3.6.1
Agent Configuration
After you create an Agent and provide its properties, you can configure the Agent. Note that you must have a valid Agent connection (via IP or host name) and a valid authorization to that system.
Agent configurations are specific to an Agent, and they affect all jobs for that Agent. You can manually set or modify the settings through Agent configuration.
For an existing Agent, click Tools > Agent configuration. The Agent Configuration screen opens:
3.6.2
Vaults Tab
Working with Existing Vaults
If you have an existing Vault configured, it will show in the list of servers here. For information about creating a new Vault, see Creating a Vault Connection. Editing a Vault Entry
1. On the Vaults tab of the Agent Configuration screen, select a Vault.
2. Click Edit. The Vault Entry screen opens.
Deleting a Vault Entry
Before you can delete a Vault entry, it must be empty of all Jobs. 1. Highlight the target Vault.
2. Click Delete.
3. Click Yes to confirm the deletion.
If there are still Jobs associated with this Vault, a screen will list the Jobs associated with the Vault entry, and a message will indicate that you cannot proceed until you have deleted all of the Jobs.
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On the screen, Copy to Clipboard allows you to copy the list of Job names to another place, such as a text file or an email. This gives you a record of the Vaults that must be deleted. This can be helpful if the list is large.
3.6.3
Retentions Tab
You can manually define and set retentions through this tab.
There are three predefined retentions. You can change them as necessary, but they are useful when you create a retention scheme for the first time. You can create more retentions (up to ten in total, including these three).
The predefined (default) retentions are as follows:
Retention Name
Days Online Copies Online Days Archived
Daily 7 7 OFF
Weekly 31 5 OFF
Monthly 365 12 OFF
Days Online is the number of days a safeset is kept on the vault before expiring. Copies Online indicates how many copies of the backup safeset are stored online. Days Archived indicates if and how long the data will be stored offline.
Note that Days Online and Copies Online work together. Both conditions need to be met before any backups are deleted.
For example, if both Days Online and Copies Online are 7, there can never be less than 7 backups. If Days Online goes over 7, there will still be 7 copies. If Copies Online goes below 7, there will still be 7 days’ worth. It must be over 7 days with more than 7 copies before any are expired.
Creating a New Retention
To create a new retention for the Agent:
1. On the Retentions tab, click New. The Retention Wizard opens. 2. On the Welcome screen, click Next.
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3. On the Retention Name screen, enter a name for the retention. Retention names can be up to 32 alphanumeric characters in length. No spaces are allowed. Names are not case-sensitive. Underscores (_) and hyphens (-) may be used.
4. If desired, enter a number from 1 to 9999 in the days box. This number defines the number of days a safeset is to be kept on the Vault Server before expiring. Once the expiry date is reached, a safeset is automatically deleted.
5. If desired, enter a number from 1 to 999 in the copies box. This number defines the minimum number of copies of a particular safeset (as defined by a job) that will be maintained online. It functions in a first in, first out manner. Once the number of copies is exceeded, the oldest copy will automatically expire or be deleted. This process occurs until the actual number of copies matches the definition. This setting does not apply to archived data.
6. If desired, enter a number from 365 to 9999 in the box for the number of days to archive. This number defines the number of days a safeset will be maintained on removable media at the vault before it expires and is deleted.
7. On the Finish screen, click Finish.
To save the retention, you must click OK on the Retentions tab before you leave the tab. Editing a Retention
To manually edit a retention for the Agent:
1. On the Retentions tab, select a retention by clicking on its line. 2. Click Edit. This opens the Retention screen.
3. In the Retention name field, you can change the name of the retention. Retention names can be up to 32 alphanumeric characters in length. No spaces are allowed. Names are not case-
sensitive. Underscores (_) and hyphens (-) may be used.
4. In the Settings pane, the number of days and the number of copies can be modified. The number of days can be from 1 to 9999 and the number of copies can be from 1 to 999.
5. In the Archive pane, choose whether you want to archive your data. Data can be archived from 365 to 9999 days. If you would like to archive data, discuss this with your service provider. Note: Changing a retention definition affects only the retention settings and its application to future (yet to be created) safesets.
You may also want to create a new retention. A retention is defined through the Retention Wizard. Activate this wizard by clicking New on the Retentions tab.
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3.6.4
Open File Tab
Agents 6.70 and later use VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Services) by default for open file management. The following descriptions of Open Transaction Manager (OTM) and Open File Manager (OFM) products apply to Agents 6.61 and earlier. OTM can still be used with older jobs, or in a custom manner, but it is not used by default.
For Agents 6.6x and earlier, if you have installed OTM or OFM, you can configure it through the Open File tab.
For Agents 6.6x and earlier
You can install OTM after an initial Agent installation. Run the installation again, and choose Modify to add or remove specified software components. Select to install the OTM feature.
