Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can you explain the concept briefly on how The Backup Safe works?
The Backup Safe Job Manager is the client side program which uploads the selected files to The Backup Safe server and looks after scheduled backup jobs. It also provides a user-interface for configurations of the desired backup sets. The job manager supports a number of operating systems, e.g. Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Linux, Mac OS X, etc. And apart from file backups, The Backup Safe Job Manager can backup a range of applications such as MS Exchange, MS SQL, Oracle, MySQL, Lotus Domino, etc. The Backup Safe customers can also logon to our web management console to manage their own backup account or restore their own backup data.

The Backup Safe server automatically replicates all user data to one of our other data centers for added protection. Thus even if our primary backup servers fail, the replication servers still has a copy of the backup data.

2.. What is the recommended bandwidth?
It really depends on the kind of data to be backed up, e.g. for personal file backups, the daily data transfer should be limited, while MS Exchange backup could be significant. With the use of delta file technology, even large files can be backed up nightly.

3. How do I install The Backup Safe Job Manager on FreeBSD?
You can either run The Backup Safe Job Manager on a Linux version of Sun Java JDK (performance might not be optimized) or on a FreeBSD native Java SDK.

For the Linux version of Sun Java JDK option you need to:
  1. Install Linux binary compatible port to the FreeBSD machine
  2. Install the Linux version of Sun Java 1.4.2 or above JDK onto the FreeBSD machine
  3. Create a symbolic link from $OBM_HOME/jvm to $JAVA_HOME (installed in previous step)
  4. Run $OBM_HOME/bin/RunBackupSet.sh [BACKUP_SET_NAME] to run your backup
  5. Run $OBM_HOME/bin/Scheduler.sh to start the backup scheduler
For the FreeBSD native Java SDK option you need to:
  1. Install Linux binary compatible port to the FreeBSD machine
  2. Install the Linux version of Sun Java 1.4.2 or above JDK onto the FreeBSD machine
  3. Compile the FreeBSD native Java 1.4.2 SDK using the JDK compiler installed in the previous step
  4. Install the FreeBSD native Java 1.4.2 SDK onto the FreeBSD machine
  5. Create a symbolic link from $OBM_HOME/jvm to $JAVA_HOME (installed in previous step)
  6. Run $OBM_HOME/bin/RunBackupSet.sh [BACKUP_SET_NAME] to run your backup
  7. Run $OBM_HOME/bin/Scheduler.sh to start the backup scheduler

4. How do I install The Backup Safe Job Manager on SCO Unix?
Please do the followings to install The Backup Safe Job Manager on SCO:

  1. Install Java 1.4.x or above onto your SCO Unix box
  2. Download BackupSafeJobManger-Linux.tar.gz and expand it to $OBM_HOME (e.g. /usr/local/obm)
  3. Delete $OBM_HOME/jvm and create a symbolic link from $OBM_HOME/jvm to the SCO Unix Java VM
  4. Run $OBM_HOME/bin/BackupManager.sh to setup your backup set (or run $OBM_HOME/bin/Configurator.sh if you are under command line mode. Then use The Backup Safe Server Management Console to setup your backup sources and other settings)
  5. Run $OBM_HOME/bin/RunBackupSet.sh [BACKUP_SET_NAME] to run your backup
  6. Run $OBM_HOME/bin/Scheduler.sh to start the backup scheduler

5. How do I install The Backup Safe Job Manager on AIX?
Please do the followings to install AhsayOBM on AIX:

  1. Install Java 1.3.x or above (Java 1.4.2 or above recommended) onto your AIX box
  2. Download BackupSafeJobManger-Linux.tar.gz and expand it to $OBM_HOME (e.g. /usr/local/obm)
  3. Delete $OBM_HOME/jvm and create a symbolic link from $OBM_HOME/jvm to the AIX Java VM
  4. Run $OBM_HOME/bin/BackupManager.sh to setup your backup set (or run $OBM_HOME/bin/Configurator.sh if you are under command line mode. Then use the web interface to setup your backup sources and other settings)
  5. Run $OBM_HOME/bin/RunBackupSet.sh [BACKUP_SET_NAME] to run your backup
  6. Run $OBM_HOME/bin/Scheduler.sh to start the backup scheduler

6. The Installer doesn't seem to work. How can I manually install the Job Manager on Windows?
Try manually installing the Job Manager by zipping the program directory (e.g. C:\Program Files\The Backup Safe) on another machine with the Job Manager installed and do the followings on the target machine:

  1. Create the directory C:\Program Files\The Backup Safe
  2. Unzip the Job Manager program directory archive to C:\Program Files\The Backup Safe
  3. Run C:\Program Files\The Backup Safe\bin\install.bat
  4. Run C:\Program Files\The Backup Safe\bin\Install-Scheduler.bat

7. When we run the installer for Mac, the program starts and then after a few seconds just quits. What can we do?
Try manually installing the Job Manager on your Mac with following instructions:

  1. Download BackupSafeJobManager.Mac.zip
  2. Expand obm50-mac.zip into /Applications/The Backup Safe
  3. Run "chmod -R 755 /Applications/The Backup Safe " using Terminal
  4. Double-click the /Applications/The Backup Safe/BackupManager.app bundle

8. Are there any command line tools for the Job Manager?
Yes, there are a set of scripts in [The Backup Safe Job Manager Program Home]\bin and they are described below:

Windows:

Linux:

* You may have to set some variables in these scripts and more instructions are provided.

