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When a backup job is created by a user, their selections create Microsoft Windows Backup software command line utility wbAdmin parameters necessary to run the backup job. While My Backup Assistant will allow the user to select any of the wbAdmin options available, the user’s system may not support those features and selections. When the backup job runs, My Backup Assistant parses the wbAdmin commands, compares that with the available commands on the system running the backup, and then removes any unsupported commands. The remaining supported wbAdmin commands are refereed to as the applied backup job parameters that they will be sent to wbAdmin.
Why does My Backup Assistant allow a user to select backup selections that may not be supported on they system? Often, IT administrators will configure backup jobs for their servers using My Backup Assistant on their desktop, export the backup jobs, and then import the backup jobs in My Backup Assistant on the server. This gives them the ability to create standardized backup job packages for deployment and reduces costs from duplicating work. Unfortunately, Windows desktops do not support all of the features that a Windows server supports. However, My Backup Assistant will allow the user to configure these settings on the desktop version of Windows to support this time saving feature.
The archive backup feature is used to create a point-in-time backup set that is used to augment daily backup jobs and can be used for long-term storage and protection. Archive backups are created on the storage location specified on the Backup Target tab. Archive backups will start a new (fresh) backup file; therefore, the backup job will take the full amount of time to backup all of the contents as specified on the Backup Selections tab. Since archive backups are new backup files, they will NOT contain previous backup revisions within that backup file as do the non-archive backup jobs. That file will only contain one point-in-time backup to be able to restore.
Archive backups take the full amount of time to run, so they are typically not used as the primary (daily) backup solution. Instead archive backups are normally used to augment a regular daily backup job to help provide additional protection in the event the regular backup files are damaged and cannot be used. Archive backup jobs are typically performed once per week, biweekly, or even monthly, depending on the number of backup devices being used and importance of the data or system being backed up.
To effectively make use of archive backups, you would most likely create a daily backup job that does not perform archive backups. You would set that backup job to run daily on the weekdays. You would then create a second backup job, turn on the archiving feature, and set it to run weekly on one of the weekend days so it has enough time to complete before the workweek starts.
The archive backup option will create backups that are the full size of your backup selections for each archive, so make sure you have enough space on the backup storage location specified on the Backup Target tab. Make sure you have at least enough space to store the quantity of backups that you want to keep!
A backup job is package of backup instructions that define many parameters of a backup set. They include what data to back up and protect, what to exclude from the backup, where to store the backed-up data, who to notify for various events that can occur during a backup, and when and how often the backup executes. It also allows you to control the cleanup that can occur on the backup devices where the backup sets are stored to avoid backup failures if there isn't enough space on the backup storage locations.
Backup job packages can be backed up by exporting then with a password. They are encrypted files that can safely be stored and imported if the software needs to be reinstalled. This also helps IT professionals create backup jobs they can share with their staff eliminating the need for end-users having to configure their backups manually.
Backup job descriptions are used to provide detailed information about a backup job within email notifications and reports. Often, the description is used to provide important or system related information to the recipient of the notification.
Each backup job must be unique so the system can differentiate between them. Each time you create a new backup job, My Backup Assistant automatically creates and assigns the backup job ID for you. These ID's cannot be changed and are managed by My Backup Assistant. When executing a backup job using the command line, you provide this unique ID as one of the parameters so My Backup Assistant knows which backup job to execute.
The backup job name is a friendly name that you can set for each of your backup jobs. The backup job name appears in the application, on each of your email notifications and reports, and allows you to distinguish between each backup job easily. Backup job names are typically short, because they also appear in the subject line of the email notifications. More detailed information can be included in the email notifications and reports by setting the Backup Job Description, which is typically used for longer more detailed descriptions that you want to include within your email notifications or creating reports.
My Backup Assistant is a friendly user interface for the Microsoft Windows Backup software command line utility wbAdmin. The backup job parameters that are provided within the My Backup Assistant notifications and reports indicate the wbAdmin parameters used when executing the backup job. These are helpful when troubleshooting errors or warnings for a backup job. IT staff can use these commands to manually execute backup jobs or to validate what is being backed up. Typically, users will not need to know or understand what these values and they can safely be ignored.
A backup job can be started automatically by a scheduled task or manually by a user. This section in the notifications and reports indicates who started the backup job for the specified sequence.
When backup job notifications and reports are generated, if warnings are encountered, they will be recorded and listed in the warnings section. The warnings section will often have helpful information about the problem that was encountered during the backup process. Warnings may also be license or software related and provide information about upcoming license renewals or expirations. You can also find helpful information, frequently asked questions, and generate a support ticket on our website if you need more assistance about any of the warnings that are generated by My Backup Assistant.
