Backup Plans
Disaster Recovery for Identity for Active Directory enables you to create backups of Active Directory components, including the database, on domain controllers. You can back up any domain controller on your network, and the backup process can be scheduled to run regularly without disrupting normal operations.
On the Backup Plans screen, you can create and configure a Backup Plan to backup one or more domain controllers within the Active Directory forest.
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On the Backup Plans screen, you can see a list of all Backup Plans within an environment. For each Backup Plan in the list, you can view:
- Name - the unique name for each Backup Plan.
- Schedule - if a schedule for the Backup Plan has been enabled or disabled.
- Next Schedule - the date and time of the next scheduled backup of the Backup Plan (if enabled).
- Last Run - the date and time of when the backup was last run.
- Status - last status of a backup session run for a Backup Plan.
On the Backup Plans screen, you can take the following actions:
- Create - create a Backup Plan for the environment.
- Edit - revise a Backup Plan.
- Refresh - refresh the list.
- Backup Now - run a backup immediately for the selected Backup Plan.
- Remove - remove the Backup Plan.
Creating and Editing a Backup Plan
Disaster Recovery for Identity for Active Directory allows users to automate backup creation, reducing network load and saving time. Once Backup Plans are created and scheduled, Disaster Recovery for Identity for Active Directory automates the backup process, requiring no further manual intervention.
To create a Backup Plan, click Create and select the following options:
- On the Create Backup Plan dialog, under Backup plan name, enter a unique name to identify the Backup Plan, or use the preset name.
- Optionally, you can schedule to run backups at regular intervals. To do this, click the Enable Schedule toggle, and input the recurring days and times at either a daily, weekly or monthly schedule. The toggle is disabled by default.
- For daily scheduling, select Day from the Every dropdown menu. Input the time using the dropdown menus with the 12-hour format. Then click Continue.
- For weekly scheduling, select Week from the Every dropdown menu. Select one or more days of the week for scheduling from the On Days dropdown menu, then input the time using the dropdown menus with the 12-hour format. Then click Continue.
- For monthly scheduling, select Month from the Every dropdown menu. Select one or more days of the month for scheduling from the On Days dropdown menu, then input the time using the dropdown menus with the 12-hour format. Then click Continue.
- Select the domain controller(s) you wish to backup.
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NOTES:
- The Domain Controller Agent must be installed on the domain controller in order to run backups. If you wish to backup a domain controller that has an Offline or Outdated status, install or upgrade the agent on that machine before running a backup.
- Consider recovery strategies before selecting which domain controllers to backup.
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- To run the Backup Plan immediately, click the Run Backup Now box.
- Click Save. The Backup Plan will appear in the list. You can edit the Backup Plan by clicking on the required Backup Plan and clicking Edit.
You can run the Backup Plan immediately by selecting the desired Backup Plan, and click Backup Now.
Each Backup Plan will have one of the following statuses:
- Completed - all domain controllers within the Backup Plan have been successfully backed up.
- In Progress - the backup is currently running.
- Failed - one or multiple domain controllers have failed to backup. Go to the Tasks screen for more details.
- An empty status will indicate that a backup has never been run.
Backups
The Backups screen allows you to view the backups generated from your Backup Plans.
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NOTE: Backups are stored for 180 days. After this period, the backups are automatically deleted. |
On the Backups screen, you can see a list of all Backups within an environment. For each backup in the list, you can view:
- Backup Plan Name - the plan from which the backups were created.
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NOTE: If the Backup Plan has been deleted, its backups will remain and you will see Backup plan has been deleted as the Backup Plan name. |
- Domain - the domain from which the backup was created.
- Domain Controller - the domain controller from which the backup was created.
- Created Time - the time and date from when the backup was created.
- Schedule Type - if the Backup Plan was either:
- ran via clicking Backup Now on the Backup Plans list (Manual).
- ran via a configured schedule (Scheduled).
- Size - the size of the backup.
On the Backups screen, you can take the following actions:
- Refresh - refresh the list of backups.
Once backups have been created, you can then create a Recovery Plan for your environment.
Recovery
The Recovery screen allows the user to create, manage and run a Recovery Plan for the restore of an Active Directory forest on-premises, including all domains and domain controllers. Disaster Recovery for Identity for Active Directory provides centralized remote management for domain controller recovery within your Active Directory forest. This product also allows you to centrally restore multiple domain controllers within a forest simultaneously, streamlining the recovery process and saving time compared to manual restoration of individual domain controllers. It is recommended to create and verify Recovery Plans prior to a disaster to ensure it is configured correctly. You can create multiple Recovery Plans to support multiple configurations. Consider reviewing the Recovery strategies overview section on the Before You Start page.
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A Recovery Plan allows you to manage the process for recovering either the entire Active Directory forest or specific domains. Each Recovery Plan includes a list of domain controllers to be restored, along with their associated configurations. By creating and reviewing the plan, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of the recovery configurations for each domain controller, enabling you to fine-tune the process as needed.
Disaster Recovery for Identity for Active Directory allows you to restore a domain in the forest to its state at the time of the last trusted backup. Consequently, the restore operation will result in the loss of at least the following Active Directory data:
- All objects (such as users and computers) that were added after the last trusted backup.
- All updates made to existing objects since the last trusted backup.
- All changes made to either the configuration partition or the schema partition in Active Directory (such as schema changes).
- Additionally, any software applications that were running on the domain controllers will need to be reinstalled on the domain controllers after recovery.
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NOTE: It is highly recommended you make sure that the dangerous or unwanted data is not replicated to other domains in the forest. |
