Create policies

Follow the instructions below to add a Data Protection Policy in Server Backup.

1. Click "Policy" in the Main Menu to open the "Policies" screen.

2. In the Policy menu, click on "Create New Policy."

3. The "Create New Policy" window will open. It contains the following tabs:

• Policy Settings
• Data Retention
• File Excludes
• Advanced Excludes
• SQL Server
• Exchange
• MySQL
• Control Panels
• Advanced Policy Settings

Note Depending on the limits defined for the Disk Safe to which the current Policy is assigned, some of the tabs might be disabled. See Create Disk Safes.

4. Define the following settings specific to the new Policy:

"Policy Settings" Tab

This is the main tab for creating a Policy. The following options are available:

Identification

• Enabled - Select this check-box to enable the Policy. The Enabled Policy will run according to the schedule.
• Name - Enter a name you can use to identify this Policy among others in the Policies list.
• Description - Describe your Policy in detail. The description can be shown in the Policies list in the corresponding column.

Disk Safe

• Server - From the drop-down menu, select a Server whose data you are going to replicate. You will then be able to select a Disk Safe assigned to the Server.
• Disk Safe - From the drop-down menu, select a Disk Safe in which to save the replicated data. 

  Note The Policy will replicate data from the Devices assigned to the selected Disk Safe.

Scheduling

• Replication Schedule - Defines the frequency and start time for the new Policy (On Demand, Minutely, Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly). See Scheduling the Recovery Points Replication.

  Note The lowest possible Replication frequency for all the Disk Safes assigned to a Volume is defined in "Volume properties" ("Volume properties" window "Limits" tab  "Options" section  "Replication Limit" option).

• Merge Schedule - Defines the frequency and start time for Recovery Point merges (After successful replication, Hourly, Daily or Weekly). See Scheduling Recovery Point Merges.
• Disk Safe Verification Schedule - Defines the frequency and start time for the Disk Safe verification (On Demand, Daily, Weekly or Monthly). See Scheduling Disk Safe Verification.

"Data Retention" Tab

On this tab, you can set the Recovery Points Limit for the Policy and create an Archiving Schedule. See Create archiving policies.

Note The Recovery Point limit you set on this tab cannot be greater than the limit defined for the current Disk Safe. See Create Disk Safes.

"File Excludes" Tab

This tab allows you to manually exclude files and folders from the Replication.
See Exclude files and folders.

Note In our example, the "F:\" disk is selected by default. This is due to the fact that a previously created Disk Safe is located there.

"Advanced Excludes" Tab

This tab allows you to define a pattern (mask) to exclude files from the Replication.
See Exclude files and folders.

"SQL Server" Tab

This tab allows you to add Database Instances to the Policy.
See Configure MS SQL server replication.

"Exchange" Tab

This tab allows you to configure an Exchange Instance for the Policy.
See Configure an Exchange instance.

"MySQL" Tab

This tab allows you to add MySQL Instances to the Policy.
See Add a MySQL instance to a policy.

"Control Panels" Tab

This tab allows you to add a Control Panel Instance to the Policy.
See Add control panel instance.

"Advanced Policy Settings" Tab

• Force Full Block Scan - Optionally check this option to mandate the start of a Full Block Scan each time the Replication is performed. If the option is not selected, then an automatic Full Block Scan occurs only under certain conditions. A Full Block Scan compares the MD5 sum of all allocated blocks to perform the backup and synchronize Server Backup. Read more in 3 Stages of CDP 3 Replication (Technical Papers).
• Exclude All Volume Shadow Copy Writers - Optionally check this option if you temporarily want to exclude the Exchange and SQL Server databases from being backed up.

Tip Once the "Exclude All Volume Shadow Copy Writers" option is checked, the following message will appear. Read the information and click the "OK" button.

• Exclude Known Disk Safes - This default option allows you to exclude the known Disk Safes from the replication to avoid backing up the same data twice.
• Verify checksums server side - Optionally enable this option to ensure that no data is lost during transporting. If this option is activated, then the server side uncompresses the data, unencrypts it if necessary, and compares block packet MD5 with data sent from the server. Verifying encrypted or unencrypted block checksums on server backup allows you to triple-check the integrity of a backup.
• Specify Backing File Location (Linux only) - Optionally define a path to the mount point of a device that should be used to store changed blocks. This option is useful to support backups of devices with low free space. By default, the Linux snapshot driver stores changed blocks (needed to maintain snapshots) in the the free space of the file system on which it is performing a snapshot. When using a server with multiple disks, storing snapshots on a separate dedicated disk can help reduce the load during backup. The disk must have a file system and must be mounted.

Example Linux system: Mount Point Disk /dev/sda1 /boot /dev/sda3 / /dev/sda4 /var When /boot or /var is 99.99% full, the backups fail because there is no free space to maintain the snapshot. Once the user inputs "/" into the "Backing File Location" field, the /dev/sda3 path will be used as the changed block storage location for all file systems.

•  Multi-Volume Snapshot - This option can be useful if the MS SQL Server or MS Exchange Server has files across more than one Device. The check-box is hidden on Linux Policies and clear by default on new and upgraded Windows Policies.

Note If the SQL or Exchange Server has files across more than one Device, and the "Multi-Volume Snapshot" option is not selected, then the system displays an alert message.

• Exclude Virtuozzo root image files - Optionally enable this option to exclude the Virtuozzo root image files from backing up.

5. Click on "Create" in the bottom of the window to add the Policy to the Policies list.

Note You can also click the "Create and run" button. In this case your Policy will be created and ran immediately.

Tip The Task results can be sent via email as a Report. See Reporting.

7. The new Policy item appears in the Policies list. The properties are shown in the grid.

Tip Click on an item in the Policies list to see the Policy details in the bottom pane.

You can find more information on how to use the "Policies" screen in Access policies.

You can also create Policies using the "Policies" tab of the Server "Details" Pane. This screen provides the same functionality as the main "Policies" screen. See more information in Access servers.