The size of the data or system being backed up will vary from system to system. The backup size is the total storage used by the result of the backup job. This resultant data is compressed and will typically be smaller than the total storage space on the system being backed up. This is most true for archive backups, because they only contain one backup. However, non-archive backups contain multiple incremental changes called revisions, each time the backup job is executed and the backup set will often be larger than the size of the raw data being backed up. The number of revisions contained within a non-archive backup job is controlled by settings on the cleanup tab in the backup job editor. You can control the total number of revisions being saved, thereby reducing the total storage being used. It is useful to use the backup size values of each backup job to determine the storage media needed to hold the backup data.
The backup target is the location where the backup data will be written or saved. The backup target can be a locally attached hard drive on the system or an available network location. When selecting a network share or a drive letter, you can only select one backup target per backup job. When using Backup Target Volumes, you can select multiple backup targets for a backup job. Local backup targets can be locally attached external USB or internal hard drives, or USB thumb drives. In enterprise environments, this can also be direct attached storage (DAS) devices and iSCSI devices. Network locations can be any network share accessible on a server, desktop, laptop, or network attached storage (NAS) device.
Warning – You should never try to include the backup target in your backup job inclusions list. If you try to also backup your backup target, it will duplicate the backup data each time and you will run out of space on the backup target quickly. Backup inclusions and targets should always be separated. Only the data and drives that you want to back up should be in your inclusions list and the backup target should be where you want this data to be stored for protection. You should never have a backup target in the backup inclusions list or an item in the backup inclusions list as the backup target.
The backup target is the location where the backup data will be written or saved. It is helpful to know the total size of the backup target, when calculating the storage space required to hold the data being backed up. This size represents the total available space the backup target has available for storage and shouldn’t ever change. See Backup Size for more information on the size of the data being backed up and protected.
The total free space of the location the backup data is being saved to is calculated before and after a backup job runs. The backup target free space value, which is synonymous with the free space before backup value, is included in backup job start notifications to help identify any issues that may occur if a backup job doesn’t have enough space to complete. This provides an IT administrator some time to create more free space if necessary while the backup job is running. This also provides a baseline for monitoring and determining when to purchase larger backup targets if necessary.
Each backup job will save the backed-up data to the location specified in the backup target tab of the backup job editor. This location is selected by the user configuring the backup job. This location is provided in the backup job notifications and reports as a reference.
Backup targets can be located on network devices, like network attached storage (NAS), or network shares on a server. Often, for security purposes, these connections require authentication (a username and password) to connect. The backup target requires authentication area in notifications and reports will indicated if ‘No’ if authentication is not required, or ‘Yes’ and the username if the backup target requires authentication. This will help identify any login credential problems if the backup jobs fail from invalid or changed credentials. Note that the username will be provided in the notifications and reports, but for security purposes the password will never be provided.
This setting is provided to track how many backup job versions exist on a backup target. This value is displayed on the backup job report and provides you with a total number of restoration points that exist on the specified backup target for the backup job. Please see the Cleanup - Minimum and Maximum Versions section for more information about backup job versions, how they are created, managed, and stored.
Each hard drive on a system has a unique identifier called a volume ID. The system can use these volumes as backup targets. The system generates uses this volume ID to generate a special path that can be used to access the hard drive. This path is called the volume path. My Backup Assistant provides the volume path in most notifications and reports for reference when performing troubleshooting for backup jobs. Typically, this can safely be ignored by users.
Backup target volumes are used by My Backup Assistant instead of drive letters, because drive letters can change when they are plugged into a system, volume paths cannot. This is how My Backup Assistant tracks the backup disks so it knows where to place the backup data.
Note that backup target volumes do not apply when backing up to network shared locations. Volume paths are only created and managed by the system the hard drives are installed on or connected to.
For non-archive backup jobs, when a backup job back runs, it evaluates the location that was selected as the backup target to determine if a backup set (file) already exists. If it does, it examines the system being backed up and only backs up the ‘difference’ between the backup set already on the backup target and what has changed on the system. It then only backs up that difference and stores it with the original backup set (file). This is known as a differential or incremental backup that Windows Backup calls ‘Versions’. This provides both the original state of the backup set when it backed up for the first time and then any incremental changes along the way when each backup job runs.
Over time, the backup set (file) continues to grow as it creates a new version to add on to the original backup set (file) and may outgrow the backup location. In addition, the data being stored from the earlier backups may be too old to be of value. By setting the minimum and maximum version values on the cleanup tab, it will limit the number of versions that the backup job saves for a specified backup set (file). When the backup job runs, it will evaluate how many versions exist and remove the oldest revisions until it meets the requirement set for the Maximum Versions you want to keep. If the backup job does not have enough space to perform a backup, it will automatically remove the oldest versions until it has enough space to perform a backup or it hits the Minimum Versions value.
Note: A version is created every time the backup job runs. If the backup job runs daily, 7 days each week, and your cleanup versions is set to 14, then you would have a rolling set of versions for the last 14 days. This would allow you to restore data that is no more than two weeks old. If you have 2 hard drives in your backup set that you alternate backing up to, then you would have up to 14 versions on each drive (that are created every other day) that would allow you to restore data that is no more than 28 days old.
When backup failures occur consecutively (in a row), this count is recorded by the system and stored with the backup job history. Each time a successful backup job completes, or a backup job that completes with only warnings, the consecutive failure count is reset back to zero. A user can subscribe to consecutive failure events and set a failure count so they will be notified if it reaches or exceeds this threshold. After the user subscribes to this event and sets the failure count for their notification, the user will continue to be notified each time a backup failure occurs while the backup job meets or exceeds this threshold. The notifications will stop when the counter is reset back to zero or if the user turns off this notification type in the backup job notification settings.
Consecutive backup failure notifications can be critical in preventing a long-term loss of data. If a backup does not succeed after a specified number of attempts, it may require a machine restart or human interaction to resolve the issue. This notification type helps identify systems that have not backed up for a period of time that exceeds you or your organizations risk tolerance.
It is common to have some backup job failures due to software updates or system changes that require a reboot. Depending on the importance of the data and the risk tolerance of you and your organization, it is often acceptable to have some failures for a short period of time. The average notification interval for consecutive backup failures for My Backup Assistant is 3, which is the default value.
You can provide a nickname to each email server configuration in the email server editor. Often, multiple email accounts are used to send backup job and system notifications, but they typically use the same email server. This is a user-friendly name that you can set to easily differentiate between email server configurations that may only differ by account, username, or email address.
When test email notifications are sent from My Backup Assistant, it records the name of the machine that is sending the email. This is helpful to determine where email tests are being sent from.
The end date and time are recorded when a backup job completes. This signifies a backup process has completed and notifications are sent to users that have subscribed to backup job completion events. This end date and time are used to calculate the total running time of a backup job. The end date and time are recorded even if the backup job fails or has warnings. Often you see a very small time, usually in seconds, for the running value of a backup job if it fails.
When backup job notifications and reports are generated, if errors are encountered, they will be recorded and listed in the errors section. The errors section will often have helpful information about the problem that was encountered during the backup process. The errors section also includes an error details button or icon. When you click on this button or icon, your default browser will open and navigate to the My Backup Assistant website support page. You can find helpful information, frequently asked questions, and generate a support ticket if you need more assistance.
My Backup Assistant trial versions and subscription versions have expiration dates if a valid license is not purchased or they are not renewed respectively. The expiration date in license notification emails will indicate the expiration date so you can take the appropriate action to purchase or renew your services. Most subscriptions will automatically renew unless you have turned this feature off. Charges may apply to your account or credit card during renewal. See the section on subscription period for more information.
If a user has selected to receive the logs as attachments to their notifications for a backup job, the My Backup Assistant (MBA) log and the Windows wbAdmin logs will be attached to the notification. Email notifications provide detailed descriptions of what is contained in each log. The descriptions are located below.
When a backup job runs, the total free space on the backup target is calculate before the backup job executes. This is what the free space before backup indicates. This is used to compare against the free space after backup value to calculate the total change in free space when the backup completes.
When a backup job runs, the total free space on the backup target is calculate after the backup job completes. This is what the free space after backup indicates. This is used to compare against the free space before backup value to calculate the total change in free space on the backup target when the backup is finished.
The total free space of the backup target is calculated when the backup job starts and completes. These values are known as the free space before backup and free space after backup. When the backup job completes, these two values are compared and the calculated result is the free space change.
This value can increase or decrease based on the changes that occur in the data being backed up or the cleanup options that were selected. This value often decreases slowly as more data is added to the system being backed up. This is normal and shouldn't cause alarm. However, if this value increases or decreases drastically, this could indicate that a significant amount of data was added or removed and may need to be evaluated by IT staff.
Most notifications and reports contain the get more help button or icon. When you click on this button or icon, your default browser will open and navigate to the My Backup Assistant website support page. You can find helpful information, frequently asked questions, and generate a support ticket if you need more assistance.
