Workstation Backup Plan: Export/Import, Template, Copy?
I need to create a backup plan for a number of laptops which have standalone ABR10 Workstation (not Advanced) installed. The plan is essentially the same for all laptops, with only a few changes required for each individual machine.
Is there any way that I can create a template of the plan which I can then copy to the individual laptops and edit to incorporate the individual changes?
Is it correct that Acronis backup plans are XML files that can (if you're careful and understand XML) be edited outside of Acronis?
Where does Acronis store its backup plans in Windows 7 Professional x64? What do the plan filenames look like? Is each plan a single file, or are there multiple files for backup, schedule, retention, etc.?
Thanks for your help.
Hello Thomas and dev-anon,
Thank you for your posts and your help.
Thomas, that you very much for your interesting question. I will submit it to our Customer Listening System so that we may implement this feature in a future version of our software.
Please let us know if you have additional questions.
Thank you.
Hello Thomas and dev-anon,
Thank you for your posts and your help.
Thomas, that you very much for your interesting question. I will submit it to our Customer Listening System so that we may implement this feature in a future version of our software.
Please let us know if you have additional questions.
Thank you.
How about answers to the questions in my original message?
In the "Upgrading to stand-alone editions of Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10 Technical white paper" I find the following:
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3.3.2 Importing individual tasks
Acronis True Image Echo stores each task as a .tis file. By default, these files are located in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Acronis\TrueImage\Scripts.
The names of the .tis files are Universally Unique Identifiers (UUIDs), such as 6AED5F49-7EED-4E3E-939E-19360A44137F.tib.tis. Each file has the XML format. The tag in the file specifies the task name as it appears in the list of tasks.
To import a task
1. Determine the file name of the task that you want to import—for example, by examining the content of the tag.
2. Change the current folder to the one where the upgrade tool is installed.
3. Run the following command, specifying the task's file name:
cscript UpgradeTool.vbs Script -f "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Acronis\TrueImage\Scripts\6AED5F49-7EED-4E3E-939E-19360A44137F.tib.tis"
As a result, the task is imported as an Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 task and becomes part of a backup plan.
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So that's how it was done in True Image Echo. Where can I find a parallel discussion of how it's done in Backup & Recovery 10?
[deleted]
Now that's a hack. But it seems to work. Partially.
So that's how it was done in True Image Echo. Where can I find a parallel discussion of how it's done in Backup & Recovery 10?
It is done only after upgrade from Echo to B&R 10, and it's used to convert Echo's tasks to B&R backup plans, not to create new Echo tasks. So you can install Echo, create the task, take its task file (optionally edit it manually as it is human-readable unlike that of B&R's) and perform a deploy on every B&R 10 machine. But at least the schedule seems to be not imported this way - you will always get "manually later" scheme.
On a semi-related note, the 'what to backup' format in cases of disks as it is implemented in B&R11 'export task' feature seems not to allow such a deployment either.
I'm not suggesting that using Echo to copy a backup plan in ABR10 is viable.
But here's how Echo handled backup job definition files:
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Acronis True Image Echo stores each task as a .tis file. By default, these files are located in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Acronis\TrueImage\Scripts.
The names of the .tis files are Universally Unique Identifiers (UUIDs), such as 6AED5F49-7EED-4E3E-939E-19360A44137F.tib.tis. Each file has the XML format. The tag in the file specifies the task name as it appears in the list of tasks.
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What I'm trying to learn is how ABR10 handles backup job definition files. I'm not finding any .tis files on my Win7x64 workstation, so possibly ABR10 has moved to a different method. Maybe it stores job definitions in a database (like Backup Exec)?
Well, see my first reply http://forum.acronis.com/forum/20891#comment-63774 . In windows 7 system-wide 'all users\application data' is located somewhere else (C:\programdata ? ), scripts are located there, but their payload is blob.
For ABR10 installed on Win7x64, the individual Tasks which comprise a Backup Plan are located in:
C:\ProgramData\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\TasksStorage
The filenames are GUIDs (32-char hex strings) with no extension. They can be opened in a text editor and are XML, but everything is within a tag and there is no readable text to indicate what task you're looking at.
Similar GUID files are found in \MMS directories Instances, Locations, LogContexts, LogEvents, Policies, and PolicyStatistics.
Has anyone tried copying \MMS from one installation to another, and does this effectively clone the configuration? It seems a little too easy and the binary data likely hooks into other config data, but as soon as I have some time I will give it a try on a test platform.
It would be nice to hear something substantive from Acronis on this issue (and by substantive, I do not mean the "customer listening system" nonsense posted above).
I also want to know how to handle the backup plans from a file point of view.
My situation is that after an update all backupplans are gone. Since I have a backup of the machine where these should have been stored I would be able to restore if somebody would tell me which files. Looks like that TaskStorage as such is not sufficient.