Ctrl+K

User Guide for Windows OS

User Guide for Windows OS#

Overview#

This guide introduces how to install and configure the ADPS agent and how to properly use ADPS to back up and restore Windows OS.

The backup and restore features supported by ADPS include:

  • Backup sources

    Single or multiple disks

  • Backup types

    Full backup

  • Backup targets

    Standard storage pool, deduplication storage pool, tape library pool, and object storage service pool

  • Backup schedules

    Immediate, one-time, hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly.

  • Data processing

    Data compression, data encryption, reconnection, speed limit, and replication

  • Restore types

    Point-in-time restore (OS-level)

  • Restore targets

    Original host and different host

Planning and preparation#

Before you install the agent, check the following prerequisites:

  1. You have already installed and configured other backup components, including the backup server and the storage server.

  2. You have created a user with roles of operator and administrator on the ADPS console. Log in to the console with this user to back up and restore the resource.

Note

The administrator role can install and configure agents, activate licenses, and authorize users. The operator role can create backup/restore jobs and conduct copy data management (CDM).

Install and configure the agent#

To back up and restore Windows OS, first install the ADPS agent on the host where Windows OS resides.

Verify the compatibility#

Before you install the agent, ensure that the environment of the host where Windows OS resides is on the Aurreum Data Protection Suite’s compatibility lists.

ADPS supports the backup and restore of Windows OS. Supported Windows OS include:

  • Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11/2003/2003 R2/2008/2008 R2/2012/2012 R2/2016/2019/2022

Install the agent#

To install the agent, do the following:

  1. Log in to the ADPS console.

  2. From the menu, click Resource > Resource. The Resource page appears.

  3. From the toolbar, click the Install agent icon. The Install agent window appears.

  4. In the Install agent window, do the following:

    (1) From the Select system list, select Windows.

    (2) From the Select file list, select the package that you want to install.

    (3) Click Download.

  5. Upload the package to the Windows host.

  6. Log in to the Windows host as a user with administrative privileges. Double-click the package and open the installation wizard. Click Next.

  7. At the Select components step, select OS from the component list. Click Next.

  8. At the Configure Aurreum Data Protection Suite agent step, enter the following:

    (1) In the Backup server address field, enter the IP or domain name of the backup server.

    (2) In the Backup server port field, enter the port number. The default value is 50305. If you enable the Use SSL secure connection option, enter 60305 in the Backup server port field.

    (3) The Access key field is optional and blank by default. If your backup server adopts multi-tenancy, you must enter the access key of the tenant for the agent.

    (4) Click Next.

    Note

    To get the access key of the user/tenant:

    1. Log in to the ADPS console.

    2. On the upper right corner, click your avatar, and go to Personal settings > Account settings.

    3. On the Preference tab, click View to get the access key of the current user/tenant.

  9. Confirm the Destination folder or specify another folder. Click Next.

  10. Wait for the installation to complete.

Activate licenses and authorize users#

After the agent installation, go back to the Resource page. The host with the agent installed appears on the page. Before you back up and restore Windows OS, register the host, activate the backup license, and authorize users.

To activate licenses and authorize users, do the following:

  1. From the menu, click Resource > Resource. The Resource page appears.

  2. On the Resource page, select the host where Windows OS resides. Click the Register icon. After the registration, the Activate window appears.

  3. In the Activate window, select the Windows OS backup license, and click Submit. After the activation, the Authorize window appears.

    Note

    If you are prompted with “No enough licenses”, contact the administrator to add licenses.

  4. In the Authorize window, select user groups to authorize access to the resource. Click Submit.

Note

With many agents, install them first, then batch register, batch activate, and batch authorize the agents and resources for convenience. For details, see Batch register/Batch activate/Batch authorize in Aurreum Data Protection Suite Administrator’s Guide.

Backup#

Backup types#

ADPS provides full backup for Windows OS.

  • Full backup

    Backs up the disk partition data of the operating system.

