VIPERVAULT STORAGECRAFT SHADOWPROTECT SETUP GUIDE Solution Overview Thank you for choosing the ViperVault cloud replication, backup and disaster recovery service. Using this service you can replicate your ShadowProtect data and snapshots (as well as any other file, folders or anything else!) to the ViperVault enterprise storage cloud, effortlessly scaling from Gigabytes, to Terabytes to Petabytes! In addition, should you need it, you also have full access to the ViperVault Continuity Cloud that provides fast off site virtualisation and recovery of your replicated servers and networks, providing a true Disaster Recovery environment. **See later in this document for details on the Continuity Cloud. With the ViperVault service you can; Use ShadowProtect Server Edition to create volume backups of your servers OS and critical applications, employing ShadowProtect s rapid incremental backups to meet your Recovery Time Objective requirements. Use ViperVault to efficiently backup and maintain a history of your users data on file servers, as well as to safely store ShadowProtect image files offsite. ViperVault s flexible versioning policies allow you maximize use of remote storage. For example you could configure it to keep unlimited historical versioning of financial data, while only keeping 2 weeks of versions for photographs. ViperVault s powerful local backup features complement the ShadowProtect local backup, allowing you to additionally keep an encrypted and versioned repository of all of your data locally for fast restores. Combining both volume level backup and file level backup in this way allows for rapid recovery of servers and their critical data, while also providing remote restore, instant online access, flexible retention policies, and unlimited historical versioning for users individual files. Process Overview This guide will walk you step by step through the process of combining the ViperVault and StorageCraft products for the ultimate disaster recovery solution. The process is as follows; Firstly, you will need a new Customer Account and at least one new Computer Account created in the ViperVault Portal. Install ShadowProtect on those computers requiring volume level backups, and configure ShadowProtect to perform volume backups of your OS and critical server applications. (If you are already a ShadowProtect customer, you will have probably already completed this step.) Finally, download, install and configure the ViperVault Backup Client to backup any other files and to manage the transfer of your your ShadowProtect volume backup images to the ViperVault service.
Assess Requirements, Provision Accounts, and Install Software You should first assess your backup requirements. Identify the following: Critical application servers, such as Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint The Recovery Point Objective for these critical applications Where (locally) to store volume backup images, and period to maintain snapshots Identify data that must be retained for years, because of compliance or company policy Files that users may want to restore individually or access from the web ShadowProtect should be used to backup the volumes of your critical application servers. The ViperVault backup client should be used to backup specific, individual files and folders as required AND the images generated by ShadowProtect. If you have more than one computer performing remote backups to the ViperVault Service you will need to configure additional ViperVault sub accounts (one for each computer which is sending data to the ViperVault Service). Download and install the ViperVault Backup client onto each computer performing remote backup. The backup client is always available from the portal. http://vipervault.net/portal If you are performing volume backups of several servers / computers, it may be preferable to configure ShadowProtect to store all these volume images onto a central Network Share. This way ViperVault only needs to be configured to backup this one, single location to capture all of your ShadowProtect volume images. Configure Volume Backups with ShadowProtect Configure ShadowProtect on each server that requires volume backups. Refer to the ShadowProtect documentation for installation and licensing instructions. This document should not be considered a ShadowProtect installation or usage guide. TIP: We recommend storing your OS and application data on separate volumes. This allows incremental backups of the OS volume to be performed less frequently (as desired) than for volumes storing application data. NOTE: For servers hosting Active Directory, the OS volume will contain application data, so make sure you schedule incrementals on the OS volume to meet your Recovery Point Objective for Active Directory. Once installed, start the ShadowProtect manager and connect to the server you need to configure. Start the backup wizard and click next to see a list of volumes to backup:
If you have separated your OS and data volume (as you see in the previous page), then you should setup separate backups, one for each volume. In this example, we have chosen the volume containing the Exchange Store. Click Next, and then configure where to store the volume images. You should choose a location that is not on one of the volumes being backed up: In this example, the ShadowProtect volume images are stored on a network share. Click Next to schedule the backup for this volume: For best performance, change the VSS incremental backup from Sunday to Saturday and set the start time for the VSS backup to well before 6pm (e.g., noon). You should not schedule incremental backups at night to allow a time window for the remote backup to finish. TIP: For most efficient remote backups of your volume images, we recommend using the Continuous Incrementals schedule and using the ImageManager per our recommendations below.