Under Product, select the Open File product from the menu, depending on which one you have installed:
• None or OTM
• None or OFM
Note: You cannot run both OTM and OFM together. OFM features:
• Typically used on large servers
• Separate installation; configured through its own GUI
• Has dynamic cache and its own log files
• Displays its cache as a file; can select drives to cache; can release cache before end of backup
• Can run concurrent, multiple backups
OTM features:
• Typically used on small to medium-sized servers
• Configured and installed through the Agent
• Uses a single cache with preallocated maximum size; caches all drives
• Logs to the Agent backup log
• Only allows one backup at a time
• Releases cached data at end of backup
Note: For OFM versions 9.1 and later, you must use the OFM GUI (Configuration > Properties) to explicitly exclude directories and subdirectories. This is found within the OFM GUI under System >
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(Server name) > Properties > Files tab > (browse to the Agent installation directory) > Files to be ignored by OFM – (select checkbox: Include Subdirectories). OFM versions earlier than 9.1 will automatically exclude any directories that cannot be open during a backup.
From the settings that follow, you will be able to select all of them for OTM, but only Abort Processing Options (and possibly License Key) for OFM.
License key
Enter your license information (supplied by your service provider or authorized reseller) in the License key field. If you installed OTM with the Agent, you will have a 30-day trial license.
You can click Validate Key to check that your license will work. If the license does not validate, review the information and make any necessary changes.
Cache file size
The cache file size is related to how many unique writes occur to the vault during the backup. As a rough guideline, for every write there are ten reads. As such, for 100 MB read during one hour, a 10 MB cache is sufficient.
There is a maximum limit on the size of the cache file. Depending on the OS used, it may be up to 4 or 7 GB. If you exceed the maximum size, you will get an error: “OTM failed to start up” and “insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service” in the Agent log file, and the backup will fail. Reduce the cache file size and retry the backup.
Cache file location
Use this parameter to specify the placement of the cache file.
Use Agent Product Directory: If this option is selected, a cache file is created where the CentralControl software is installed.
Use OTM Auto Placement: If selected, the OTM software places the cache file on a non-OTM drive, provided one is available with enough disk space. If no non-OTM drives exist, or there is not enough space, the first OTM drive with enough space is used. If the drive is the same drive in which the temp directory resides, the file will be placed in the temp directory; otherwise, it is created at the root of the drive.
Note: You may use one of these two choices, or you can enter another path name. For instance, you may want to direct the cache to the fastest disk drive, with the most space. If your choice is invalid for any reason (such as space limitation on the disk or an invalid path name), OTM will not start. There will be a message in the log. Whether the backup will continue depends on what you have entered for Abort processing options.
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Quiescent wait period
The Quiescent Wait Period is the minimum period of idle disk activity (no writes) that OTM requires before its cache file is created and the Virtual drives are mapped. The default setting is 5 seconds. No activity timeout
The No Activity Timeout is a period of time that OTM will wait to attain the Quiescent Wait Period. After the set period of inactivity has passed, the software logs and continues, or logs and halts the program as specified.
Abort processing options
Abort processing options pertain to open-file processing errors, such as synchronization problems. You can select Log And Continue or Log And Halt.
Log And Continue will log any error (such as not being able to achieve the quiescent wait period to create a snapshot of an open file) and continue with the job.
Log And Halt will stop the job after logging any error.
3.6.5
Notification Tab
You can receive email notification after a successful and/or failed backup procedure. To configure email notification:
1. Select an Agent, and click Tools > Agent configuration.
2. Click the Notification tab.
3. Enable or disable the Send e-mail options as you prefer.
4. For the E-mail from address, enter the address from which the notification is sent. This
can be any valid address.
5. For the outgoing mail server, enter the network address of the SMTP server that will
send the email.
For NetWare, you might need to specify the mail server’s address as an IP address. For example, you may need to use 192.168.2.1 instead of some_company.com. You can use a name only if it has already been defined in the system HOSTS file in the SYS:\ETC directory. 6. Enter the recipient email addresses, separated by commas.
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Explanation of Notifications
Send email on successful completion: There may be warnings in the log file, but you can still recover any file from this safeset.
Send email on failure: No backup occurred. You cannot recover any files from the safeset.
Send email on error: There are errors in the log file. You cannot recover the files that have the errors, but you can restore other files from the safeset.
To see whether or not the email notification has succeeded, check the log file.
Note: If you enable one, two or all three conditions, you will only receive one email for each backup session. Enable all three if you want to see all conditions.
SMTP Credentials
In some Agent and CentralControl versions, you can see the SMTP Port and SMTP Credentials fields. In the outgoing SMTP Port field, enter the port number assigned to your SMTP server. The default is port 25.