Backup policies#

ADPS provides six backup schedule types: immediate, one-time, hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly.

  • Immediate: ADPS will immediately start the job after it is created.

  • One-time: ADPS will perform the job at the specified time once only.

  • Hourly: ADPS will perform the job periodically at the specified hour/minute intervals within the time range according to the setting.

  • Daily: ADPS will perform the job periodically at the specified time and day intervals.

  • Weekly: ADPS will perform the job periodically at the specified time and week intervals.

  • Monthly: ADPS will perform the job periodically at the specified dates and times.

You can set an appropriate backup policy based on your situation and requirements. Usually, we recommend the following common backup policy:

  1. Perform a full backup once a week when the application traffic is relatively small (Example: on the weekend) to ensure that you have a recoverable point in time every week.

Before you begin#

Before you back up and restore Windows OS, check the following:

  1. Check the host status.

  2. Check the resuorce status. On the Resource page, the host and Windows OS should be Online.

  3. Check storage pools.

    (1) From the menu, click Storage > Storage pool. The Storage pool page appears.

    (2) Check whether the display area has any storage pools. If no, create a storage pool and authorize it for the current user. For details, see Add a storage pool in Aurreum Data Protection Suite Administrator’s Guide.

Log in to the instance#

Before you create a backup or restore job, log in to the Windows OS instance on the console. ADPS provides two authentication methods for Windows OS:

  • OS authentication

    Use a Windows OS user to log in the resource.

  • Access key

    You can use the access key of the current ADPS user to log in to the resource. This method is suitable for the following scenarios:

    • You cannot get the OS user’s username and password.

    • The user’s password changes frequently.

    Note

    1. Access key authentication is not enabled by default. To enable this feature, log in to the ADPS console, go to Settings, open the Security tab, and select the Access key login instance checkbox.

    2. To get the access key, log in to the console, click Personal settings > Account settings on the upper right corner, find Access key on the Preferences tab, and click View.

To log in to the resource, do the following:

  1. From the menu, click Resource > Resource. The Resource page appears.

  2. From the host list, find the host where the Windows OS resides. If you have many hosts, use the search bar to find the host quickly. Click the host to expand its resource list.

  3. Click Login beside the resource. The Login window appears.

  4. In the Login window, select an authentication method according to your needs.

    • Select OS authentication, enter the Username and Password of the OS user, and click Login.

    • Select Access key, enter the access key of the current ADPS user, and click Login.

  5. If your information is correct, you will be prompted that you have logged in to the resource successfully.

Create a backup job#

To create a backup job, do the following:

  1. From the menu, click Backup. The backup job wizard appears.

  2. At the Hosts and resources step, select the host where Windows OS resides and select the resource. The wizard goes to the next step automatically.

  3. At the Backup source step, do the following:

    (1) From the Backup type list, select a backup type.

    (2) In the Backup source section, select the disk partitions that you want to back up.

  4. At the Backup target step, select a storage pool. Click Next.

  5. At the Backup schedule step, set the job schedule. For details, see Backup policies. Click Next.

    • Select Immediate. ADPS performs the job immediately after it is created.

    • Select One time and set the start time for the job.

    • Select Hourly. Set the start time, end time, and time interval for job execution. The unit can be hour(s) or minute(s).

    • Select Daily. Set the start time and enter the time interval for job execution. The unit is day(s).

    • Select Weekly. Set the start time, enter the time interval, and select the specific dates in a week for job execution. The unit is week.

    • Select Monthly. Set the start time and months for job execution. You can select the natural dates in one month or select the specific dates in one week.

  6. At the Backup options step, set the common and advanced options according to your needs. For details, see Backup options. Click Next.

  7. At the Finish step, set the job name and confirm the job information. Click Submit.

  8. After the submission, you will be redirected to the Job page automatically. On this page, you can start, modify, and delete the job.

