Acronis Backup and Recovery Wishlist
I had some ideas:
*) Storage Node for Linux - our main backup server runs on SLES (with amanda/bacula backup) - only the workstations run acronis. For the storage node we need a seperate Windows VM that has to access the NAS via network. This is far from ideal as a solution. I don't think a storage node is such a complicated piece of software - maybe a linux port is possible. I don't think I'm the only one who doesn't run his NAS on windows.
*) Allow conditions for all backup schemes. At the moment only the custom backup scheme allows for specifying conditions (Start only when storage node is accessible). I'd like that for the GFS-Scheme and also more fine-grained. (Only run backup when client is in this subnet:x.x.x.x/x). At the moment I have to prevent road-warriors from backing up via VPN via firewall rules - and that floods the acronis logs with errors.
*) Why on earth does the AM-Client need to run elevated? It just connects to the server and displays some data... The hard work is done by the Agent - if it works.
*) Don't delay machine shutdown - or at least make it configurable. Users with notebooks don't want to wait 45 minutes before going home just because the backup job is still running. Just abort the backup gracefully and restart on the next boot. I know there is no possibility to have an abort button on that last screen ("Actions are running") - but at least let me specify it in the job options so I can disable it for mobile users.
*) Lots of error messages with unreadable meaning or only cryptic error-numbers. Please improve error reporting and the error messages. It looks like this got better with B&R11 - but I see still room for Improvement.
*) Improve customer support by providing them with a proper Knowledge base. I don't understand why I have to send screenshots and bug reports for 2 weeks just to get told "Oh yes, this is a known bug". If it's a known bug and a fix is already in the works (and in QA hopefully!) then please don't make me waste more time on it. And mark in the public KB what version the article applies to - especially if a bug from B&R10 went unfixed to B&R11!
ABR11: Presently, when creating a backup task, you can specify exceptions to what is backed up. For instance, you can specify that you don't want *.pst files backed up. However, what if I want to backup *.pst files during the full backup, but not during incremental or differential backups? So, my suggestion is to add exception specifications to the scheduling section of the task, but still allow the global setting as it is now.
Does that make sense? Anyone else have a need for this?
Hi Stephen
If excluding PST for example and running a disk backup your incremental should not be too large (if running a file backup they will be as it will back up the entire file each time!) So if not already being done give disk backups a try as you might find this is sufficient.
If not what you could do is create 2x backup jobs pointing to the same archive, Set the full backup your required data then set a new Incremental job with the same archive name same selection set but also set your exclusion rule... this might be a good way for you to exclude the required files from your incremental backups.
I would suggest testing this to ensure it works but I don’t see why not, just remember it’s always best to keep the selection the sale (eg, if your full is backing up Drive C, your incremental should also only backup drive C to avoid issues, so you could also use the Clone feature once the full is created then just simply edit the cloned job into an incremental)
Hope that helps achieve what you are after.
(if running a file backup they will be as it will back up the entire file each time!)
In ABR11, they wouldn't, if the vault is good enough. Local hard disk disk and storage node are considered good ones.
Hi Dev-anon
Sorry I don't think I explained things as well as I should have, what I meant is if you are running a file level backup of say a PST file which is 2GB in size for example... The file level backup will need to backup the entire 2GB file if it has changed (This is because the user has chosen to backup at a file level)....
However if the user is backing up at an image level the same 2GB file might have only changed on a few blocks of the HDD meaning only the changed blocks will be backed up which in some cases could be less than 0.001GB worth of changes for instance.
It would be useful to have a small linux utility on the bootable CD to view the contents of files on the backup.
I would like to see
Linux version of storage node, management server and vm offload engine, save your customers money on windows licencing.
I would like to see
Linux version of storage node, management server and vm offload engine, save your customers money on windows licencing.
