Use these procedures to view, add, edit, and remove protected assets. These procedures include options to configure or modify various features. We recommend reviewing Preparing to manage assets for details on these features before running these procedures.
The Configure > Protected Assets tab displays assets in an inventory tree where:
• | Each physical asset and virtual host displays as a top-level node. |
Note: If you have opted to install the Unitrends agent on a VM, it is treated as a physical asset and displays as a top-level node. Use the physical asset procedures to protect the VM.
• | Each application displays as a sub-node under its host asset. |
• | Each VM displays as a sub-node under its virtual host. |
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance. |
2 | Click the Protected Assets tab. |
3 | Use these options to customize your view: |
• | View options: |
– | To view assets in a list, click View: List. Each row in the list describes a single asset. |
– | To view assets in a table, click View: Table. Assets display in tiles on the left. Click an asset to view its details. |
• | Display options: select to filter the display by asset type. |
Use these procedures to manage physical machine assets and VMs protected using a Unitrends agent. (For VMs protected at the host-level, see the Managing protected assets procedures instead.)
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that will be protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets > Add > Asset. |
3 | Enter the asset's hostname. |
4 | Enter the asset's IP address. This is optional in some cases, as described here: |
• | For Hyper-V hosts and Windows, Linux, or Mac assets, you can use DNS rather than entering a static IP address. |
• | DNS registration should be used for assets that obtain their network settings through DHCP. It is optional for assets with static IP addresses. |
• | If you do not enter a static IP address, make sure that both the asset and the appliance have DNS entries and that reverse lookup is configured. |
• | If you enter a static IP address, the appliance attempts to connect using this address, but if the attempt fails, it will try to add the asset using DNS. |
5 | Enter or select optional settings as desired. |
6 | Click Save. |
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that is protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets and select the desired asset. |
3 | Click Edit. |
4 | Modify settings as desired, and click Save. |
Caution! When an asset is removed, all associated backups of that asset are also deleted. Please use caution when removing an asset.
Preparing to remove an asset
Before removing an asset, you must remove the asset from all job schedules.
Notes:
• | Unitrends asset configuration settings are saved in the master.ini file. Note that deleting the asset from the Unitrends appliance also removes this file from the asset itself and any customized settings you have added are lost. Be sure to save the asset’s master.ini file before deleting if you think you may want to add the asset to this or another Unitrends appliance and want to use these settings. After adding the asset back to an appliance, replace the standard master.ini file with the one you have saved. |
• | If you are using Windows Instant Recovery and you remove the Windows asset while a virtual rescovery is in progress, the deletion may not be instantaneous. The clean up takes time because the recovery is shut down and the virtual replica asset is removed. |
To remove an asset
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that is protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets and select the asset you want to remove. |
3 | Click Remove > Confirm. |
Use these procedures to protect data stored on a NAS share using the CIFS or NFS protocol.
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that will be protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets > Add > NAS. |
3 | Enter the NAS Name. |
4 | Enter the NAS IP address. |
5 | Select the CIFS or NFS protocol. |
6 | The Port field contains the default for the protocol selected. If the protocol uses a custom port, enter that port number. |
7 | Enter the full directory pathname of the NAS share in the Share Name field. Do not use leading or ending slashes. |
Example pathname: parentShare/subDirectory1/subDirectory2.
• | To protect only the subDirectory2 share and its subdirectories, enter parentShare/subDirectory1/subDirectory2. |
• | To protect parentShare and all of its subdirectories, enter parentShare. |
• | If credentials are required to access the share and these credential enable access to a parent directory only, enter the full path to the parent directory. You can specify desired folders and files to include in the backup when you create the job. |
8 | If credentials are required to access the NAS, enter the Username and Password. |
9 | Click Save. |
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that is protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets, select the NAS and click Edit. |
3 | Modify settings as desired, and click Save. |
Caution! When an asset is removed, all associated backups of that asset are also deleted. Please use caution when removing an asset.
Preparing to remove an asset
Before removing an asset, you must remove the asset from all job schedules.
To remove a NAS asset
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that is protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets and select the asset you want to remove. |
3 | Click Remove > Confirm. |
Use these procedures to manage application assets.
To protect an application, you do not add the application itself. Instead, add its host server as described in To add an asset. All hosted applications display under the asset you have added.
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that is protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets and expand the application's host. |
3 | Select the desired application and click Edit. |
4 | Modify settings as desired, and click Save. |
To protect VMs at the host-level, you must add the VM's virtual host. This can be a vCenter, an ESXi server, or a Hyper-V server.
Use these procedures to manage virtual hosts. For additional requirements and considerations, see Host-level Backups Overview.
Before you start, see Preparing to add a VMware host or Preparing to add a Hyper-V host.
For VMware virtual machines, you can add standalone ESX hosts and vCenter servers. Note that you must add the vCenter server to protect templates or clustered VMs.
• | Working with vCenter servers - When you add a vCenter server, the appliance automatically detects all ESX hosts managed by the vCenter and all VMs and templates residing on these hosts. When a vCenter server is added, Unitrends can work with VMware’s vMotion technology to contact the appropriate server when backing up clustered VMs. |
In addition to adding the vCenter, we recommend that you also individually add each ESX host, so if your vCenter server goes down, Unitrends can contact the host directly to perform jobs.
