Creating a basic backup policy
You can automate the creation of recovery points with a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule. If you create a recovery point set, you can also specify that certain events, like logging on or off a computer, create incremental recovery points.
When a backup runs, each snapshot is stored on your computer as a recovery point. You can use the recovery point to restore your computer to the point in time when you created the snapshot.
Note: Veritas recommends that you enable AES encryption for the recovery points so that only users with passwords can mount the files.
To create a basic backup policy
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On the Veritas System Recovery 18 Management Solution Manage tab, in the left pane, expand the Backup Policies list in the left pane.
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Select the type of recovery point that you want the backup policy to create, and then click New > Backup Policy.
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On the Backup Policies panel, in the Name text field, type a descriptive name for the new backup policy.
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In the Drives field, click the hyperlink.
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On the Backup Policy Drives panel, set the drive option you want, and then click Apply.| All drives on selected computers | Lets you define a backup policy for two or more computers. You should select this option to protect all drives (including hidden or unmounted), that exist on the client computers. || By Drive | Lets you select the drives that you want to back up on the selected client computers. || | If you chose to create a recovery point set, hidden drives are not displayed in the By Drive list. || | Sometimes a selected drive letter is not available for backing up on a particular client computer. The drive has been deleted or the entire hard disk has been removed from the client computer since Veritas System Recovery was installed. In such cases, when the recovery point is created, it does not include the drive. |Note: During a backup, if you select a drive or volume that includes a system drive, the partitions associated with the drive are also backed up. For example, System Reserved, UEFI, and Recovery partitions.
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In the Schedule field, click the hyperlink.
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On the Backup Policy Schedule panel, set the schedule options you want, and then click Apply.
The available scheduling options depend on the recovery point type that you selected.
Backup Policy Schedule tab options for a recovery point set
| Schedule | Lets you select the days and a start time for when the backup should run. |
| Start time (24 hour format) | Lets you customize the start time of the backup . |
| Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat | Lets you customize the days of the week for the backup to run. The default is to run the backup Monday through Friday. |
| Run more than once per day | Lets you run the backup more than once a day to protect the data that you edit or change frequently. |
| Time between backups | Lets you specify the maximum time that should occur between backups. |
| Number of times | Lets you specify the number of times per day that the backup should run. |
| Automatically optimize | Lets you select how often optimization should occur for the backup destination to manage the used disk space. |
| | You can choose from the following options: |
| | - Never Indicates that no deletion of incremental recovery points is performed. |
| | - Every four hours Indicates that a deletion of incremental recovery points that are four hours old (or older) is performed every four hours. Also, after the first incremental of the day is taken, all incremental files from two days previous are consolidated to a single file. |
| | - Every twelve hours Indicates that a deletion of incremental recovery points that are 12 hours old (or older) is performed every 12 hours. Also, after the first incremental of the day is taken, all incremental files from two days previous are consolidated to a single file. |
| Distribute strategy randomly across (minutes) | Indicates that the policy is distributed randomly across a specified number of minutes (0-1440) to all the computers that are assigned to the policy. This option applies if you save recovery points to a network destination. |
| | For example, suppose you want to distribute a backup policy in 60 minutes to 120 computers. Each of the 120 computers would randomly choose a time within the 60 minutes, before or after the scheduled start time, to start the backup. |
| | This option helps to run not the policy at the same start time for all computers, which can cause a denial of service condition on the network, the recovery point destination, or both. |
| Start a new recovery point set | Lets you select how frequently a new recovery point set should be started. |
| | Your options for starting new recovery point set (base) include the following: |
| | - Weekly Creates a new recovery point set on the first scheduled or manual backup of the week. |
| | - Monthly Creates a new recovery point set on the first scheduled or manual backup of the month. |
| | - Quarterly Creates a new recovery point set on the first scheduled or manual backup every three months from the date when you selected this option. |
| | - Yearly Creates a new recovery point set on the first scheduled or manual backup of the year, once a year, on the date that you selected for this option. |
| | - Custom Lets you set specific weekly or monthly options for starting a new recovery point set. |
| Custom | Lets you customize the start time, and the days of the week or month to run the backup. |
| | Note: If you choose to archive recovery points, consider creating recovery point sets more frequently to keep the size of your recovery point sets smaller. |
Backup Policy Triggers tab options for a recovery point set
| Any application is installed | Indicates that an incremental recovery point is created at the time users begin to install a software application on their computer. |
| Specified applications are launched | Indicates that an incremental recovery point is created at the time users run a specified software application on their computer. |
| Any user logs on to the computer | Indicates that an incremental recovery point is created when users log on to Windows on their computer. |
| Any user logs off from the computer | Indicates that an incremental recovery point is created at the moment users log off from Windows on their computer (but does not turn off Windows). |
| Data added to the drive exceeds | Indicates that an incremental recovery point is created when the added data on a drive exceeds an amount (in megabytes) that you specify. |
Backup Policy Schedule options for an independent recovery point
| Automatically create a recovery point | Lets you specify a weekly or monthly backup schedule. |
| | The scheduling options include the following: |
| | - Weekly Creates a new, independent recovery point on each day of the week that you check, and at the specified time. When you create independent recovery points one or more times per week, large amounts of disk storage space may be required. |
| | - Monthly Creates a new, independent recovery point on each day of the month that you check, and at the specified time. |
| | - No Schedule Saves all of the backup policy settings except a schedule. You can later deploy the backup policy at your convenience by assigning a schedule to the policy. |
| | You can also create a single independent recovery point once, with no schedule. |
| | See Creating an independent backup task . |
| Start time (24 hour format) | Lets you customize the start time of the backup . |
| Days of the week | Lets you customize the days of the week for the backup policy to run. |
| Days of the month | Lets you customize the days of the month for the backup policy to run. |
| Distribute strategy randomly across (minutes) | Indicates that the policy is distributed randomly across a specified number of minutes (0-1440) to all the computers that are assigned to the policy. This option applies if you save recovery points to a network destination. |
| | For example, suppose you want to distribute a backup policy in 60 minutes to 120 computers. Each of the 120 computers would randomly choose a time within the 60 minutes, before or after the scheduled start time, to start the backup. |
| | This option helps to not run the policy at the same start time for all computers, which can cause a denial of service condition on the network, the recovery point destination, or both. |
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On the Backup Policies panel, do one of the following:
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On the Destination list, select a local target folder.
