only one volume and that the file system on that volume is NTFS or FAT32.

1.6.5 Can I send more than one backup under a single Initial

Seeding license?

No. An Initial Seeding license allows you to create only one backup on the machine.

However, if you have made a mistake or have decided to create another backup for any reason, you can cancel the initial seeding order. As a result, the license will become available again.

1.6.6 Can I send backups taken from a number of machines on a

single hard drive?

Yes. However, the number of required licenses is still one per machine.

1.6.7 How to buy an Initial Seeding license?

You can buy an Initial Seeding license from an Acronis partner or in Acronis online store. Follow the link www.acronis.com/my/backup-recovery-online/#buy to locate a partner or to buy online.

Having purchased a license from an Acronis partner, you receive a confirmation e-mail with a registration code. Click Enter new registration code on the same web page and register the license. The license becomes available on the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab.

A license purchased in Acronis online store becomes available immediately after the payment is processed.

1.6.8 How to perform initial seeding?

1. Make sure you have activated an Acronis Backup & Recovery Online subscription on the machine

where you will do initial seeding. If you are currently using a trial subscription, make sure that you also have a paid subscription available and assigned to this machine. Do not use the Initial Seeding service if you do not have a paid subscription.

2. Decide on the media (p. 8) that you will send.

3. Attach the media to the machine you are going to back up. Alternatively, you can back up to a

local or network folder and then copy/move the backup to the media.

4. Start Acronis Backup & Recovery 11, click Create backup plan and create a backup plan on this

machine:

 Under What to back up, select disks, volumes or files/folders you want to back up.  Under Where to back up, specify Online Backup Storage.  In Backup scheme, select Initial seeding. Specify the said media as the backup destination.  [Optional, but strongly recommended] Enable backup encryption in Backup options >

Archive protection.

The backup starts immediately after you click the final OK.

5. [Optional] If you want to add backups from another machine, attach the media to that machine

and perform the same steps. You need a separate Initial Seeding license for each machine that you want to back up.

6. Package (p. 9) the media along with a prepaid return shipping label and send it to Acronis by

physical mail. The address is available on your account management Web page > Initial Seeding / Recovery tab > Orders in process > Initial Seeding orders > Datacenter address.

7. On the same Web page, mark the order as "shipped" and track (p. 12) the order status.

8. Once you observe that the backup has been uploaded on the online storage, you can edit the

backup plan to do incremental backups:

 In Backup scheme, select the desired backup scheme and specify its settings.  Click Save.

When started manually or on schedule, your backup plan will add incremental backups to the initial backup stored in the online storage.

1.6.9 How to package a hard drive for shipment?

It is very important that your hard drive be packaged carefully. Careful packaging will protect your drive from any damage during shipment.

Hard drive types

Acronis accepts hard disk drives of the following interface types: IDE, ATA, SATA, USB connected drives.

SCSI drives are not accepted.

Packaging

If possible, use the original packaging. Otherwise, packaging materials can be obtained at any shipping outlet or stationary store. You should also include all necessary cables or adapters to the drive. Acronis will not be able to process your initial seeding request if there are no cables included.

The following are instructions about how to package your hard disk drive.

Step 1

Delicately remove your hard disk drive from the machine.

Step 2

Place the hard drive into an anti-static bag to protect the drive from electrostatic discharge. If you do not have an anti-static bag, simply wrap the hard drive into aluminum foil.

Step 3

Use a sturdy box that is at least twice the size of the drive. Pack the drive with a bubble wrap around all 6 sides so it can fit tight into the box and cannot be moved within.

DO NOT use Styrofoam peanuts for packing as they do not provide enough protection. DO NOT send your media in jiffy bags

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