• | About adding ESX hosts - If you are not adding a vCenter, you must add the ESX host to your Unitrends appliance to protect its virtual machines. If you want to use the instant recovery feature or protect templates or clustered VMs, you must add a vCenter server as well. |
Once a virtual host is added, all VMs on that host are automatically discovered and can be selected for protection.
Before adding the host, you must install the Unitrends Windows agent on the host. See Installing the Windows agent for details.
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that will be protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets > Add > Virtual Host. |
3 | Complete all fields on the Add Virtual Host page. |
4 | Click Save |
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that is protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets and select the desired virtual host asset. |
3 | Click Edit. |
4 | Modify settings as desired, and click Save. |
Unitrends recommends upgrading virtual hosts to the latest supported version. Refer to appropriate vendor documentation for instructions on upgrading.
If VMs are added or removed on the host during the upgrade, refresh the VMs on the appliance to reflect the changes by selecting the Options icon in the top-right and cilcking Inventory Sync.
Caution! When a virtual host is removed, all backups of its VMs are also deleted. Please use caution when removing a virtual host asset.
Use this procedure to remove a vCenter, an ESX host, or a Hyper-V host from the Unitrends appliance. When you remove a virtual host, all backups of its VMs are also deleted. However, if you have added a vCenter server and the ESX hosts it is managing, the VM backups are not deleted from the appliance if you remove only the vCenter server. The backups are not deleted unless you also remove the ESX host servers.
To remove a virtual host asset
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that is protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets and select the virtual host you want to remove. |
3 | Click Remove > Confirm. |
Use these procedures to manage VMs you are protecting at the host-level.
For host-level protection of a VM, you do not add the VM itself. Instead, add its virtual host as described in To add a virtual host asset. All hosted VMs display under the host you have added.
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that is protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets and expand the VM's virtual host to display its VMs. |
3 | Select the desired VM and click Edit. |
4 | Modify settings as desired, and click Save. |
For VMware Windows VMs, you can opt to use application-aware protection for hosted Exchange and SQL simple recovery model applications.
Preparing for application-aware protection
Before you start, create administrative credentials for the Windows VM, as described in To add a credential.
To configure application-aware protection on a VMware Windows VM
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that is protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets and expand the VM's virtual host to display its VMs. |
3 | Select the desired VM and click Edit. |
4 | Select the credential you created, check Enable Application Aware VM Processing, and click Save. |
To encrypt an asset's backups
1 | Set up encryption on the appliance, as described in To edit an appliance. |
2 | Select Encrypt Backups using the applicable Edit Asset procedure. (See To edit an asset or To edit a virtual machine asset.) |
Credentials are used to establish a trust relationship between the Unitrends appliance and its assets. For an overview of how credentials are used, see Asset credentials. For credential requirements for the asset you are protecting, see the applicable Backups Overview chapter in this guide.
Use these procedures to add, edit, and delete credentials, and to apply credentials to your assets (physical assets, applications, virtual hosts, and virtual machines):
1 | Click Configure > Protected Assets > Manage Credentials > Add. |
2 | Enter credential information and click Save. |
This credential can now be applied to your assets.
Click Configure > Protected Assets > Manage Credentials.
All credentials defined for this appliance display.
1 | Click Configure > Protected Assets > Manage Credentials. |
2 | Select the desired credential and click Edit. |
3 | Modify information as desired and click Save. |
1 | Click Configure > Protected Assets > Manage Credentials. |
2 | Select the desired credential. |
3 | Click Remove > Confirm. |
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that is protecting the asset. |
2 | Click Protected Assets and select the desired asset. |
3 | Click Edit. |
4 | Select the desired credential and click Save. |
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that is protecting the assets. |
2 | Click Protected Assets and select the desired assets. You can select any combination of physical assets, applications, virtual hosts, and VMs. |
3 | Click Edit. |
4 | Select the desired credential and click Save. |
Retention settings are used to control how long backups are retained.
Retention setting |
Description |
Keep Backup for minimum N Days |
Minimum retention goal, in days. This setting does not guarantee retention for the defined period. As new backups run, these backups may be deleted to reclaim space. If a backup must be deleted before meeting this minimum goal, a notification is sent indicating the desired goal is not being met. To guarantee minimum retention, use the Do not delete backups for N Days setting instead. |
Delete backups after N Days |
Number of days after which the appliance will delete backups. Backups are eligible to be deleted once the full has exceeded this limit. At this point, the full and all associated incrementals and differentials in the group are deleted. |
Do not delete backups for N Days |
Number of days backups must be retained. Backups that are younger than N days are not purged for any reason, including at the expense of new, incoming backups. The age of a backup is determined by the last backup in the group, e.g., the last incremental before a new full. After passing this limit, the Keep Backup for minimum N Days and Delete backups after N Days settings take effect to determine retention. |
Never delete backups | Check this box to retain backups forever. This retains the full backup and any associated incrementals and differentials in the backup group. |
1 | On the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance that is protecting the assets. |
2 | Click Protected Assets and select the desired assets. You can select any combination of physical assets, applications, and VMs. |
3 | Click Edit. |
4 | Click Manage Retention. |
5 | Define settings as desired click Save. |