Depending on your SMTP server security, you might need to enter authentication to allow the Agent to access the server to send email. Enter a valid User name, Password and (if required) a Domain name. This does not get checked or tested until an actual attempt to send an email.
3.6.6
Advanced Tab
This tab provides Execution priority and Bandwidth settings. Execution priority
Drag the slider to select your preferred Execution priority (for Windows and Unix operating systems). This affects the priority of the Agent program on the computer running the backup or recovery. High is the highest priority, and Low takes the lowest CPU usage priority. The Normal (middle) value is usually adequate, depending on the number of concurrent applications that run on the computer during the assigned job.
Bandwidth
This allows you to control the amount of network bandwidth consumed by the Agent during backup and recovery operations. Controlling bandwidth in this way is often called bandwidth throttling.
For example, you might want restrictions on daytime ad-hoc backup/recovery so that online users are not affected, and then unlimited usage at night so that scheduled backups will run as fast as possible.
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This configuration includes:
• Maximum bandwidth (upper limit), in kilobits per second, to be consumed during each backup and recovery
• Period of time during the day that throttling is in effect. Only one time window can be specified, and outside the window, no throttling takes place.
• The days of the week that throttling is in effect
The time period will appear in 24-hour format, or AM/PM format, depending on how the clock is set on the system running the Agent.
The setting is determined at the start of the job. The setting is adjusted dynamically if the job crosses a throttling window boundary.
The throttling setting applies globally to all backup and recovery jobs, but it may be overridden (for ad- hoc backups, for example) by temporarily resetting the bandwidth to Use all available bandwidth. Restore operations can override the setting through the Use all available bandwidth setting in Advanced Restore Options.
Bandwidth throttling applies across multiple jobs running on a single Agent. So each job running on the same Agent will share the allocated bandwidth equally.
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3.6.7
Power Management Tab
This tab is only available for Agents that include the Agent Assistant. This tab allows you to specify what you want to happen regarding your backups (Windows Agents only) in response to these conditions:
• They have failed, or they have been missed.
• The system tries to shut down.
• The system tries to hibernate.
• The system detects a network loss/presence.
You will be notified of the status of your backups and the network through the System Tray icon (Agent Assistant). The icon may show Ready (not processing and the network is up), Processing (a backup is running), or Not Ready (network connectivity is down).
If you pause the mouse pointer on the System Tray icon for the Agent machine, the current status of the Agent will display.
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Hibernation/Standby
(This option is not available for Windows Vista or newer versions of Windows.)
Agent users should not enable hibernation or standby on their desktops or laptops. If the computer is powered down, or off, scheduled backups will not occur at the scheduled time.
If the computer has been powered off (or placed in hibernate or standby mode), you can configure it to automatically start or restart scheduled backup jobs if they were missed or failed to run. This will occur when the computer is powered on.
You can log off, but the computer must continue to run the operating system and stay connected to the network for the backups to run properly.
Note that if you are logged off, there will not be any prompt messages on the Agent machine from the Agent Assistant. It will run as if the prompts for missed/failed backups, shutdown, and
standby/hibernation have been turned off. Advanced Schedule Options
You have two choices when you decide how to handle scheduled backups that may have been missed or failed. This is usually due to hibernation or standby being on, the network being unavailable, or the computer being powered off (shut down).
Start scheduled backup jobs if they have been missed
If this option is enabled, the scheduler will attempt to start any backups that are still waiting to run. Note: If backup schedules overlap, only the last one will have its status reported.
Restart scheduled backup jobs if they have failed
If any backup jobs have started, but fail to finish because of network failure or the computer shutting down, those jobs will be started again.
In either case, you can choose to be prompted before the backup jobs are started or rerun. Use the check boxes below each option for this.
Note: If the same job has been missed several times in a row, only one occurrence of it will run when the backup does occur. So, for example, if you have a backup (the same job) scheduled for midnight every day, and your computer is off for three days, you will get one backup missed and rerun (rather than three).
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Shutdown Options
To prevent the computer from entering shutdown mode when there are backup jobs running, enable the first option in this section. The next attempted shutdown will run if no backup is running.
The second option can provide a prompt for you at the time of shutdown.
The third option only applies to pre-Vista Windows systems. It can provide a prompt to ask whether or not you want to do a backup before the system shuts down.
Note: For the second and third options, the operating system will attempt to stop all running tasks before shutdown. You will see a message that it is attempting to end a program called
Maestro.exe
. This is the Agent Assistant portion of the Agent.Do not click the End Now button for
Maestro.exe
. Wait until it says that the program is not responding, and then click Cancel.If you do click End Now, the computer will shut down without doing a backup. (This may or may not be as you intended.) Also, if you stop the backup and a shutdown is pending, the computer will not shut down.
Hibernation Options
Enable this option to prevent the computer from going into sleep or hibernation mode if there are backup jobs running: