Question about restoring a High Availability Hyper-v VM and Exchange Question..
Good day,
Im in the early stage of testing Acronis Backup 12 and I noticed the followings:
1. When I install the backup client on the exchange vm, it created two exchange entry of the same exchange vm within the exchange console of the Acronis Backup 12 dashboard is that normal?
2. I backed up a hyper-v vm that was part of a cluster, I deleted the vm (to test out the restore) and after I successfully restored the vm (picking a node to restore to), I noticed it was no longer part of the fail over cluster. In other words if you back up a high available VM and restore, it no longer gets restored part of the cluster it restores it to one of your Hyper-v nodes you select. Is this normal behavior?
3. If I decide to run a Schuyler backup on a vm that is on node 1, come next day I migrate the vm to another node aka node 2, would the schedule backup still execute, and yes node 2 has been added to Acronis Backup 12.
So far I like what I have been seeing.. :)
Thank you,
Hi Vasily,
Thank you very much for your reply. After rebooting the server the double entire went away so issue #1 is no longer an issue :). In regards to #2, thank you for pointing that out, vm was re-added to to the cluster np. In regards to #3, it worked as you describe but I did notice, if I backup a vm that is on hyper-v node #1, than migrate the vm to node 2, the schedule backup will try node 1 first (it will give an error) than it will kick off the back once it finds it on node 2. Is that normal?
Additional questions:
1) Is there a easy and friendly way of viewing what schedule backups are configured, without needing to click on each vms (that to see the schedule job it contains?
2) In regards to a backup recover, should I be navigating to the backup section (left side of dashboard) and drilling down to the backup detestation to select the files or exchange mailbox to restore or is it best just to preform the recovery within the devices area for that particular recovery such if its a exchage mailbox restore select the exchange vm and select the recover option from there.
3) In regards to system state backup, when I add the vm that is the AD does it suppose to create item entry on the left side of the dashboard like it did when I added the Exchange vm? By the looks of it, it doesnt and instead I located the AD vm and when I click on backup there is now a systemstate option, just curious thats all.
4) In regards to restoring systemstate, would I be able to use this Acronis systemstate backup to restore Active Directory Data? In other words if I need to recover an OU object that was deleted in AD would the backup that Acronis took of the systemstate allow me to accomplish this? In order to recover AD objects from the systemstate backup, one most boot up the AD server into DSRM (Directory Service Restore Mode) but this only works with the windows server backup file, does Acronis provide an alternative for this solution or do you guys provide a tool to convert the systemstate backup file that Acronis captured and covert it over to the Windows backup file.
Thank you kindly,
Hi Vasily,
In regards to #3, it worked as you describe but I did notice, if I backup a vm that is on hyper-v node #1, than migrate the vm to node 2, the schedule backup will try node 1 first (it will give an error) than it will kick off the back once it finds it on node 2. Is that normal?
Yes, this is a normal behavior - technically the backup tasks are applied to both nodes of the Hyper-V cluster and run on each of them at the same time. On the node where there is no VM (migrated from this node) the tasks should silently succeed doing nothing, while on the other node it should run normally (e.g. create backup). This adjustment is done because there is practically no centralized management point like in case with VMware where we have vCenter which allows us to track migrations in more elegant way. Still running tasks on both nodes should not produce any visible errors, except in the activities logs in the currently released builds. This known bug (internal ID: ABR-114345 ) that the error still appears in activities log is fixed already and the fix will become available in the next updates for Acronis Backup 12.
Additional questions:
1) Is there a easy and friendly way of viewing what schedule backups are configured, without needing to click on each vms (that to see the schedule job it contains?
You can check the Devices list and the "Next backup" column to see when the tasks will be run next time. In future updates we will also be adding backup plans management section, so you can check all the currently existing backup plans and manage them separately. Currently you can check the list of _all_ applicable backup plans from Backup tab when you select a VM (there is no need to jump between VMs) and you can drill down into each of them to check the schedule.
2) In regards to a backup recover, should I be navigating to the backup section (left side of dashboard) and drilling down to the backup detestation to select the files or exchange mailbox to restore or is it best just to preform the recovery within the devices area for that particular recovery such if its a exchage mailbox restore select the exchange vm and select the recover option from there.
It's easier to perform these tasks from Backups tab especially if you need to recover to some new location. Note that from "Backups" you can also select the agent which will be browsing the backup, so you'll have control over the recovery traffic flow. The same applies to Exchange items recovery - you need to select (to browse from) the Agent for Exchange or Agent for VMware (Windows), where both of them allow Exchange items recovery.
3) In regards to system state backup, when I add the vm that is the AD does it suppose to create item entry on the left side of the dashboard like it did when I added the Exchange vm? By the looks of it, it doesnt and instead I located the AD vm and when I click on backup there is now a systemstate option, just curious thats all.
System state backup is applicable to agent-based backup only, e.g. if you install an Agent inside the VM - only then you'll get the option to create system state backups. They can be restored only to the same machine where system state backup was taken from, so there is no specific section on the left side as it is for Exchange data (you can perform system state recovery only from Devices->Select the machine->Recovery tab).
4) In regards to restoring systemstate, would I be able to use this Acronis systemstate backup to restore Active Directory Data? In other words if I need to recover an OU object that was deleted in AD would the backup that Acronis took of the systemstate allow me to accomplish this? In order to recover AD objects from the systemstate backup, one most boot up the AD server into DSRM (Directory Service Restore Mode) but this only works with the windows server backup file, does Acronis provide an alternative for this solution or do you guys provide a tool to convert the systemstate backup file that Acronis captured and covert it over to the Windows backup file.
Thank you kindly,
I'm afraid there is no granular AD recovery capability in Acronis Backup 12 yet, and system state backup can only be used to revert it back, but not to perform AD objects recoveries or convert such backup into default Windows backup file.
Thank you.
Vasily,
You have been such a great help and thank you very much the great explanation. Its good to know that some of the issue that I have encountered are being worked on. In regards to systemstate backup, if you cant leverage the Acronis systemstate for a AD recovery capability that I dont really see a point or difference vs using the Windows backup builtin application to perform the systemstate backup which includes AD objects.
Do you see any advantage of using Acronis to backup systemstate?
So far I am really impressed with Acronis backup 12, you guys came a long way with this product. Other than missing a backup plan management section (which you guys are working on) its well thought off. I will be installing it for one of my customers today and will be purchasing the license as well :).
Thank you Vasily,
Hi Paul,
Thank you for the feedback, it's much appreciated. What concerns your question about system state backup, I would tend to agree with you that using native Windows backup makes more sense for this purpose as it would allow AD objects recoveries. With Acronis system state backup is primarily used to roll system back if anything goes wrong, since this type of recovery is typically faster than full system restore (except for VM recoveries where we have "incremental restore" functionality).
Thank you.
Hi Vasily,
Yes I agree that makes sense in regards to a simple recovery vs a full recovery using the Windows backup. Either way I will be running both :).
I will start a new thread if I come across another issue during my installation tonight for the client.
Have a great day,