Using CA ARCserve Central Protection Manager › Using CA ARCserve Central Protection Manager to Back up CA ARCserve D2D Nodes › Create a Basic Policy

Create a Basic Policy

Policies define how and when to back up and store data that resides on CA ARCserve D2D nodes. CA ARCserve Central Protection Manager does not contain default policies. Creating a policy is a prerequisite task to backing up the data that resides on nodes.

To create a basic policy, you specify the protection settings and create a schedule. Protection settings define the data that you want to back up, where to store the data, and how to store the data. The schedule defines when and how often to back up the nodes.

Follow these steps:

1. From the CA ARCserve Central Protection Manager home page, click Policies on the Navigation bar to open the Policies screen.
2. Click New to create a new policy.
3. In the Policy Name field on the New Policy dialog, specify a name for the policy.
4. Click the Backup Settings tab and then click Protection Settings to display the Protection Settings options.
5. Specify the Backup Destination.

   You can specify a local path (volume or folder), or remote shared folder (or mapped drive) for the backup location.

   • If you specify to back up to your local path (volume or folder), the specified backup destination cannot be the same location as the source. If you inadvertently include the source in your destination, the job ignores this portion of the source and does not include it in the backup.

     Important! Verify that your specified destination volume does not contain system information. CA ARCserve D2D does not back up destination volumes that contain system information. When you try to recover the computer using Bare Metal Recovery (BMR), the recovery can fail.

     Note: Dynamic disks cannot be restored at the disk level. If your data is backed up to a volume on a dynamic disk, you cannot restore this dynamic disk during BMR.

   • When you back up data to a remote shared location, specify a location path and the credentials that are required to access the remote computer.
6. Specify the Backup Source.

   You can specify to back up the entire node or an individual volume on the node.

   Be aware of the following:

   • If the full machine backup option is selected, CA ARCserve D2D automatically discovers all disks/volumes attached to the current machine, and include them in the backup.
   • If system/boot volume is not selected for backup, a warning message displays. The message indicates that the backup cannot be used for BMR.
7. Specify the Recovery Points.

   Specifies the quantity of backup images retained. The default is 31 and maximum is 1344. When modifying this quantity, consider the amount of free space available on the destination.

   When the specified quantity of Recovery Points is exceeded, CA ARCserve D2D merges the oldest incremental child backup into the parent backup and recreates the baseline image. The new baseline image consists of the "parent plus oldest child" blocks. The cycle of merging the oldest child backup into the parent backup repeats for each subsequent backup. This process lets you perform infinite incremental backups, while maintaining the same retention count.

8. Specify the type of Compression that you want to use for backups.

   Compression decreases your disk space usage, but also has an inverse impact on your backup speed due to the increased CPU usage.

   The available compression options are as follows:

   No Compression

   No compression is performed. This option has the lowest CPU usage (fastest speed), but also has the highest disk space usage for your backup image.

   Standard Compression

   Some compression is performed. This option provides a good balance between CPU usage and disk space usage. Standard compression is the default setting.

   Maximum Compression

   Maximum compression is performed. This option provides the highest CPU usage (lowest speed), but also has the lowest disk space usage for your backup image.

   Be aware of the following:

   • If your backup image contains data that cannot be compressed, such as JPG images, ZIP files, and so on, allocate storage space to handle such data.
   • If your destination does not have sufficient free space, consider increasing the Compression setting of the backup.
9. Specify the Encryption settings that you want to use for added security.
   1. Specify the type of encryption algorithm that you want to use for backups.

      Data encryption is the translation of data into a form that is unintelligible without a deciphering mechanism. CA ARCserve D2D data protection uses secure, AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption algorithms to achieve maximum security and privacy of your specified data.

      The available format options are No Encryption, AES-128, AES-192, and AES-256. (To disable encryption, select No Encryption).

      • A full backup and all its related incremental and verify backups must use the same encryption algorithm.
      • When you change the encryption algorithm for an incremental or a verify backup, perform a full backup. This means after changing encryption algorithm, the first backup will be full, despite the original backup type.

        For example, if you change the algorithm format and submit a customized incremental or verify backup manually, it automatically converts to a full backup.

   2. After you specify an encryption algorithm, provide (and confirm) an encryption password.
      • The encryption password is limited to a maximum of 23 characters.
      • A full backup and all its related incremental and verify backups must use the same password to encrypt data.
      • If you change the encryption password for an incremental or a verify backup, perform a full backup. This means after changing encryption password, the first backup will be full, despite the original backup type.

        For example, if you change the encryption password and submit a customized incremental or verify backup manually, it automatically converts to a full backup.

   When encryption is enabled, the activity log is updated to describe the encryption used for every backup.

10. Specify the Throttle Backup.

    You can specify the maximum speed (MB/min) at which backups are written. You can throttle the backup speed to reduce CPU or network utilization. However, limiting the backup speed adversely affect the backup window.

11. Click the Schedule tab to display the Schedule options.
12. Specify the backup schedule:

    Set start date and time

    Specifies the start date and start time for your scheduled backups.

    Incremental Backup

    Specifies the backup schedule for Incremental backups.

    The available options are Repeat and Never. If you select the Repeat option, specify the elapsed time period (in minutes, hours, or days) between backup attempts. The minimum setting for Incremental backups is every 15 minutes.

    By default the schedule for Incremental backups is to repeat every one day.

    Full Backup

    Specifies the backup schedule for Full backups.

    As scheduled, CA ARCserve D2D performs a Full backup of all used blocks from the source machine. The available options are Repeat and Never. If you select the Repeat option, specify the elapsed time period (in minutes, hours, or days) between backup attempts. The minimum setting for Full backups is every 15 minutes.

    By default the schedule for Full backups is Never (no scheduled repeat).

    Verify Backup

    Specifies the backup schedule for Verify backups.

    The available options are Repeat and Never. If you select the Repeat option, specify the elapsed time period (in minutes, hours, or days) between backup attempts. The minimum setting for Verify backups is every 15 minutes.

    By default the schedule for Verify backups is Never (no scheduled repeat).

13. Click Save.

The basic backup policy is created. The policy appears in the list of policies using the name that you specified in Step 3 on the Policies screen.

Note: If there is more than one type of backup scheduled to be performed simultaneously, the type of backup performed is based upon the following priorities:

• Priority 1 - Full backup
• Priority 2 - Verify backup
• Priority 3 - Incremental backup

Example: When all three types of backup scheduled to run concurrently, CA ARCserve D2D performs the Full backup. CA ARCserve D2D performs Verify backups when Verify backups and Incremental backups are scheduled to run concurrently, and there are no full backups scheduled. A scheduled incremental backup is performed only if there is no conflict with any other type of backup.