Theory

Based on selected license Acronis Backup Advanced allows backup and restore of drives/volumes or whole machines, both physical and virtual, to same or dissimilar hardware, granular backup and restore of Exchange data, application-aware backup of machines with SQL server, SharePoint Server, Active Directory and granular restore of these applications' data.

Detailed product comparison see: Acronis Backup 11.7: Products Comparison

Count number of required licenses: Acronis Backup 11.7: Licensing

• One license of Acronis Backup Advanced for PC/for Windows Server/for Linux Server for each physical or virtual machine.
• One license of Acronis Backup Advanced for Exchange/for SQL/for SharePoint/for Active Directory for each physical or virtual machine with respective application.
• One license of Acronis Backup Advanced Hyper-V/for VMware/for RHEV/for Citrix XenServer/for Oracle VM for one physical host to backup all virtual machines on this host. Application-aware backup is included in this license (you only need 1 license to back up all virtual machines and SQL Server/Exchange Server/SharePoint Server/Active Directory running on these virtual machines). Acronis Universal License allows installing software on any of the host operating systems listed above.

You can find more details in the Licensing FAQ.

Practice

You can check prices and purchase products online on our website or by a reseller.

You can use 30 days free trial prior to purchasing product. You can download trial installation on Acronis website (click on Try now).

The product is fully functional (with these limitations: Acronis Universal Restore is not available, under bootable media only recovery is available, and you cannot commit changes in Acronis Disk Director). After purchasing a full license you will not need to reinstall Acronis Backup, only license change will be required. All settings will be kept (this means no need to recreate backup plans or vaults).

Theory

Acronis Backup Advanced should have a Management Agent installed on every machine you want to backup:

• Agent for Windows to back up a physical or virtual Windows machine
• Agent for Linux to back up a physical or virtual Linux machine
• Agent for Hyper-V to back up virtual machines on a Hyper-V host without installing agents inside VMs
• Virtual Appliance on an ESX-Host to back up virtual machines without installing agents inside VMs (Agent for ESXi (Windows) installed on a Windows machine outside of the ESX(i) environment is an alternative to Virtual Appliance)
• Agent for Exchange for granular backup of Exchange data
• Agent for SQL for single-pass backup of SQL/SharePoint databases
• Agent for Active Directory for single-pass backup of Active Directory data

and components for centralized management installed on a dedicated machine, on different machines or on one with a Management agent:

• Acronis Management Console
• Acronis Management Server
• Acronis License Server
• Acronis Storage Node

components for centralized management do not require licenses, you can install multiple Storage nodes, Management consoles etc.

Practice

Follow the step-by-step description with screenshots provided in Acronis Backup Advanced: Installation

Theory

Installed software will prompt you with a recommendation to create Acronis bootable media. Do not skip this step. 

Acronis bootable media is a physical media (CD, DVD, USB flash drive etc.) that boots on a machine and enables you to run Acronis Backup Agent to recover a crashed operating system, recover a backup on bare metal, back up offline any data that for any reason cannot be backed up online etc.

Practice

1. Create bootable media: Acronis Backup 11.7/11.5/11: Creating Acronis Bootable Media

2. Check that bootable media detects internal HDDs of your machine:

1. Boot the machine with the created Bootable media;
2. Click on Restore now;
3. See whether internal drives of your machine are detected under Where to recover.

If drives are not detected, the HDD or RAID controller use proprietary drivers which cannot be added to Acronis Linux-based bootable media. Create a WinPE-based bootable media and add drivers or contact Acronis Support to check if a custom bootable media is available for your hardware.

Theory

A place for storing backups is called a vault. There are personal, centralized managed and centralized unmanaged vaults. Creating vaults will serve to quick access (storage is accessible within product GUI) and easy archive management (viewing archives and backups within archives, browsing backup content, restore, validation or mount of backups, safely delete backups).

While personal vaults are specific for each managed machine (and can only be accessible and created using direct connection to the machine), centralized vaults are designed to store backups of multiple machines.

Difference between managed and unmanaged vaults.

Practice

Storing backups on tapes

Step-by-step guide to backing up a machine to a directly attached tape device.

Step-by-step guide to backing up to a tape device attached to a storage node.

Storing backups on RDX devices

Only personal vaults can be created on removable devices (such as RDX). It means you need to connect directly to the agent machine (open the Console -> Connection -> Connection to a remote machine).

There are two modes of working the RDX devices: Fixed drive mode (used for one RDX device and cassette permanently attached to the machine) and Removable media mode (used for routing of RDX cassettes). For more information see Web Help.

Setting up deduplication

Deduplication is a technology of detecting data repetition and storing the identical data only once. This helps to save storage space.

Deduplication is set for a vault during vault creation:

When a deduplicating vault is created, you can select this vault as backup destination in your backup plan.

Deduplication is a resources consuming process. Please check deduplication best practices in this article.

Theory

Acronis Backup Advanced creates full, incremental and differential backups. For more information see Difference between Full, Incremental and Differential Backup.