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Click Define destination . On the Backup Destination panel, set the options you want, and then click Apply.
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When you click Define Destination and select a network destination to save the recovery points, the backup is not encrypted.
Note: Veritas recommends that you use AES encryption when you define a backup to prevent unauthorized access to the files.
| Enter a folder relative to the managed computers | Indicates the location where you want to store the recovery points, relative to the managed computers. |
| Browse | Lets you browse to locate a destination that you want to use, relative to the managed computers. You must have create, read, and write privileges at the specified location. |
| | If there is insufficient space at the destination where the recovery point is stored, the policy fails and an error is reported on the Veritas System Recovery 18 Management Solution Home tab. |
| User name | Lets you specify the user name to a destination folder that is located in a network path. |
| Password | Lets you specify the password to a destination that is located in a network path. |
| Confirm password | Lets you retype the password for confirmation. |
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Optionally, select Create subfolder for each computer if you want to create new subfolders on the network share that serves as the backup destination.
The new subfolders are given the same names as each client computer that is backed up. For example, suppose you have two client computers. One is named "CathyReadLaptop" and the other is named "MyLaptop". The new subfolders are named \CathyReadLaptop and \MyLaptop.
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Optionally, if you want to make copies of your recovery points to store at a remote location for added backup protection, do one of the following:
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In the Offsite Copy list, select an off-site destination.
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In the Offsite Copy ** list area, clickDefine Destination . Specify the path to an external drive, a network server, or an FTP server, and then click Apply**.| All drives on selected computers | Lets you define a backup policy for two or more computers. You should select this option to protect all drives (including hidden or unmounted), that exist on the client computers. || By Drive | Lets you select the drives that you want to back up on the selected client computers. || | If you chose to create a recovery point set, hidden drives are not displayed in the By Drive list. || | Sometimes a selected drive letter is not available for backing up on a particular client computer. The drive has been deleted or the entire hard disk has been removed from the client computer since Veritas System Recovery was installed. In such cases, when the recovery point is created, it does not include the drive. |
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See About Offsite Copy.
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In the Enable password protection panel, enter the following information.| Enable password protection | Sets a password and enables AES encryption on the recovery point when it is created. || | This check box is selected by default. || Password | Lets you specify a password for the backup. Passwords can include standard characters. Passwords cannot include extended characters, or symbols. (Use characters with an ASCII value of 128 or lower.) || | You must type this password before you restore a backup or view the contents of the recovery point. || Confirm password | Lets you retype the password for || | confirmation. || AES encryption | Encrypts recovery point data to add another level of protection to your recovery points. || | Note: If theUse Passwordcheck box is selected, you must define AES encryption. || | Choose from the following encryption levels: || | - Standard 128-bit (8+ character password) || | - Medium 192-bit (16+ character password) || | - High 256-bit (32+ character password) || | You may have older backup policies created using Symantec System Recovery 2013 Management Solution or Symantec System Recovery 2011 Management Solution, where password protection was not enabled. If you edit the older policies using Veritas System Recovery 18 Management Solution, the AES Encryption field displays None . You need to select one of the options in the list to enable AES encryption. || | While higher strengths require longer passwords, the result is greater security for your data. |Note: When you create a backup policy, the password that you enter in this option is also automatically added to the recovery point password store.
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Click Save changes.
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In the middle pane, click Apply on the toolbar.
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Select the targets to which you want the policy to be applied, and then click OK.
You can also click Unapply on the toolbar in the middle pane to remove the policy from selected targets.