Rapid Recovery 6.3 - User Guide

Deploying to machines manually

Use the following procedure to deploy the Rapid Recovery Agent to multiple machines on any type of host other than the local Core, Active Directory, vCenter/ESXi, or Hyper-V.

1. From the Rapid Recovery Core Console button bar, click the Protect drop-down menu, , and then select Deploy Agent Software.
   The Deploy Agent Software Wizard opens.
2. On the Connection page of the wizard, from the Source drop-down list, select Manually.
3. Click Next.
4. On the Machines page of the wizard, for each machine to which you want to deploy Agent, enter the machine details in the dialog box. Press Enter to separate information for each machine. Use the format hostname::username::password::port. For Windows machines, the port setting is optional. For Linux machines, always include the SSH port, which by default is 22. Examples include:

   	10.255.255.255::administrator::&11@yYz90z

   	abc-host-00-1::administrator::99!zU$o83r::8006

   	Linux-host-00-2::administrator::p@$$w0rD::22

5. If you want to restart the machines automatically after deployment, select After Agent installation, restart the machines automatically (Recommended).
6. Click Finish.
   The system automatically verifies each machine that you selected.

   If Rapid Recovery detects any concerns during automatic verification, the wizard progresses to a Warnings page, where you can clear machines from selection and manually verify the selected machines. If the machines you added pass the automatic verification, they appear on the Deploy Agent to Machines pane.

7. If the Warning page appeared, and you are still satisfied with your selections, click Finish again.

Verifying the deployment to multiple machines

1. From the Rapid Recovery Core Console, click (Events), and then click Alerts.
   Alert events appear in the list, showing the time the event initiated and a message. For each successful deployment of the Agent software, you will see an alert indicating that the protected machine has been added.
2. Optionally, click on any link for a protected machine.

   The Summary page for the selected machine appears, showing pertinent information including:

   • the host name of the protected machine
   • the last snapshot, if applicable
   • the time of the next scheduled snapshot, based on the protection schedule for the selected machine
   • the encryption key, if any, used for this protected machine
   • the version of the software.

Modifying deploy settings

1. From the Rapid Recovery Core Console, click (Settings).
2. On the Settings page, in the left column, click Deploy to navigate to the Deploy section.
3. Modify any of the following options by clicking the setting you want to change to make it editable as a text box or drop-down list, and then click to save the setting.

   Table 42: Deploy options

   Option	Description
   Agent installer name	Enter the name of the agent executable file. The default is Agent-web.exe.
   Core address	Enter the address for the Core.
   Failed receive timeout	Enter the number of minutes to wait without activity before timeout.
   Maximum parallel installs	Enter a number for the maximum installations you want to install simultaneously. The default and limit is 100.

Understanding protection schedules

A protection schedule defines when backups are transferred from protected agent machines to the Rapid Recovery Core.

The first backup transfer for any machine added to protection on the Core is called a base image snapshot. All data on all specified volumes (including the operating system, applications, and settings), are saved to the repository, which can take a significant amount of time depending on the amount of data being transferred. Thereafter, incremental snapshots (smaller backups, consisting only of data changed on the protected machine since the last backup) are saved to the repository regularly, based on the interval defined (for example, every 60 minutes). This type of backup contains less data than a base image, and therefore takes a shorter amount of time to transfer.

Protection schedules are initially defined using the Protect Machine Wizard or the Protect Multiple Machines Wizard. Using a wizard, you can customize protection schedules (choosing either periods or a daily protection time) to accommodate your business needs. You can then modify the existing schedule or create a new schedule at any time in the Protection Schedule dialog box from the summary page of a specific protected machine.

Rapid Recovery provides a default protection schedule, which includes a single period spanning all days of the week, with a single time period defined (from 12:00 AM to 11:59 PM). The default interval (the time period between snapshots) is 60 minutes. When you first enable protection, you also activate the schedule. Thus, using the default settings, regardless of the current time of day, the first backup will occur every hour, on the hour (12:00 AM, 1:00 AM, 2:00 AM, and so on).

Selecting periods lets you view the default protection schedule and make adjustments accordingly. Selecting a daily protection time causes Rapid Recovery Core to back up the designated protected machines once daily at a time you specify.

You can customize the schedule to define peak and off-peak times using the weekday and weekend periods available. For example, if your protected machines are mostly in use on weekdays, you could decrease the interval for the weekday period to 20 minutes, resulting in three snapshots every hour. Or you can increase the interval for the weekend period from 60 minutes to 180 minutes, resulting in snapshots once every three hours when traffic is low.

Alternatively, you can change the default schedule to define peak and off-peak times daily. To do this, change the default start and end time to a smaller range of time (for example, 12:00 AM to 4:59 PM), and set an appropriate interval (for example, 20 minutes). This represents frequent backups during peak periods. You can then add an additional weekday time range for the remaining span of time (5:00 pm to 11:59 pm) and set an appropriate (presumably larger) interval (for example, 180 minutes). These settings define an off-peak period that includes 5:00 PM to midnight every day. This customization results in snapshots every three hours from 5:00 PM through 11:59 PM, and snapshots every 20 minutes from 12:00 AM until 4:59 PM.

When you modify or create a protection schedule using the Protection Schedule dialog box, Rapid Recovery gives you the option to save that schedule as a reusable template that you can then apply to other protected machines.

Other options in the protection wizards include setting a daily protection time. This results in a single backup daily at the period defined (the default setting is 12:00 PM).

When protecting one or multiple machines using a wizard, you can initially pause protection, which defines the protection schedule without protecting the machines. When you are ready to begin protecting your machines based on the established protection schedule, you must explicitly resume protection. For more information on resuming protection, see Pausing and resuming protection. Optionally, if you want to protect a machine immediately, you can force a snapshot. For more information, see Forcing a snapshot.

For more information, see Creating multiple protection schedule periods in Advanced Mode.