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Help with backup and instant restore

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Hello,
 
I am using Acronis backup 12.5 to backup a win10 workgroup server machine. The machine makes its standard backups to an external hard drive and  I have tested instant restore on my backups on that specific server machine, and it works beautifully.
My scenario I am unclear about is a case where the main server has a major failure and cannot boot. My plan was to disconnect the portable hard drive take it to another computer in the office and run the instant restore via that other machine, thus vitualise the main server and allowing the office to function. What I am unclear about is the specific process to do this, at first I attempted it via the bootable media ( WinPE) but the only option you have is to do a full restore of some sorts via universal restore, as instant restore seems unavailable unlike when the restore is run from the windows version of the backup agent.
If I try to do the instant restore on that machine in its native windows environment, does this mean a temporary copy of Acronis Backup 12.5 needs to be installed on
the alternate machine? if so how do I handle the licensing issue as currently only the main machine had the licensed version running on it, and in my case that machine is no longer bootable?
 
All of my machine are running Win 10 Pro and have the Hyper V Platform and management tools installed already
 
Hope the above makes sense, thanks for any input.
 
 
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Posts: 22
Comments: 3800

Hi Russell,

The instant restore functionality depends on Hyper-V, so since Hyper-V services are not available from bootable media environment (Linux-based one), there is no possibility to run Instant restore from this environment. You need to pick up some Windows machine (with Hyper-V running on it), connect portable drive to it and install Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V onto it. This agent should be registered on Acronis Management Server which I assume is already installed somewhere in your network.

From licensing perspective you won't need additional licenses to perform instant restore (aka "mounting VM from backup") using this newly installed agent, since the licenses are required only for backing up data, but not for recovery, so neither entire VM restore nor mounting VM from backup will require a license.

Thank you.

In reply to by truwrikodrorow…

Thanks, I was successful in installing Acronis 12.5 advance on another workstation and running the external hard drive image via instant restore.

My question is what are the best case practices under the instant restore session? For example if the the main server is down for two or three days. Can this instant restore vm session be used like the original server was for the time period ? (boot up,  serve MySQL data, store information and make normal Acronis incremental backups every hour)

I have noticed under the vm, the servers windows 10 is saying it is not activated, although it was under its physical machine ? also when the vm is shutdown, there is a 4-5 min period on the next  boot up where hyperV seems to be "merging" data?

When the main physical machine has been restored they will probably be a difference in the stored data between its virtual instance and the original physical machine, what is the best way to have the virtual machine imaged so that it can be restored back to its physical form? Is this restore image made inside the instant restore vm session, or is the target machine that is running the vm host the one to make the image that allows the original server machine to be restored?

Sorry for the noob questions, but VM can be tricky to see the work flow, particularly when it is time to restore back to physical.

 

Russell

 

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Posts: 22
Comments: 3800

Hi Russell,

Mounting a VM from backup (instant restore) on Hyper-V primary scenario is to allow services (for example web server which was running inside a failed machine) running while the full recovery is done. Note however that the changes made to VM while it's mounted from backup cannot be regularly preserved, so if the failed server is running some database, then you should consider full VM restore instead of instant one or use the method described below.

The process of persisting the data inside mounted VM, e.g. moving the data from backup onto production VM storage in background, while mounted VM is running, is called "finalization" and it's currently supported for VMs mounted on vSphere only. For VMs mounted on Hyper-V we're planning to add "finalization" support during this year and currently there is only manual finalization possible - see this thread where I described the process which might be quite tricky one.

Alternative method: To capture the changes inside mounted VM you won't be able to back it up using the Hyper-V agent, e.g. only backup via Agent for Windows/Linux installed _inside_ the guest OS of the VM will be possible. If the original (failed physical) machine was registered on the management server, then the mounted VM (from the backup of this physical machine) will also try to register on the management server since it runs Agent for Windows/Linux inside - there may be conflict. Therefore the original physical machine should be removed from the Devices list (it should appear as offline machine in this list) to avoid this and get the backups running. The mounted VM will appear twice: once as a Hyper-V VM - item 3 on attached screen shot; and once as a machine with agent inside it - item 1 on the attached screen shot (that's the type which you'll need to back up). Item 4 = regular Hyper-V VM reported by Agent for Hyper-V and item 2 = regular vSphere VM reported by Agent for VMware.

Basing on the above you can back up the mounted VM using Agent for Windows/Linux installed inside it (select item 1 type from the Devices list) and then, once you get the hardware, restore the physical machine using this backup.

The guest Windows activation indeed may be required if Windows detects hardware changes and this is something which we don't control on Acronis side or otherwise it would contradict with Microsoft licensing policy.

Thank you.

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