Backup options#

ADPS provides the following backup options for Windows OS:

  • Common options

Backup common options#

Option

Description

Limitations

Compression

Fast is enabled by default.
- None: No compression during the backup job.
- Tunable: Customizes the compression level. The Advanced Compression license is required.
- Fast: Uses the fast compression algorithms to compress data during the backup job.

Channels

It can improve backup efficiency. The default value is 1 and the value ranges from 1 to 64.
We recommend a value the same as the number of CPU cores. If the value exceeds the core number, the efficiency improvement will not be obvious.

Backup allocated blocks only

Only the actual occupied storage data on the disk partition will be backed up each time a job is performed.

—

Block size to read from the block device

The smallest unit of storage space allocated to the file system by the operating system. 64KiB, 128KiB, 256KiB, 512KiB, 1MiB, or 2MiB can be selected. Generally, the larger the block size of the read block device, the faster the backup speed will be.

—

  • Advanced options

Backup advanced options#

Option

Description

Limitations

Reconnection time

The value ranges from 1 to 60 minutes. The job continues after the abnormal reset occurs in the network within the set time.

Resumption buffer size

Specifies the resumption buffer size. The default value is 10 MiB. The bigger the resumption buffer size is, the more physical storage will be consumed. However, a bigger resumption buffer size can prevent data loss when the throughput of the business system is high.

Speed limit

Limits data transfer speed or disk read/write speed for different time periods. The unit can be KiB/s, MiB/s, and GiB/s.

Precondition

Checked before the job starts. The job execution will be aborted and the job state will be idle when the precondition is invalid.

Pre-/Post-script

The pre-script is executed after the job starts and before the resource is backed up. The post-script is executed after the resource is backed up.

Shadow copy provider

File share shadow and software shadow are provided.

Restore#

Restore types#

ADPS provides an OS-level point-in-time restore for Windows OS.

Configure a restore target#

Configure a restore target first before creating an OS-level point-in-time restore job. To configure a restore target, do the following:

  1. Select an ISO file and use a burning software to burn the ISO file to a media such as CD or DVD.

  • For Windows 2003/Windows 2003R2 data sets, select adps_bootable_recovery-version~nt52.amd64.iso

  • For Windows 2003/Windows 2003R2, select adps_bootable_recovery-version~nt.amd64.iso

  1. Insert the recovery media into the restore target, and boot the restore target from the disc. The WinPE configuration window appears.

Note

For virtual machines in Hyper-V, it is recommended to have memory larger than 700M, otherwise the virtual machine may fail to start after the restore job is complete.

  1. Click Backup server and set Server IP and Server port. The default server port is 50305. If SSL is enabled, the server port is 60305.

Note

Access key is optional. When the backup server is a multi-tenant enviroment, configuring a tennat’s access key is required.

  1. Click Apply and Start. Then the restore target can communicate with the backup server. The restore target is a WinPE host now.

  2. If the WinPE host fails to acquire a dynamic IPv4 address, you can click IPv4 in the WinPE configuration window and manually configure a static IPv4 address.

Note

  • Click Driver tools > IP configuration - Show to check the network status.

  • If a network connection error appears, it may be due to a missing NIC driver. You can manually add the NIC driver.

  • To add the NIC driver by WinPE configuration windows, do the following:

    (1) Mount the corresponding NIC driver to the restore machine using a USB flash drive.

    (2) In the WinPE configuration window, click Driver tools > Command prompt - Open. The command prompt appears.

    (3) On the command prompt, enter the corresponding driver directory, then use the command drvload vmxnet.inf (driver name) to add the driver.

  1. If the network type is IPv6, click IPv6 to configure the network.

  2. Go to ADPS console, and click Resource. The Resource page appears. On the Resource page, the WinPE host appears. Before you create a restore job, register the WinPE host, activate the backup license, and authorize users.

  3. After the successful authorization, you can create a Windows OS point-in-time restore job.

  4. After a restore job is executed successfully, click Driver tools > Windows system - Reboot in the the WinPE configuration window to reboot the system.