Click Next to set the options for this backup: Optionally, use ShadowProtect s built in KeyFileMaker program which creates your own locally held encryption key which is used to encrypt your volume backups. To create a key file please run the KeyFileMaker.exe file located in the install directory of Shadow Protect. We especially recommend this if you are backing up to a USB disk or to a network share. We recommend using your ViperVault passphrase when creating your key file with KeyFileMaker. Because your passphrase is protected by ViperVault s secure pass phrase recovery technology, it is an extra safeguard against data loss due to a forgotten ShadowProtect encryption password. NOTE: We do not recommend splitting the image file because this makes it more difficult to determine consistent restore points. For example, if you have an image split into two pieces, and ViperVault backs up changes to the first part successfully, but is then interrupted while backing up the second part (e.g., because the server is rebooted), the remote server will have an updated copy of the first part of the image, but the second part of the image will still be outdated. Splitting a very large image into pieces may be worth the effort for very slow connections (< 500 Kbit/sec), but if you do this, be extra careful which versions you select when restoring data to be sure that the pieces all represent the same snapshot. We recommend leaving the advanced options to their default settings. If you are backing up a volume that is mostly full, you can further improve efficiencies of remote backup deltas by checking the Include Free Space on the Backup tab of the Advanced options. Click Next to see a Summary of your backup settings. You can choose to either perform the initial volume backup now or wait for the scheduled backup to occur. Install and Configure ShadowProtect ImageManager ShadowProtect uses forward deltas that require periodic management. ShadowProtect ImageManager is a utility that collapses hourly incrementals into daily incrementals, daily incrementals into weekly incrementals, and weekly incrementals into monthly incrementals. You only need to install ImageManager on the computer that is physically storing the volume images. Typically this is the same computer that also is using ViperVault to remotely backup the volume images. Optionally, you can point ImageManager to the locations of your backup images from any machine that ImageManager is installed on. Again, consult the ImageManager / ShadowProtect documentation for full usage instructions if you aren t familiar with it. The strategy for efficient backups is to have ViperVault backup only the daily and monthly incrementals. The hourly and weekly incrementals are redundant and do not need to be backed up remotely.
Once installed, start the ImageManager, connect to localhost. For older version ImageManager v3.5, click the New button to add a new policy. For ImageManager 4.0 (or later), click the Start Managing Folder button, and then click Consolidation Settings. Adhere to the following guidelines when configuring the ImageManager settings: Choose a processing time that is about 10 minutes after your incrementals end for the day. For example, if continuous incrementals end at 6:00pm, set the time to 6:10pm. If you are using v4.0 or later of ImageManager, the processing time can be set by clicking the Agent Settings button (gear icon) on the left hand side of the user interface. Version 3.5 only: Set the minutes between collapse operations to 15 so that incrementals are collapsed as fast as possible. Busy servers may want to use 30 or 60 minutes instead. Set the number of days to keep incremental files and weekly files to 0 or higher. ViperVault will only be configured to backup daily and monthly incrementals, so using a higher number will enhance your local backup retention policy, but not affect remote backup. Set the number of days to keep daily files to at least 36. Increasing this beyond 36 will cause your remote backups to upload more data than necessary, but will not otherwise cause problems. Version 3.5 only: Make sure to uncheck the When removing intra daily files, option. Version 3.5 only: Make sure to check the Keep redundant collapse files option. Version 4.0x only: Uncheck Move consolidated image files to a subdirectory. Version 5.0x only: The weekly consolidations choose Saturday for the last day to include consolidated weekly images. For monthly consolidations choose the 28 th for consistency of consolidation each month. For ImageManager 3.5, your configured policy should look similar to the following: For ImageManager 4.0 or 4.1, your consolidation settings for the folder should look similar to:
For ImageManager 5.0x, your consolidation settings for the folder should look similar to: Configure The ViperVault Backup Client The ViperVault Backup Client software manages the actual transfer of your ShadowProtect images to the ViperVault Service. Setting this up consists of; (a) Using the web portal to provision a new Account under your primary login. So that full logging, reporting, alerting, usage and other tools are effective, there MUST be one Account configured in the portal PER COMPUTER which has the ViperVault Backup Client installed which is transferring its data to the service. (b) Installing the ViperVault backup client software available to download from the portal. (c) Configuring credentials, encryption pass phrase, folders to backup, data retention policies, and notification options. Settings profiles can be exported/imported to and from the Backup Client to easily copy configuration settings from one server to another. This guide focuses on those aspects of configuration unique to backing up volume images generated by ShadowProtect. For a detailed reference for all steps of configuration, please refer to the ViperVault product documentation, online help or the user guide supplied inside the Backup Client Software. To remotely backup ShadowProtect volume images, install ViperVault on the computer storing the ShadowProtect image files (*.spf, *.spi, etc.) or a computer with access to the NAS / SAN / other device storing your image files. Use the My Account page (in the ViperVault Backup Client) to configure the account credentials and setup a new encryption pass phrase (alternatively, import an existing settings profile and change the username to match the one assigned to this machine).
