How to Schedule a Backup
- Open the StoreGrid Web Console by going to Start -> Programs -> Vembu StoreGrid -> StoreGrid Web Console
Or by double-clicking the icon in the lower-right corner of your screen.
- If somehow you get this error in Internet Explorer, just click Continue to this website
If you are using Firefox, follow the instructions below:
a. click Or you can add an exception…
b. click Add Exception…
c. click Get Certificate
d. untick Permanently store this exception
e. click Confirm Security Exception
- Login to the console by typing the default user name and password.
User name: admin
Password: admin
- Go to Backup -> Add Backup Schedule
- Complete the form. Make a note of your password, you will not be able to restore your data without that Password Proctection.
If the backup server is not displayed in the list, please click Add Backup server.
Then add the name of the server in the boxes as shown below, then click Add Peer.
Machine Name: amazon.websecurebackup.com
StoreGrid ID: amazon.websecurebackup.com
Machine-Type: Client-Server
- Click Retention Policies, here you can tell StoreGrid to delete files after a certain time so you don’t consume too much space in the Backup Server which will cost you more money.
- Click Save Backup once everything is complete.
- Your backup will run now as scheduled.
Web Secure Backup has the following options from which any one can be chosen.
Continuous
Choosing this option will execute an immediate backup; thereafter, StoreGrid continuously monitors any changes to the files or directories configured for backup. When changes occur, a backup is scheduled.
Run Every Few Hours
Choose the hours/minutes interval between each time StoreGrid must run. If StoreGrid is restarted in the interim, the backup will run once StoreGrid starts. Thereafter, StoreGrid automatically reschedules the next backup after the period you’ve set. For example, if you created a backup schedule at 10 am and set it to run every 1 hour, StoreGrid will first run the schedule at 10am and the next scheduled time will be 11am. However, if at 10.15am, StoreGrid is restarted, then the schedule will run once at 10.15am and the next scheduled time will now be set to 11.15am.
Additionally, you can also select the days in which this schedule should run. For example, if you do not want to run this backup schedule on Saturdays and Sundays, uncheck the checkbox against these days. If the "Select all days" checkbox is checked, then the schedule will be run on all the days of the week.
Run Daily
Choose the time at which the backup should run daily. This will execute the backup everyday at the time you have provided. Unless you’ve selected the “Run this Backup each time StoreGrid restarts” option in Advanced Options, StoreGrid will run at the stipulated time only.
Run Weekly
Choose the time and the day of the week the backup should run. StoreGrid will execute the backup every week on the particular day and time chosen. Note that you can select multiple days of the week if you wish to run the backup on multiple days of the week. Unless you’ve selected the “Run this Backup each time StoreGrid restarts” option in Advanced Options, StoreGrid will run at the stipulated time/day only.
Run Once Only
Choosing this option will do the backup only once immediately. The backup will then be put into ‘suspended mode’. If you wish to run this backup again, you’ll have to manually select it from the List Backup Schedules page.
Advanced Options (Optional)
If you want to configure some additional advanced options - like, Multiple Full Backups etc. click on the Advanced Options button.
Advanced Backup Schedule Settings
There are four options here on how the backup should be scheduled.
Run this backup each time StoreGrid restarts - If you enable this option by checking the checkbox, then this backup schedule will be run every time StoreGrid is restarted or the machine is rebooted irrespective of the actual schedule time of this backup schedule. This is to ensure that any modified or new files created when StoreGrid was down are backed up as soon as possible. In case of the Continuous backup or ‘Run every…’ scheduling options, backups will run each time StoreGrid restarts – by default.
Run this backup immediately after saving this configuration (thereafter, Backups will be scheduled as per the schedule stipulated) - If you enable this option, then this backup schedule will be executed once immediately after you save this backup schedule – even if its not yet ‘time’ as per the schedule. For example if you configure a daily backup at 10.00 AM but you configured the backup at 8.00 AM, then the backup schedule will be run once immediately (8.00 AM) and then as per schedule (eg. daily at 10.00 AM).
Attempt to run this backup every 5 minutes in case of non completion because of a problem (Network error etc.) - If enabled, then this backup schedule, irrespective of the schedule time/interval, will be scheduled every 5 minutes whenever a backup is incomplete because of a network error, server crash etc. This is to ensure that an incomplete backup is completed as soon as possible without waiting for the actual schedule time. Note that this option is selected by default.
Enable Automatic Directory Monitoring - If enabled, StoreGrid will be automatically notified by Windows OS of any file/folder changes. This will help StoreGrid efficiently identify changed files when it does the rsync based delta backup for changed files. If this option is disabled, then StoreGrid has to scan all the configured files/folders every time a backup is scheduled to detect changed files. So it is recommended that in Windows OS this option is enabled. In Linux and Mac OS X, this option should be disabled as there is no automatic directory monitoring support in Linux and Mac OS X. Note that even if directory monitoring is disabled StoreGrid will still do the rsync based delta back for changed files.
Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) - If enabled, StoreGrid will create snapshot(a read only copy) of the volume(s) corresponding to the configured folders/files and backup using the snapshot of the volume. Volume Shadow copy allows StoreGrid in creation of consistent backups, ensuring that the contents cannot change while the backup is being made, avoiding problems with file locking, as StoreGrid uses a read-only copy of the volume, it is able to access every file without interfering with other programs writing to those same files.
Requirements
- StoreGrid uses the Microsoft's 'Volume Shadow Copy'(installed by default when Windows XP and later versions installed) Service to create snapshot. Hence, StoreGrid needs 'Volume Shadow Copy' Service to be configured with service start type 'Automatic' or 'Manual'.
- Volume Shadow Copy Service needs at least 100 MB free disk space.
Configure Additional Full Backups
Typically, you would do a full backup the first time you backup your data and thereafter only do incremental backups. However, like in a typical enterprise scenario, if you want to run full backups periodically and run the incremental backups in between two full backups, then you can configure the scheduling for how to run the full backups here.
For Continuous, Run Every Few Hours and Run Daily backups, the multiple full backup settings will allow you to configure only daily full backups at a fixed time. For weekly backups, you can only run multiple full backups monthly on a particular day of the month. For Run Once Only backup, you cannot configure multiple full backups.
Additionally you can specify the maximum number of full backups that need to be stored in the server. For example if you configured a weekly backup and additionally if you configure a monthly full backup, then StoreGrid will take a full backup the first time and then weekly do an incremental backup. The next month, StoreGrid will do a new full backup and subsequently run the weekly incremental backup over this full backup. After 6 months you will have 6 separate full backups in the backup server along with weekly incremental versions under each of the 6 full backups. If your policy is to retain only backup data for 6 months, then you can configure "Store maximum of 6 full backups" here. On the 7th month, StoreGrid, after finishing the 7th full backup, will delete the first full backup along with its weekly incremental backups thus retaining always the last 6 month backups.
Pre & Post Backup Commands (Optional)
This feature provides the ability to configure running custom actions before and after executing a backup schedule. The custom actions may include running an application or some script files.
Pre & Post Backup Commands
When is this feature useful?
If an application has exclusively locked a file and you need to close the application before StoreGrid can backup that file, then you can run a pre-backup command to close the application and then a post-backup command to open the application again after StoreGrid successfully backs up the file.
How does this feature work?
When ever a backup schedule starts, StoreGrid will start the Pre Backup commands and wait till the timeout value. After completing the Pre Backup commands, StoreGrid will transfer the configured files & folders to the backup server. After transferring the configured files and folders, StoreGrid will run the Post Backup Commands. If multiple servers are configured for the backup schedule, then both the Pre and Post Backup commands will run while backing up to each of the servers.
Pre & Post Backup command settings:
You can provide maximum of 5 Pre Backup commands and maximum of 5 Post Backup commands for each backup schedule. Both the Pre and Post Backup commands are optional.
Command Name: This filed is mandatory. This is the command that should be run. The command should be provided with full path. If the command name is in the system command path, then providing full path for the command is not necessary. The command can be an executable file such as application exe, batch files, script files etc.
Example: C:\MyTools\myzip.exe. A simple zip tool which compresses the given files or folders.
Arguments: You can provide any command line arguments for the command to be executed.
Example: For the Command C:\MyTools\myzip.exe, the arguments may be 'High Zip Replace "D:\Project" myproject.zip' [with out quotes]. Here, the High may denote high compression, Zip denotes zip file format, Replace denotes replacing existing files, 'D:\Project' denotes folder to compress and 'myproject.zip' denotes the target compressed file name.
Working Path: This field specifies the directory path from which the Command has to be run. If this field is left empty, then the command will be executed from the StoreGrid working path [StoreGrid Home]
Example: 'D:\Project'. The command will be executed from the directory D:\Project.
Timeout: This filed is used to specify a timeout value, in seconds, for the command to finish execution. StoreGrid will wait for so many seconds for the pre and post command to finish running. If the command still runs beyond the timeout period, then StoreGrid will abruptly terminate the command and will continue with the backup schedule.
Please note that if you provide -1 value, then the command will run till completion and StoreGrid will wait till the command completes. If command never completes, then StoreGrid may just infinitely wait without proceeding with the backup schedule.
Example: 60. For the myzip.exe command, the myzip.exe command will compress the given project folder up to 60 seconds. If the myzip.exe completes before the timeout period, say 15 seconds, then StoreGrid will immediately continue the next Pre Backup Command [if configured] or continue with the backup schedule.
So, the example command will look like below:
Command Name : C:\MyTools\myzip.exe
Arguments : High Zip Replace
Working Path : D:\Project
Time out : 60
The whole command will be run up to 60 seconds as below:
C:\MyTools\myzip.exe High Zip Replace "D:\Project"
Saving the configured backup
Once all the directories/files to be backed up are chosen and the configuration options are set, you simply need to click on the "Configure/Save Backup” button to activate the backup as per the schedule- on to the configured backup servers.
Limitations - The Files/Folders tree in this page is based on Java Script. So when a folder has 1000s of files, then the java script takes time to load the tree. Please be patient.
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