SharePoint Backup
Step 5: Additional Full Backups
Typically, you would do a full backup the first time you backup your data and thereafter only do incremental backups. However, like in a typical enterprise scenario, if you want to run full backups periodically and run the incremental backups in between two full backups, then you can configure the scheduling for how to run the full backups here.
For Run Every Few Hours and Run Daily backups, the Additional Full Backup settings will allow you to configure
daily/weekly/monthly additional full backups. For weekly backups, only Monthly additional full backups are possible. For Run Once Only backup, you cannot configure additional full backups.
Additionally you can specify the maximum number of full backups that need to be stored in the server. For example if you configured a weekly backup and additionally if you configure a monthly full backup, then StoreGrid will take a full backup the first time and then weekly do an incremental backup. The next month, StoreGrid will do a new full backup and
subsequently run the weekly incremental backup over this full backup. After 6 months you will have 6 separate full backups in the backup server along with weekly incremental versions under each of the 6 full backups. If your policy is to retain only backup data for 6 months, then you can configure "Store maximum of 6 full backups" here. On the 7th month,
StoreGrid, after finishing the 7th full backup, will delete the first full backup along with its weekly incremental backups thus retaining always the last 6 month backups.
Advanced Options (Optional)
If you want to configure some additional advanced options - like, CPU utilization, Compression settings, etc. click on the Advanced Options button.
Advanced Backup Schedule Settings
There are four options here on how the backup should be scheduled.
Run this backup each time StoreGrid restarts - If you enable this option by checking the check box, then this backup schedule will be run every time StoreGrid is restarted or the machine is rebooted irrespective of the actual schedule time of this backup schedule. This is to ensure that any modified or new files created when StoreGrid was down are backed up as soon as possible. In case of the ‘Run every…’ scheduling option, backups will run each time StoreGrid restarts – by default.
Run this backup immediately after saving this configuration (thereafter, Backups will be scheduled as per the schedule stipulated) - If you enable this option, then this backup schedule will be executed once immediately after you save this backup schedule – even if it's not yet ‘time’ as per the schedule. For example if you configure a daily backup at 10.00 AM but you configured the backup at 8.00 AM, then the backup schedule will be run once immediately (8.00 AM) and then as per schedule (e.g. daily at 10.00 AM). Attempt to run this backup every 5 minutes in case of non completion because of a problem (Network error etc.) - If enabled, the user can choose to reschedule this backup every 5/10/15/20/25/30 minutes, whenever an attempted backup is incomplete because of a network error, server crash etc. The number of times the backup will be rescheduled (due to an error) can be configured to be in between 1-5 or unlimited, with the default setting as 5. This is to ensure that an incomplete backup is completed as soon as possible without waiting for the next actual schedule time. Note that this option is enabled by default. Data Integrity Check - StoreGrid supports data integrity check where the data sent from the client machine is verified for integrity at the backup server. When a file's integrity check fails, StoreGrid flags that file as skipped and the file is then again backed up during the next backup schedule.
Other Backup Settings
Set CPU Utilization
For each backup schedule, you can also specify the CPU utilization level as Low, Medium or High. When you set the CPU Utilization to high, the backup will be really fast - but the backup process may affect the speed of other active applications. If CPU utilization is set to Low, the backup will take longer but will be done in a non-intrusive manner allowing you to comfortably work on the computer as the backup continues in the background. For backups which are done every day or every week in ‘off-hours’, the CPU utilization can be set to High. Actual performance is obviously a function of your individual machine and your network. We
encourage you to experiment with different settings to figure what works best for you. Set Compression
If compression is enabled, data will be compressed in the client before it is uploaded into the backup server. Enable - Compresses the data before backing it up. It might reduce the rate at which the client can send data to the backup server but it might save significant bandwidth and time when the data is backed up to a remote server over a WAN/Internet with limited bandwidth speed. Also, this saves disk space in the backup server.
No Compression - This option is suitable (fastest) for backing up data within a local network where bandwidth is not the limitation, but occupies more space on destination machine as no compression is being done.
Intelli-Delta Backup
When a backup schedule is executed, StoreGrid checks if the file has changed since the last backup. If yes, then StoreGrid can either backup the full file all over again or it can backup only the modified content (incremental). If "Intelli-Delta Backup" is set to ENABLE, only modified content in a file is backed up. If set to DISABLE, the full file will be backed up every time the schedule runs. Needless to say, an incremental backup is faster.
Pre & Post Backup Commands (Optional)
This feature provides the ability to configure running custom actions before and after executing a backup schedule. The custom actions may include running an application or some script files.
Pre & Post Backup Commands
When is this feature useful?
If an application has exclusively locked a file and you need to close the application before StoreGrid can backup that file, then you can run a pre-backup command to close the application and then a post-backup command to open the application again after StoreGrid successfully backs up the file.
How does this feature work?
Whenever a backup schedule starts, StoreGrid will start the Pre Backup commands and wait till the timeout value. After completing the Pre Backup commands, StoreGrid will transfer the configured files & folders to the backup server. After transferring the configured files and folders, StoreGrid will run the Post Backup
Commands. If multiple servers are configured for the backup schedule, then both the Pre and Post Backup commands will run while backing up to each of the servers.
Pre & Post Backup command settings:
You can provide maximum of 5 Pre Backup commands and maximum of 5 Post Backup commands for each backup schedule. Both the Pre and Post Backup commands are optional.
Command Name: This filed is mandatory. This is the command that should be run. The command should be provided with full path. If the command name is in the system command path, then
providing full path for the command is not necessary. The command can be an executable file such as application exe, batch files, script files etc.
Example: C:\MyTools\myzip.exe. A simple zip tool which compresses the given files or folders. Arguments: You can provide any command line arguments for the command to be executed. Example: For the Command C:\MyTools\myzip.exe, the arguments may be 'High Zip Replace
"D:\Project" myproject.zip' [without quotes]. Here, the High may denote high compression, Zip denotes zip file format, Replace denotes replacing existing files, 'D:\Project' denotes folder to compress and 'myproject.zip' denotes the target compressed file name.
Working Path: This field specifies the directory path from which the Command has to be run. If this field is left empty, then the command will be executed from the StoreGrid working path [ StoreGrid Home]
Example: 'D:\Project'. The command will be executed from the directory D:\Project.
Timeout: This filed is used to specify a timeout value, in seconds, for the command to finish
execution. StoreGrid will wait for so many seconds for the pre and post command to finish running. If the command still runs beyond the timeout period, then StoreGrid will abruptly terminate the command and will continue with the backup schedule.
Please note that if you provide -1 value, then the command will run till completion and StoreGrid will wait till the command completes. If command never completes, then StoreGrid may just infinitely wait without proceeding with the backup schedule.
Example: 60. For the myzip.exe command, the myzip.exe command will compress the given project folder up to 60 seconds. If the myzip.exe completes before the timeout period, say 15 seconds, then StoreGrid will immediately continue the next Pre Backup Command [if configured] or continue with the backup schedule.
So, the example command will look like below: Command Name : C:\MyTools\myzip.exe Arguments : High Zip Replace
Working Path : D:\Project Time out : 60
The whole command will be run up to 60 seconds as below: C:\MyTools\myzip.exe High Zip Replace "D:\Project"
Saving the configured backup
Once all the SharePoint components to be backed up are chosen and the configuration options are set, you simply need to click on the "Configure/Save Backup” button to activate the backup as per the schedule- on to the configured backup
servers.