Note

  • After a restore job is executed successfully, if the WinPE host cannot start or the WinPE configuration window cannot recognize the system driver, you can manually add the driver in the window or from the command prompt. Before loading the system drivers, you need to copy the corresponding NIC drivers to another device (such as a USB drive or optical disc), insert the device to the WinPE host, and then load the system drivers. After the system driver loading is complete, connect the WinPE host to the agent and perform a point-in-time restore job.

To add the drivers, select one of the methods:

  • In the WinPE configuration window, click Driver tools > Driver update, select Driver folder or Single driver to add the driver. Click Add to find the desired driver to add. You can click Get to check whether the driver is added successfully.

    • Driver folder: for selecting the desired driver directory.

    • Single driver: for selecting the corresponding driver file in the driver directory.

  • Enter to command prompt. On the command prompt, enter the corresponding driver directory, then use the dism command (dism + system disk + /add-driver + [XXX.inf file path]) to add the driver. For example: dism /image:E:\ /add-driver /driver:X:\drivers\2k12R2\amd64\viostor\viostor.inf

Create a Windows OS point-in-time restore job#

Before you begin#

To restore the Windows OS to a different host, install the agent on that host, activate the licenses, and authorize user access to the resource.

To create a point-in-time restore job, do the following:

  1. From the menu, click Restore. The restore job wizard appears.

  2. At the Hosts and resources step, select the host where the operating system resides and select the resource. The wizard goes to the next step automatically.

  3. At the Backup sets step, do the following:

    (1) From the Storage pool list, select a storage pool with backup sets, including the source and target pools with pool replication relation. Default refers to the one where the selected backup sets reside.

    (2) From the Restore type list, select Point-in-time restore.

    (3) In the Restore source section, select a point in time for the restore job.

    (4) In the Partition section, select disks for the restore job.

    (5) Click Next.

  4. At the Restore target step, select a host and resource as the target. The wizard goes to the next step automatically.

  5. At the Restore schedule step, set the job schedule. Click Next.

    • Select Immediate. ADPS will perform the job immediately after its creation.

    • Select One time and set the start time for the job.

  6. At the Restore options step, set the options according to your needs. See Restore options. Click Next.

  7. At the Finish step, set the job name and confirm the job information. Click Submit.

  8. After the submission, you will be redirected to the Job page. You can start, modify, and delete the job.

  9. When a restore job encounters issues (for example, system disk data is restored but the bcdedit command cannot be executed, or the restore job fails), it is necessary to rebuild the partition. To restart the partition, do the following:

    (1) In the WinPE configuration window, click Driver tools > Command prompt - Open. The command prompt appears. In the command prompt, enter the diskpart command.

    (2) Enter list disk. The disk information will be listed.

    (3) Select the system disk that requires the partition rebuilding, and enter the command select disk xx (where “xx” is the actual disk index number).

    (4) Enter list part to check the partition information, and confirm that the boot and system partitions exist.

    (5) Enter detail part to check the file system type and the hidden property.

    (6) Execute the following commands to restart the WinPE host.

  • If the ISO file contains the boot partition, and the file system type can be viewed, modify the start configuration. See the example:

    Note

    • bcdedit /store \?\Globalroot\Device\Harddisk0\Partition1\Boot\BCD /set {bootmgr} device partition=\Device\Harddisk0\Partition1 (The boot partition path should be filled in based on the actual situation. In this example, it is on disk 0, partition 1.)

    • bcdedit /store \?\Globalroot\Device\Harddisk0\Partition1\Boot\BCD /set {default} device partition=\Device\Harddisk0\Partition2 (The boot partition path should be filled in based on the actual situation. In this example, it is on disk 0, partition 1.)

    • bcdedit /store \?\Globalroot\Device\Harddisk0\Partition1\Boot\BCD /set {default} osdevice partition=\Device\Harddisk0\Partition2 (The system partition path should be filled in based on the actual situation. In this example, it is on disk 0, partition 1.)