I made this post elsewhere in this forum but apparently this is a feature request:
I would like the explorer archive browser (or whatever it's called when you double click a .TIB archive and explore it) to follow NTFS permissions and/or I would like for users to be able to mount archives as virtual drives without having access to the .TIB files. Read on for the reason:
I would like for users to be able to restore their own files without system administrator intervention. Seems like a reasonable and very common situation right? Also seems like it's functionality that is advertised as available with this Acronis Backup & Recovery, however, as far as I can tell this is NOT do-able *securely* using Acronis.
In theory, I just need to grant read-only access on each machine to that particular machine's backup archives. Acronis has this cool feature of being able to browse the .TIB archives and pull any files you'd like. Can't get more "self-service" than that, right? Unfortunately it really IS a "help yourself" situation. Help yourself to system files. Help yourself to files that ARE NOT OWNED BY and SHOULD NOT BE READABLE by you (and weren't readable by you at the time of the backup). Help yourself to your office mate's personal files. Yikes. In a corporate environment with multiple users of a single machine, this is simply not acceptable. Browsing a .TIB archive does not seem to follow any NTFS permissions.
Mounting an archive as a virtual drive DOES follow NTFS permissions and users can browse this mounted drive and pull any files that they could have accessed when the backup was made but NOT any files that they darn well please (e.g. system protected files, other user's files, etc.) Why is this not the behavior when browsing a .TIB archive?
Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there is no mechanism for users to mount and unmount archives as drives without allowing them access to the .TIB files themselves (and thereby giving them the ability to just explore those without mounting them and helping themselves to someone else's files).
Am I missing something here? Is there a way to *securely* provide access for users of a particular machine to that machine's archives and *only* let them see/restore files that they are supposed to have access to (e.g. those that they had access to at the time of the backup)?
I do not want users to be able to make their own backups, manipulate vaults or archives, etc. I just want them to be able to browse the available archives as themselves and access files as themselves (not system or whatever). If the explorer plugin or whatever it is that allows simple browsing of archives followed NTFS file permissions this would be simple: Provide read-only access to the .TIB files for a machine and you are done. Unfortunately the way it is now, unless I'm missing something, we need to make the archives NOT readable by users and then have a system administrator mount up an archive (or multiple archives if they don't know which date the file was modified/deleted) and then unmount them so that proper NTFS file ACL's are honored. What a pain. This completely kills the "self-service restore" feature for our site.
As some others, I would like to see full support for Citrix Xenserver on the ABR product. The problem I have is that I have to install the Acronis agent on each VM and not just on the one host. So, Acronis sees the VMs as physical machines. So to restore I have to end up converting a physical image to virtual just to place it back on a Xenserver host.
I know it is supported in VMWare but would like to see this type of support for Citrix Xenserver.
Hello all,
Thank you for your comments, and feedback. Rest assured it's been forwarded to the Development and Management team, and taken under consideration. We really appreciate you sharing your suggestions and concerns with us, thank you.
David, thanks for bringing this topic up. Actually the Citrix Xenserver is supposed to be fully supported (as VMWare), and the situation you've mentioned is a known issue. Currently our Development team is working on fixing this problem. Unfortunately we do not have any time frames available, but the fix is supposed to be included in the future releases.
Let us know if you have any additional suggestions or questions, we will be glad to address them.
Thank you.
Implement a choosing to which NIC interface to use.
we using laptops and i cant tell to ppl shutdown wireless, since they using it frequently when moving with laptops. But also they connects to LAN and it will be a good idea to process backup via LAN and not WLAN. As far as i googled - this feature was requested since version 9 of B&R ... on this forum.
I would like to be able to set up a job to restore an image to the drive plugged into a particular USB port or SATA port, without having to modify the job each time to locate the destination drive. The drives will be plugged in and removed while Windows is still running, without rebooting. I may want to restore the same image to several drives which will consecutively be plugged into the same port. I would like to be able to run the same job over and over again without modifying it to locate the destination drive each time I plug in a new drive.
Similarly, I want to make a job that will clone from one drive to another without having to locate the drives each time. The drives might be different models each time I run the job. The thing that will remain the same is that the drives will be plugged in to the same port.
I had some ideas:
*) Storage Node for Linux - our main backup server runs on SLES (with amanda/bacula backup) - only the workstations run acronis. For the storage node we need a seperate Windows VM that has to access the NAS via network. This is far from ideal as a solution. I don't think a storage node is such a complicated piece of software - maybe a linux port is possible. I don't think I'm the only one who doesn't run his NAS on windows.
*) Don't delay machine shutdown - or at least make it configurable. Users with notebooks don't want to wait 45 minutes before going home just because the backup job is still running. Just abort the backup gracefully and restart on the next boot. I know there is no possibility to have an abort button on that last screen ("Actions are running") - but at least let me specify it in the job options so I can disable it for mobile users.
*) Lots of error messages with unreadable meaning or only cryptic error-numbers. Please improve error reporting and the error messages. It looks like this got better with B&R11 - but I see still room for Improvement.
*) Improve customer support by providing them with a proper Knowledge base. I don't understand why I have to send screenshots and bug reports for 2 weeks just to get told "Oh yes, this is a known bug". If it's a known bug and a fix is already in the works (and in QA hopefully!) then please don't make me waste more time on it. And mark in the public KB what version the article applies to - especially if a bug from B&R10 went unfixed to B&R11!
I second these requests!
Also I would like to see an option to mark individual backups as "do not delete". It would be nice, especially if you have an image that is older but still a point you would like to be able to restore to; i.e. have a computer that is going to be used by a different employee, but you don't want to have to re-install and configure the computer to minimum specifications for your needs. (I hate reinstalling windows and office every time i set up a laptop, finding and installing drivers in the right order, plus some database software that requires quite a bit of configuration every time...)
Linux Storage node Please!
Is it possible to prepare a bootable DVD/BD image -that will restore C: unattended?
PS
This is for my father, because he is not a good user & crashes his partition C frequently.
He has not enough courage to manage it by a bootable DVD or even by F11 - by himself :(
Thanks.
By the way: happy new-year folks . :))
Hello,
My first post here, but not last, definitely.
1. PXE server configuration utility which at least allows to bind to a specific network interface, as well as allows to interop with existing PXE / DHCP infrastructure
2. Same for Storage Node - the storage node always broadcasts all it's network interfaces to the clients, which would not be so good in complex networks
3. Diff between backup versions
4. More comprehensive error messaging!!!
5. Possibility to send DRP plans on less frequent basis (for example, only on first backup of each month, or on each Full backup, rather than every incremental backup
6. Better interoperability with managed vaults located on NAS (without failing incremental backups), with best option as QPKG Storage Node
7. It seems that modification of default backup options doesn't propagate to all plans using it
8. Better interoperability with VSS (we have lots of warnings shown on VSS, not only on machines with EISA or UEFI/EFI partitions
9. Central enablement/disablement of ASZ on all managed machines
If I miss something already, I will be more than happy to get your feedback on that
And thank you!
How about generating a distastor recovery plan (DRP) without the need to receive it by email. Save it in the location where your backup is being stored or have some other way to access it from the Navigation pane.
I have just had to restore an individual file to a virtual machine (agentless). I have found out that I cannot restore a file to a virtual machine as the machine is not listed so the ability to actually restore a file back to the actual location it was at on a virtual machine would be good without having to navigate through directory structures would be good. :-)
Wish.
- Able to customize and schedule a replication/export job to the tape drive. (I usually backup to tape on weekends, currently I'm using 2 backup jobs writing on 1 vault (1st job Incremental, 2nd Job (weekend) Full w/ tape replication). I wish I could run 1 replication/export job on a weekend for all our managed vaults (3 vaults)
- Able to schedule a tape inventory, before a tape backup job is executed. (I usually need to run inventory manually before acronis is able to detect the tapes)
Thanks a lot, everyone, I've forwarded your comments to the Development team!