Next, go to the Folders page, click Visualize!, and click the checkbox next to the folder that contains the ShadowProtect image files to add the folder to the backup, and then uncheck the Incrementals directory (it should turn red): Click Save. Now right click the folder that contains the ShadowProtect volume images and choose Properties. Configure your versioning settings (Options page, Versioning tab) to match your data retention policy. Set the Number of Days to Keep Historical Versions to 14. NOTE: Due to ShadowProtect s daily and monthly incremental files collapse strategy, ViperVault will always retain at least 31 days of incrementals. The number of Days to Keep Historical Versions indicates how many extra days to keep the consolidated images for. You should always use 7 or more days when setting the Number of Days to Keep Historical Versions. Make sure that Destroy Excluded Files is set to No. We recommend changing the Disable Open File Backup option to Yes if ViperVault is installed on a server that is also performing ShadowProtect continuous incremental backups. This will prevent the StorageCraft incremental backups from interfering with the ViperVault backups. Even with open file backup disabled, ViperVault checks to make sure files are not modified during backup, preserving data integrity.
Click Save to save all changes. Next, we need to configure the backup policy to exclude hourly and weekly incremental files. The easiest way to do this is import a preconfigured policy which have provided for you. To do this, follow these steps: Download http://vipervault.net/downloads/shadowprotect.folder policy and save it anywhere (e.g., the Desktop). This file is also available from http://esupport.softek.co.uk/ Go back to the ViperVault backup client manager, Folders page. Right click the folder with the ShadowProtect data and choose Edit Policy. In the policy editor, click the Open button in the toolbar on the right: Select the ShadowProtect.folder policy file that you downloaded, and click OK. Use ShadowProtect Policy for the new policy name and click OK. Make sure the selected policy is now ShadowProtect Policy. It should look something like : Save all changes on all dialogs, to get back to the main online backup manager window. The next step is to set the appropriate time to begin remote backups of your data to the ViperVault service. Use the Schedule page to set the remote backup schedule for once per day, starting one hour past your continuous incremental backups end. For example, if ShadowProtect continuous incremental backups end at 6:00pm, schedule the remote backup to start at 7:00pm. If you are using ViperVault to also perform local disk or local network backups, you may schedule them as frequently as you like they will not interfere with ShadowProtect. TIP: If ViperVault and ShadowProtect are installed on the same server, and ShadowProtect is configured to perform VSS backups (as we recommend), then go to the Backup tab of the Options page in ViperVault Backup Client, and change the Volume Shadow Backup Type from Full to Copy. This ensures that ViperVault does not interfere with the ShadowProtect backups. Next, check if ShadowProtect integration is enabled. To do this, go to the Folders page and right click on the folder containing ShadowProtect files. You should see several properties related to ShadowProtect (you may have to scroll down). If you do not, close the dialog and go to the Backup tab of the Options page and change the Path to sbrun.exe option. Once you have done this, make sure that ShadowProtect integration is enabled using the folder properties page. With ShadowProtect integration enabled, ViperVault will automatically verify the integrity of the ShadowProtect files as they are backed up, will automatically verify that the chain of incrementals has not been broken, will automatically verify the ImageManager is working correctly, and will verify that regular ShadowProtect backups are happening every day. Remote backups of your ShadowProtect volume images are now properly configured. Configure the remaining ViperVault Backup Client options as you normally do. Optionally configure ViperVault local backups.
TIP: Performing the initial remote backup (seed) may take several days or longer depending on the size of the volume images and the upload speed of the Internet connection. For large data sets (more than 50 100GB) you may want to use our Preload to disk feature, which allows the initial remote backup to be preloaded to a USB / SATA disk, which is then shipped to our data centre. If you are going to send an initial seed or preload drive to ViperVault, please follow the latest set of instructions for performing an AppAssure preload in ViperVault s KB: http://esupport.softek.co.uk/ CAUTION: Never destroy any of the full backup or incremental files (*.spf, *.spi) in the backup repository. ShadowProtect continuous backups require an unbroken chain of deltas in order to restore a current volume image properly. Older daily delta files will be automatically purged from the backup when it is safe to do so if you have set your versioning policy as described above. Restoring or Migrating Servers To restore servers (or migrate servers to new hardware) when you still have access to the local ShadowProtect volume images, follow the normal ShadowProtect bare metal restore procedure using the bootable restore environment. If you have been backing up your volume images with ViperVault local or remote backups, you can use ViperVault local or remote restore to restore your.spf and.spi files if they ever become damaged. Files that are remotely backed up to ViperVault s data center are protected by ViperVault s extremely rigorous data integrity procedures. All remotely backed up data has an embedded cryptographic fingerprint that is verified upon restore, certifying the restored file is exactly identical to the backed up file. Additionally, we use block level checksums to automatically guard against and safely repair any silent data corruption that occurs with any electronic storage device. ViperVault also verifies the MD5 checksum that was generated by ShadowProtect to ensure that the file that was backed up was not damaged. Your files are safe with us. If your local chain of ShadowProtect incrementals becomes damaged, rest easy that ViperVault will have a good, undamaged copy ready for restore. Restoring Individual Files The ViperVault restore wizard allows you to easily restore files and folders simply by logging in, checking off the data you want to restore, choosing the point in time version, and choosing where you want to restore the data. Customers can also login on the web to access their files anytime, anywhere at http://vipervault.net/portal Recovering from a Disaster To recover from complete data loss at the local site you can either restore data back to your site, OR utilise the Continuity Cloud Service. To recover the data yourself; Provision appropriate bare metal or virtual machines for the server(s) you need to restore. Make sure there is enough disk space to fully contain the restored volumes. Use ViperVault Web Access to download the.spf and all.spi files for the relevant OS and application volume image(s) to a portable USB disk or network share accessible from the ShadowProtect bootable restore environment.
TIP: Be sure to uncheck the Include the deleted date and time in the restored filename option, so that the restored files are named properly. Use the ShadowProtect bootable restore environment to deploy the volume images to the new bare metal server or virtual machine. Or if you have ShadowProtect 4 and used ShadowProtect to backup all volumes of your server, you can also use the VirtualBoot feature to instantly boot a virtual machine from the most current *.spi file. With the server and critical applications fully restored, login and immediately change the ViperVault schedule to manual (if ViperVault is configured on the machine). Start the ViperVault file manager to restore any remaining file based data as needed. With all data fully restored, set the ViperVault schedule back to Weekly. The Continuity Cloud The Continuity Cloud is a resource which provides a dedicated node on request, where you can restore and spin up virtual machines. Your data, system configurations, and critical applications are completely virtualised in the cloud and operate just like they did in the office. Once your Continuity Cloud node has been provisioned normally within 2 hours in the event of a critical disaster recovery request you have full RDP access to decrypt and begin to recover your servers. A full environment containing multiple Hypervisors, virtual firewall and recovery tools are made available. The Continuity Cloud is available free you only pay for it when you need to use it. Alternatively if you wish to have full AppAssure or ShadowProtect replicated machines on standby in the ViperVault Service, then you can purchase a dedicated continuity cloud node. KB s and Other Information Technical KB s, Service Guides, Support and Readmes are available on UK Distributor Softek s website here: http://esupport.softek.co.uk The ViperVault website is available here: http://vipervault.net ViperVault Portal Access is here: http://vipervault.net/portal Additional Sales / FAQ information is also available from UK Distributor Softek: http://softek.co.uk/vipervault