If a backup job notification or report indicates a failure, it is often helpful to know when the most recent successful backup occurred. You can use this information to determine if corrective action should be taken or if you can wait until the next backup job run interval to see if the problem corrects itself. if a backup job hasn’t successfully completed for an extended period of time, then corrective action should be taken to protect the data and the systems. Most problems can be resolved by rebooting the system, but this is not always guaranteed. Sometimes manual intervention is required to run a backup or to permanently resolve any issues that prevent the backups from occurring.
When test email notifications are sent from My Backup Assistant, it records the name of the user that is currently logged on to the system when sending the email. This is helpful to determine who is initiating the email tests.
When configuring email servers in My Backup Assistant to send email notifications, if you indicated the email server requires a login name and password (authentication) for a connection, then you must enter your login name to connect to the email servers. You can obtain this information from your IT administrator or hosting provider, or you may be able to find this information in your computer or phone email settings. Your login name is typically your email address. This setting is usually required by the email server, but not always. When authentication is not required by the server, they are normally called relay servers.
When My Backup Assistant is installed, it automatically generates a unique machine ID for the system the software is being installed on. This value is included in software licensing notifications and may be used by My Backup Assistant staff to help support software installations and activations. It is safe to share this information with My Backup Assistant staff if and when they ask for it.
The machine name is gathered during backup job execution and is included in the notifications and reports for clarity. This helps differentiate between many different backup job notifications and reports that you may be receiving for all of your systems.
The MBA Log file contains the list of commands that were executed and their results during the execution of this backup job. The name of this file will have the same name as the backup job name with the date and time appended to the end.
When configuring email servers in My Backup Assistant to send email notifications, if you indicated the email server requires a login name and password (authentication) for a connection, then you may be required to enter a password. This setting is usually required by the email server, but not always. You can obtain this information from your IT administrator or hosting provider, or you may be able to find this information in your computer or phone email settings. Note that in notifications and reports password are not provided. When a password is used in the system and indicated on notifications and reports, the password is replaced with the text < hidden >. Otherwise if no password is used, it is replaced with NA to indicated that no password was necessary.
Connections to email servers in My Backup Assistant requires the use of port numbers. A port number is a channel that the email server expects to be contacted for mail communication. While this port number can be set to almost any number your IT administrator or hosting provider wants, the most common port numbers are 25 and 587. You can obtain this information from your IT administrator or hosting provider, or you may be able to find this information in your computer or phone email settings.
Software upgrade, downgrade or software upgrade failure notifications include this value for reference. You can look up these settings at any time in the application settings editor on the update settings tab. This value is useful, because it will help you identify which version the software was upgraded from. This can also be helpful when troubleshooting software upgrade problems.
There are multiple editions of My Backup Assistant available to meet the specific needs of an organization. Each edition may have more or less features or different price points based on the edition.
Each installation of My Backup Assistant on a device or virtual machine is required to have its own serial number, which equivalent to a My Backup Assistant license. Serial numbers should not be shared and should be stored in a safe place if the software needs to be reinstalled. My Backup Assistant staff will NEVER ask you for your serial number. They can obtain or validate your serial number by using your Machine ID. Please do not provide this information to anyone, as it is your sole responsible for protecting your serial numbers (licenses). In the event you lose your serial number(s), we can revoke the old serial number(s) and issue a new one in its place that is tied to the same machine ID.
When configuring email servers in My Backup Assistant to send email notifications, you must provide a send as user name and address. This is the friendly name and email address that My Backup Assistant uses when sending email notifications and reports. This will be the visible name and email address that they notifications and reports are sent from. You can obtain this information from your IT administrator or hosting provider, or you may be able to find this information in your computer or phone email settings.
When configuring email servers in My Backup Assistant to send email notifications, you must provide a server name or IP address. This is the name or IP address that My Backup Assistant uses to contact the email server. You can obtain this information from your IT administrator or hosting provider, or you may be able to find this information in your computer or phone email settings.
The sequence ID is used to determine how many times a backup job has been executed. This value is incremented each time the backup job runs and will be incremented even if the backup job fails. It can be reset within the backup job settings editor.
All system and backup job notifications and reports contain the software version number. This is helpful when identifying software problems or keeping track of which device has been upgraded or needs to be upgraded. When available in some notification and report formats, the software version can be clicked on and the software release notes for that version will be opened in your default browser.
Software upgrade, downgrade or software upgrade failure notifications include this value for reference. This value is useful, because it will help you identify how the software was upgraded, either automatically or manually. This can also be helpful when troubleshooting software upgrade problems or to identify when a user is attempting to manually upgrade the software.