My wish is that you will hurry up with your agent for Exchange 2010.
Nearly all of our clients are now running Exchange 2010 SP2 * all of them have ABR11, some purchased the agent for Exchange before realizing that it did not recover from Exchange 2010 & others had Exchange 2003/7 servers & have upgraded to 2010 & we now dont have the ability to restore exchange. Microsoft have released a second service pack for this product, when is Acronis going to catch up? Also please can you confirm that when the agent is released that existing customers who purchased the agent will not have to buy it again?
Best Regards,
Russell
Hello Caytechruss,
Welcome to our Forum, we're glad to greet you here.
Thank you for your comment, I've forwarded it to the Development team.
As for the release of the Exchange agent: according to the Developers, it will be included into the next version of Acronis Backup and Recovery (it will be ABR11.5), and Exchange brick level backup feature will be introduced in the separate add-on (Agent). Currently the licensing scheme is being discussed, but I'm sure we'll manage to introduce a licensing that will be suitable for all our Customers.
I understand that Acronis Recovery for Exchange version doesn't suit your needs since it doesn't support Exchange 2010. Do you want me to refund this license for you? Let me know via Private message.
Let us know if you have any additional questions, we will gladly address them.
Thank you.
Hello Caytechruss,
Welcome to our Forum, we're glad to greet you here.
Thank you for your comment, I've forwarded it to the Development team.
As for the release of the Exchange agent: according to the Developers, it will be included into the next version of Acronis Backup and Recovery (it will be ABR11.5), and Exchange brick level backup feature will be introduced in the separate add-on (Agent). Currently the licensing scheme is being discussed, but I'm sure we'll manage to introduce a licensing that will be suitable for all our Customers.
I understand that Acronis Recovery for Exchange version doesn't suit your needs since it doesn't support Exchange 2010. Do you want me to refund this license for you? Let me know via Private message.
Let us know if you have any additional questions, we will gladly address them.
Thank you.
We bought the MS Exchange product before it supported exchange 2010. so if this is going to be rolled into ABR11, that is good, but how does that affect us?
Hello Carl,
Thank you for your question. I understand that the situation might seem disturbing.
For what we know now, if you have Acronis Recovery for Exchange, and a valid support agreement, you will get the Exchange Agent upgrade for free according to our License Policy. It's will be a separate Agent, and according to current plans it will not require purchasing ABR functionality in addition.
Still, as said, it's currently in production, and the licensing is still being discussed, so we can't promise anything.
We also surely won't do anything that will be inconvenient for our Clients, so I think there's nothing to worry about.
Thank you.
Hello Everyone -- I need to get some info - I've been using True Image Echo Server V 8 which it has work for me without problems on my network. Now, I have several new employees who do not understand how to place the docments and other info on the file server or just work off the server so I can backup main file servers and so forth. So, I'm looking for software that I can backup their machines onto the main file server. Any ideas - I do not want to rebuild thier machines! Thanks
The one thing I would like is a timeout on backup jobs.
The one thing that is really bugging me is that when a backup job needs interaction it stops to wait for that interactin. If any subsiquent jobs need running they sit awaiting the previous job. As nearly all my backups need to run over night you can imagine that I come in the morning to find that the first backup job for the day is screwed and so nothing else has happened.
Please consider this.
Hi Michael,
One of the options you might like to look into is "Do not show messages and dialogs while processing (silent mode)"
http://www.acronis.com/support/documentation/ABR11/index.html#1302.html
We suggest the option about to our customers in conjunction with the "Task failure handling" option:
http://www.acronis.com/support/documentation/ABR11/index.html#1304.html
This means if a tasks needs user interaction as you have faced issue ABR11 will try to fix the issue but if it can't it will fail the job and avoid the issues you have run into with it running indefinitely waiting for user response. The second part of the setup is to enable task failure handing and you could say if a task fails for whatever reason retry that backup job x amount of time with a x delay... For example retry job 3 times with 30min intervals.
