Support Digest: Q1 2019

Hello dear colleagues,

I welcome all of you to the latest edition of support digest for service providers!  This issue of MSP digest aggregates the most important news related to Acronis Data Cloud platform for the last three months (Jan - March 2019), so there are quite a lot of exciting updates included!

At the beginning of the year, Acronis Data Cloud 7.8 Update 2 was rolled out on all Acronis data centers. With this update, the Acronis flagship cloud product offers enhancements and addresses the issues found in the previous releases. Apart from that, the Platform now supports seven more languages:

●    Bulgarian                    ●    Norwegian                   ●     Swedish                      ●    Finnish

●     Serbian                       ●    Malay                          ●     Indonesian

• Hot topics
• New KB articles
• New training materials
• Datacenter and agent updates
• Release notes and documentation

Hot topics

As usual, we’re reviewing the most common questions coming from Partners during the past month. Below are the most common topics.

#1 ► Protecting applications

Acronis Backup Cloud provides two options to protect Microsoft applications (Exchange, SQL, Active Directory):

1. Application-aware entire machine backup
2. Database backup

When using option #1 Acronis Backup Agent not only backs up the entire device but also collects meta-data of MS applications. Thus, the applications are backed up consistently and in a state, they were at the moment when the backup was taken. When the entire machine archive with application option is restored, the application itself will be available immediately after the machine is recovered. Moreover, it will be possible to recover specific application items (Exchange Databases, SQL Databases, Exchange mailboxes) right from entire machine backup!

Application-aware disk-level backup is available for physical machines and for ESXi virtual machines.

Option #2 suits the needs of those, who want just the applications to be backed up, nothing else. With such approach, Acronis Backup Agent backs up only Exchange SQL Databases and the files associated with them. Resulting archive is much smaller compared to the one created using the "entire machine" option. In this case, SQL/Exchange databases can be recovered either as files to any available destination or directly into running SQL/Exchange server without causing any interruptions to production. Exact description of SQL and Exchange items can be found here: SQL Databases, Exchange Databases, Exchange mailboxes.

Before using either of the options above make sure all pre-requisites are met.

#2 ► Recovery point vs archive deletion

Sometimes it is not obvious for Partners who just started using the service what is the difference between deleting a recovery point and deleting an archive. Let's compare both operations and how to perform them.

Deletion of a recovery point means you delete a single backup from backup's chain. Others just stay in place intact.  To delete a recovery point, choose the archive you want to remove backups from and click (x) icon under particular recovery point. Please check step-by-step instruction.

Opposite to that, whenever one is intended to remove an entire archive, the entire backup chain is being deleted. That means once the entire archive is erased, there is no way to recover any items from that. Archive's deletion is irreversible! To perform the removal navigate to BACKUPS tab, choose the archive(s) you'd like to delete and click (x) icon to the right:

#3 ► Cloud storage usage under Backup console differs from usage under Account management console

A common scenario:

1. Some backup is finished successfully
2. Cloud storage usage under Backup console is updated according to the amount of data transferred to Cloud during backup.
3. You switch to Account console and see that Cloud storage usage value is different from the numbers you saw at Backup console.

The root cause of such behavior is the mechanism of Cloud space usage recalculation. The algorithm that gathers statistics is a cyclic one, therefore the usage is not updated immediately after some changes happened, but with a small delay. Overall Acronis guarantees that Cloud space usage will be updated within 8 hours since the moment when the value of Cloud storage has been changed.

Also, you may refer to the following article describing other possible reasons of Cloud storage space usage discrepancy.

  Did you know that we've just introduced a new support channel for Service Providers - Live chat:

To submit a support request via chat:

1. Log in to your Acronis Account or create a new one if you haven't registered yet   https://kb.acronis.com/regacc
2. On the Support tab select Support for Service Providers https://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/contact-us/
3. Select Technical issue
4. Select the product you are using and click Chat now to start the live chat

New KB articles

Acronis Backup Cloud

Acronis Software-Defined Infrastructure

Acronis Software-Defined Infrastructure Appliance

Acronis Files Cloud

See all new KB articles here: https://kb.acronis.com/new

New training materials

Acronis plugin for CW Automate - new video tutorials:

1. How to Install and Configure the Acronis Data Cloud Plugin for ConnectWise Automate
2. How to Use the Acronis Data Cloud Plugin for ConnectWise Automate

All available training and certification materials for all MSP products can be found at https://kb.acronis.com/MSPtraining

Datacenter and agent updates

Current agent versions:

• Backup Agent for Windows (v.12.5.12420)
• Backup Agent for Mac (v.12.5.12420)
• Backup Agent for Linux (v.12.5.12420)

Release notes and documentation

• Acronis Data Cloud 7.8 Update 2 release notes
• Acronis Backup plugin for WHM & cPanel
• Acronis Backup Cloud APS 2.0 Update 14 (2.2-2052) Release Notes
• Acronis iOS Files Cloud Release 8.2.5