When a backup job is running, either through MBA or using Microsoft Windows tools, like the Windows Backup software or the command line, you will have the option to stop the backup job using MBA. When you stop a backup job, you need to be aware that, depending on where the backup process was during the stop request, the backup set will be defragmented. In extremely remote cases, the backup set could become corrupt. The Microsoft backup engine has many self-healing features, so the next time a backup runs for this backup job, the backup set will be fixed or replaced depending on the severity of the problems. Normally, after a backup job stop command is issued, the next backup job that runs will most likely take a very long time to execute, because it will need time to fix the backup set or backup the entire system and data. In most cases, you will not lose your previous versions of the backup job set, only the version that failed to finish due to the quit command being issued.
If a stop command is issued during a backup, it is highly recommended that you initiate a backup job as soon as possible to fix any potential issues that may have been caused for that backup set.
The start date and time are recorded when a backup job executes. This signifies a backup process has started and notifications are sent to users that have subscribed to backup job start events. This start date and time are used to calculate the total running time of a backup job.
Subscriptions to My Backup Assistant are based on a period of time. Software license notifications will provide the subscription period, which will allow you to identify any licenses that have expired or will expire in the future. It will also identify when renewals will occur for automatic renewals.
The start and end date and times are recorded when a backup job executes. These times are compared and used to calculate the total running time of a backup job. This can be useful in determining when to execute the backup jobs so they don't occur during peak office hours. Often, large archive backup jobs can take many hours to run, so as a standard, this value is used to start archive backup jobs early enough that they will be completed before peak hours. Non-archive backup jobs typically only take a few minutes to run, therefor they typically don't experience a performance issue for users.
Software upgrade, downgrade or software upgrade failure notifications include this setting for reference. The available settings are application start, daily, weekly and monthly and are explained below. These settings can be changed at any time in the application settings editor on the update settings tab.
If application start is selected, the update servers are contacted every time the software runs. If a newer version is available, based on your update setting, that version is downloaded and installed.
The daily, weekly, and monthly settings work similarly to the application start, but are controlled by a timed frequency. When the software starts, it will look up the last time the software update check was run and determine if it should run. The daily setting limits the software check to run no more than once every 24 hours. Likewise, the weekly and monthly setting limit the software check to run no more than once per week and once per month respectively.
My Backup Assistant provides a friendly, automated software update feature to help manage software deployment and maintain security patches and feature stability updates. Software upgrade, downgrade or software upgrade failure notifications include this setting for reference. The available settings are latest, minimum required, and manual and are explained below. These settings can be changed at any time in the application settings editor on the update settings tab.
If latest is selected, automatic updates occur in the background without disruption and without your interaction. This helps you get the latest software releases to get new features, improve existing feature stability and fix any vulnerabilities that need to be addressed. The administrator is notified whenever the software is updated or fails to update, so you always know that you are protected and have the most stable version.
If you aren’t comfortable with receiving updates automatically, then you can manage the updates yourself by selecting manual updates. While it is your responsibility to make sure the software is up-to-date, this gives you maximum control over your software update policy.
And for those of you that just want the bare minimum to function, you are welcome to select the minimum required selection. As we retire older versions, we raise the minimum required version along the way. This setting will only ever download and install the minimum version that is still supported by our engineers.
Software upgrade, downgrade or software upgrade failure notifications include this value for reference. You can look up these settings at any time in the application settings editor on the update settings tab. This value is useful, because it will help you identify which version the software was upgraded to during an upgrade or downgraded to for a downgrade. This can also be helpful when troubleshooting software upgrade problems or to identify when a user rolls back the software to a previous version or there is a failure during upgrade.
When configuring email servers in My Backup Assistant to send email notifications, you must indicate if the email server requires a login name and password (authentication) for a connection. You can obtain this information from your IT administrator or hosting provider, or you may be able to find this information in your computer or phone email settings. Please see the login name and password sections for more details.
When configuring email servers in My Backup Assistant to send email notifications, you must indicate if the email server uses SSL (Secure Socket Layer) for communication. You can obtain this information from your IT administrator or hosting provider, or you may be able to find this information in your computer or phone email settings. This setting is usually required by the email server, but not always.
When the Microsoft wbAdmin backup completes, it provides a summary of the operation. My Backup Assistant parses the wbAdmin log, extracts this summary, and provides it as part of the notifications and reports. The wbAdmin summary often indicates the volumes that were backed up, any logs that were created, and any errors that may have occurred.