Acronis Backup Advanced suggests you to select one of these backup schemes:

• Simple: full or incremental backups, schedule, retention of old backups available
• Grandfather-Father-Son: monthly full plus weekly differential plus daily incremental backups, retention rules available
• Custom: custom combination of full, differential and incremental backups, scheduling retention of old backups available
• Tower of Hanoi: level-based (next-level backups are twice as rare as previous-level backups, up to 16 levels), retention of old backups
• Manual start: full/incremental/differential backups

Practice

1. Start Acronis Management console.
2. Connect to the Agent machine or to the Management Server.
3. Navigate to Backup plans and tasks:
   
4. Click New -> Backup plan:
   

Details:

Backing up machines/disks/volumes or files/folders

Select data type to back up:

Backing up machines, drives or volumes:

Backing up files or folders:

Backing up SQL, SharePoint, Active Directory

Available in:

• Acronis Backup Advanced 11.7 for SQL, Acronis Backup Advanced 11.5 for SQL
• Acronis Backup Advanced 11.7 for SharePoint, Acronis Backup Advanced 11.5 for SharePoint
• Acronis Backup Advanced 11.7 for Active Directory, Acronis Backup Advanced 11.5 for Active Directory
• Acronis Backup Advanced 11.7 for VMware/Hyper-V/RHEV/Citrix XenServer/Oracle VM, Acronis Backup Advanced 11.5 for VMware/Hyper-V/RHEV/Citrix XenServer/Oracle VM

You can backup SQL Server databases, SharePoint databases or Active Directory with single-pass backup (application-aware backup of drives/volumes with possibility of granular restore) both locally and to Acronis Cloud.

1. Install Agent for SQL to backup SQL Server or SharePoint Server. Install Agent for Active Directory to backup Active Directory. Single-pass backup is not available in agent-less backup of virtual machines; you need to install Agent for SQL along with the Agent for Windows in the Guest OS of the virtual machine. More information here.

2. Select machines, drives or volumes under items to backup:

3. Make sure single-pass is activated:

More about single-pass backup settings here.

Backing up Exchange data

Available in:

• Acronis Backup Advanced 11.7 for Exchange, Acronis Backup Advanced 11.5 for Exchange
• Acronis Backup Advanced 11.7 for VMware/Hyper-V/RHEV/Citrix XenServer/Oracle VM, Acronis Backup Advanced 11.5 for VMware/Hyper-V/RHEV/Citrix XenServer/Oracle VM

You can back up the whole Information store or separate mailboxes or e-mails. More information here.
You need separate backup plan(s) for Exchange items.

Install Agent for Exchange to backup Exchange Server. Granular backup of Exchange items is not available in agent-less backup of virtual machines; you need to install Agent for Exchange in the Guest OS of the virtual machine. 

Select Information Store to back up:

Define metadata collection level under Default backup options:

Select level according to a possible restore scenario. More information in Acronis Backup Advanced 11.7/11.5 for Exchange: Usage Scenarios.

Alternatively select separate mailboxes to back up:

Backing up virtual machines

There are two options to backup virtual machines: in agentless backup and with from within the guest OS.

Choose agent-based backup, when:

• virtualization platform is RHEV, Citrix XenServer or Oracle;
• you want to perform application-aware backup;
• you need to overcome limitations of agent-less backup.

Virtual machines are listed under Machines with agents.

 

Agent-less backup means you can install the Acronis Management Agent (Agent for Hyper-V, Agent for VMware) on the host without installing any agent inside the guest operation system of the VMs.

You can choose agent-less backup, when:

• virtualization platform is VMware or Hyper-V.

Virtual machines are listed under Virtual machines. Creating a backup plan, click on Virtual machines -> All virtual machines -> select machines you want to backup.

Automated deletion of older backups

Depending on the selected backup schema, you can set up automated retention of old backups. For more information see Acronis Backup: Retention of Backups.

Setting up e-mail notifications

Follow this article: Acronis Backup: Setting Up E-Mail Notifications.

Backing up to Cloud

1. Activate your Acronis Backup to Cloud subscription.
2. Select Cloud storage as backup destination and log in into your account:
   

Theory

Acronis Backup Advanced allows you to restore your system to the same machine or to dissimilar hardware (by using Acronis Universal Restore technology), bring your system and databases online immediately after recovery is started (Acronis Active Restore technology) or convert a physical machine to a virtual one.

Practice

Restoring to dissimilar hardware
Follow this step-by-step guide.

Conversion to virtual machine
Acronis Backup: Scheduled Backup Conversion to VM
Acronis Backup 11.7/11.5: Converting Backup Archive of a Windows System to a Virtual Machine
Acronis Backup 11.7/11.5: Importing the Converted Virtual Machine Files to VMware ESX Server
Acronis Backup 11.7/11.5: Importing Converted Virtual Machine to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Platform
Acronis Backup: Converting Backup Archive to a KVM/RHEV Virtual Machine
Acronis Backup: Importing Converted Virtual Machine to Citrix XenServer

Theory

Configuring software, especially in large environments, may lead to errors. We have created troubleshooting guidelines for you with prerequisites, clear step-by-step instructions and information we will need to help you with the issue.

Practice

Installation

• Serial number is not accepted
• Installation fails

Connection between components

• Adding Machine to AMS fails
• Connection to a remote machine fails

License-related errors

• "Feature is disabled"
• "There is no license required to perform the operation"

Snapshot/VSS

• "Failed to create volume snapshot"
• VSS-related errors

Virtual machines

• Backing up virtual machines fails
• Recovering/converting to a VM fails

Exchange and other applications

• Information store backup
• Mailbox-level backup
• Express backup
• CDP backup
• Exchange data recovery

• SQL Server backup
• SQL and SharePoint data recovery
• Applications malfunction or files corruption after recovery

Monitoring

• E-mail notifications
• Cataloging
• AMS reporting
• Archives incorrectly displayed in vault

Recovery

• Recovery fails

Performance

• Slow backup or another operation
• Slow deduplication
• Hardware resources overuse

Crash/lockup

• Application crashes
• Application hangs

Please contact Acronis Support if you need assistance.