  • If the ISO file does not contain the boot partition, the hidden property is Yes, and the file system type cannot be viewed, use bcdboot command to configure the boot information. To configure the boot information, do the following:

    (1) In the WinPE configuration window, click Driver tools > Command prompt - Open. The command prompt appears. On the command prompt, enter the diskpart command.

    (2) Enter create partition primary size=350 id=7 to create the boot partiton whose size is 350MB. The specific size can be modified according to the actual situation.

    (3) Enter format fs=ntfs command to format the partition.

    (4) Assign the corresponding drive letter. For example: set the letter to drive K: using the command assign letter=K.

    (5) Enter active command to active the partition.

    (6) Enter bcdboot command to create a new BIOS-bootable boot partition. For example: bcdboot C:\Windows /s K: /f BIOS /l en-us

Note

  1. If you are unable to enter the system after restarting the WinPE host, you can create a restore job again with the Automatic driver update option enabled in Restore options, then rebuild the boot partition.

  2. After rebuilding the boot partition, run the bcdedit command to check if there is any output. If there is output, restart the WinPE host. If there is no output, use the bcdedit command again to modify the boot configuration, and then restart.

Restore options#

ADPS provides the following restore options for Windows OS:

  • Common options:

Restore common options#

Option

Description

Limitations

Automatic driver update

Enabling the option will update the NIC driver.

Partition rebuild mode

The Full rebuild mode restores the whole partition table in the backup host, while the Partial rebuild mode only creates the partitions selected for the restore job.

Block size to write to the block device

The smallest unit of storage space allocated to the file system by the operating system. 64KiB, 128KiB, 256KiB, 512KiB, 1MiB, and 2MiB can be selected. 256KiB is selected by default. Generally speaking, the larger the block size of the read block device, the faster the backup speed will be.

  • Advanced options:

Restore advanced options#

Option

Description

Limitations

Reconnection time

The value ranges from 1 to 60 minutes. The job continues after the abnormal reset occurs in the network within the set time.

Resumption buffer size

Specifies the resumption buffer size. The default value is 10 MiB. The bigger the resumption buffer size is, the more physical storage will be consumed. However, a bigger resumption buffer size can prevent data loss when the throughput of the business system is high.

Speed limit

Limits data transfer speed or disk read/write speed for different time periods. The unit can be KiB/s, MiB/s, and GiB/s.

Precondition

Checked before the job starts. The job execution will be aborted and the job state will be idle when the precondition is invalid.

Pre-/Post-script

The pre-script is executed after the job starts and before the resource is restored. The post-script is executed after the resource is restored.

Limitations#

Limitations#

Feature

Limitations

Backup

- Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows XP Service Pack 1, Windows XP Service Pack 2, and Windows XP Service Pack 3 are not supported.
- The system disk must reserve a certain amount of space in order to create a snapshot, otherwise the backup will fail.
- Windows 2008, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 2012, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 2003, and Windows 2003 R2 cannot back up and restore NVMe system disks.
- Dynamic disks of the Windows OS are not supported for backup and restore.
- LAN-free pools and local storage pools are not supported for backup.
- If the drive letter changes, the backup job may fail. In this case, you need to recreate the backup job.

Restore

- Windows 2003 and Windows 2003 R2 cannot back up and restore SATA and NVMe disks.
- Windows 2003 and Windows 2003 R2 can only restore IDE disks to IDE disks, and SCSI disks to SCSI disks.
- Backup sets of Windows OS booted with BIOS cannot be restored to Windows OS booted with UEFI, and vice versa.
- During restore in a KVM environment, automatic driver updates are supported for KVM-Virtio, but not for Windows 2003, Windows 2003 R2, and Windows 2008 systems.
- If the drive letter changes, the restore job may fail. In this case, you need to recreate the restore job.

Glossary#

Glossary#

Term

Description

fast compression

A compression method that uses fast compression algorithms to compress data during the backup job.

block size

The minimum unit of storage space allocated by the operating system to the file system.

snapshot

The snapshot of the operating system is a read-only static view of the Windows OS.
Contents