We have found this option to be very helpful one some problematic customer sites but we are now suggesting most customers to implement this kind of setup to avoid the issues you have run into and reduce the requirements of user interaction.
Hope it helps, all the best!
Trust me to miss that.
Do excuse my stupidity, I will return to my dark pit and bang my head against the wall for a while.
I want one ability from all of Acronis family.
SAVE ALL PASSWORDS. After restarts does not ask passwords again again again.
In backup plan creation, i would like to have an exclusion predefined for removable media drives, i.e. cd drives.
As it is, unless i explicitly go through every machine and deselect the cd drives (and sd card, memory stick, etc drives) when acronis gets to an empty CD drive, it fails and deletes the entire backup it just created of the hard drive.
(No backup is made due to the failure of acronis to recognize that the CD drive is empty? really?)
Hi Davidb, The option you can try out is when crating your backup plan try to use the backup all "Fixed Volumes" option, this refers to all volumes other than removable media. Fixed volumes include volumes on SCSI, ATAPI, ATA, SSA, SAS and SATA devices, and on RAID arrays.
Reference: http://www.acronis.com/support/documentation/ABR11/index.html#2710.html
Hope that helps you fix the issues you have been facing... All the best!
Better USB 3.0 support:
- performance writing to USB 3 device is very poor (both directly backing up to USB3 and replicating to or from it) and taking 100% CPU
- USB 3.0 devices do not get recognized during boot from Acronis bootable media
Better USB 3.0 support:
- performance writing to USB 3 device is very poor (both directly backing up to USB3 and replicating to or from it) and taking 100% CPU
- USB 3.0 devices do not get recognized during boot from Acronis bootable media
Hi, 2 things....
1) Bring back the Task List to 11 how it was like in 10 so I can see all the individual tasks for each PC of a plan rather than looking through the logs.
2) Option to limit the number of simultaneous backup jobs. There is distributed start time but because the times are a random value so can have all of them running at once or have none running at all !!
Thanks
An update process that doesnt require you to fully download the setup again, i find that very irritating
An update process that doesnt require you to fully download the setup again, i find that very irritating
I second this!
With TI I would like to be able use a bit tougher encryption for the created images.
It would be great to have regular and a rescue media boot-loader menus, which would allow selecting booting into any chosen backed-up image, decrypt it on the fly and use it as a mounted volume.
I want to make changes to files and folders, so I don't even need to boot into a "regular" none-encrypted disk anymore.
I guess, I would like for TI to be a "Truecrypt" of sorts, in addition to what TI is today.
I realize that TI has already basic functionality like this, it is just isn't as "visible", robust and easy to use today as I would've liked it to be.
I want such a feature to be better developed, integrated and implemented into TI's future releases.
It would be also great to implement a HD/SSD seeding for online back-ups so the initial back-up is done at users' homes and then shipped to Acronis. Some companies even lend their own (industrial-quality) disks to users for this.
One thing that I have come across while working with this product happens during the replication process. We back up to a SAN first, then replicate to an external hard drive for taking the backups offsite. The SAN holds roughly three weeks of backups at any given time, and the external drives hold a week's worth. When ABR11 replicates to the external drive it (from my observation) replicates the ENTIRE first location to the external drive, then deletes anything older than a week. In my case, the two big servers I work with replicate into the next workday (bad) and either fill up the drive before their tasks are done (causing the task to fail) or never finish before I have to pull the drive (causing the task to fail), simply because ABR11 is trying to copy 3x more data than it should. The best part is, when you are forced to kill the replication process, the backups are copied starting from the oldest files. So... you never get the data from last night, which is what you actually want.
I would love to see the replication process copy ONLY the files that the other locations specify.
can it have a catalog of all backups done so you can search for file needed to recover then know which backup to get it from?
We use USB drives and tape drives for back up, as of now we have to search each drive to find file.
can you manage machines on if the server where management console is lost?
can you have 2 management consoles for same machines?