9. How can I backup a huge data set over the Internet?
If you have a lot of data (e.g. 300GB) to backup to The Backup Safe, it would take a considerable amount of time to perform the first full backup through the Internet. You can use the Seed Loading Utility to backup your backup set to local hard disk (instead of directly to the backup server) and then ship the backup data, using a removable hard disk, to USA Data Services. Our backup experts can then load all your backup files from your removable hard disk into your backup account.

This could save you days (even weeks) of performing your first full backup. And since subsequent backups are incremental (only new or updated files will be uploaded to the server), the amount of data transfer should be relatively small.

Please refer to the User's Guide for details on the "Seed Loading Utility".

10. What is the best way to restore a huge data set?
The Backup Safe Job Manager is the preferred method of restoring data. If only a small number of files need to be restored, then our web interface on your backup server can be used.

USA Data Services can also copy the data to a removable media, e.g. external harddisk, and ship it to you. You can then use the "Decypt Files Tool" in the Job Manager to restore the backup data on removable media to its original format. This is only needed in the event that your internet service is not available.

11. Can I change my encrypting key?
Once set for a Backup Set, the encrypting key cannot be changed. This is necessary for the integrity of the Backup Set, making sure that backup data is only encrypted by one key. Otherwise, you will have problems remember two encrypting keys when you want to restore your files in the future.

You need to recreate your Backup Set if you really want to change your encrypting key.

12. What kind of encryption employed by The Backup Safe?
There are two encryptions being performed by The Backup Safe:

  1. Encryption of backup data - This is being done by 128-bit symmetric key encryption (AES, TripleDES, TwoFish). 256 bit is not available because it requires too much CPU and it is not really required (128-bit is what is being used by most banks currently)
  2. Encryption of backup traffic - This is being done by 1024 bit RSA public key encryption. The strength of the encryption depends on the key size you use when you generate your CSR before submitting to your CA. 1024 bit is what is being used by most CAs.

13. Can I backup an entire Operating System?
Currently, it is not possible to do hard disk image backup with The Backup Safe. However, you can still backup/restore the operating system by doing the followings:

To backup all files including the operating system, please do this:

  1. Add all files to your backup source
  2. Add a SystemState backup type to your backup account (Windows only)

To restore all files including the operating system, please do this:

  1. Re-install the operating system and applications
  2. Restore the SystemState backup to your machine (Windows only)
  3. Restore all files to your machine

14. What are the upsides and downsides of backing up multiple computers using a single backup account?
Upsides:

Downsides:

15. Does The Backup Safe Job Manager upgrade the installation of Java on a client machine, or does it install a separate copy for it own use?
The Job Manager uses its own copy of Java and leaves the system Java VM intact.

16. How does the "Remove retention files for overlap policy" under Advanced Retention Policy work?
In general, daily snapshots followed by a weekly snapshot or a monthly snapshot, etc. will be removed; weekly snapshots followed by a monthly snapshot or a quarterly snapshot, etc. will be removed; and so on.

This is illustrated by the following example.

Assume today is 1/17/06, and the Advanced Retention Policy is as follows:

If "Remove overlap policy" is NOT enabled, then a total of 14 snapshots (7+4+3) will be kept on the server accordingly, i.e.:

If "Remove overlap policy" is enabled, then only the following snapshots are kept:

Specifically, the weekly policy overrides the daily policy so 1/10/06, 1/11/06, 1/12/06, and 1/13/06 will be removed. The monthly policy overrides the weekly policy, and 12/24/05, 12/31/05 and 1/7/06 will be removed as well.

17. What is incremental backup and how do delta files work?
In an incremental backup, only modified or new files are uploaded to the server.

Delta files are applicable to the physical files to be uploaded to the backup server, does not matter whether it is a MS SQL database file, MS Exchange transaction log file or any normal file in a FileBackupSet. Specifically, only the changed blocks in comparison the original file on the backup server (delta file) will be uploaded.

For each modified file, the Job Manager would determine whether the entire file or only a delta file should be uploaded. If the entire file is to be uploaded, the old version of the file will be moved to the Retention area. Else if only the delta file is to be uploaded, the previous delta files will be moved to the Retention area and the Data area will contain the original full backup file, checksum file and the latest delta file of this file.

18. Does The Backup Safe Job Manager have to stop the application when doing online backups?
The Job Manager can backup application data while the application is still running.

Particularly, we have special agents for MS Exchange Server, MS SQL Server, Oracle, Lotus Notes and MySQL, which allows these applications to be backed up while they are online. With the Volume Shadow Copy feature , we are able to backup other types of applications while they are online.

19. What are Off-line backup, Logout backup reminder and Local backup features?
Off-line backup is basically designed for notebook users who are off-line most of the time and cannot rely on backup schedule to backup regularly. The backup interval allows notebook users to specify the interval that they would like their data to backup. If this interval has elapsed, backup will run automatically once this machine is online.

Logout backup reminder asks user if they would like to backup if they logout of the computer or shutdown their computer.

Local backup allows an extra copy of backup file to be kept on local hard disk when running backup.

20. What do I have to do in order to backup open files?
Volume Shadow Copy, which allows backup of open file, comes with Windows XP and 2003 by default. For older platforms, e.g. Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000 or NetWare, we would recommend adding a third party open file manager option (e.g. St. Bernard Open File Manager - http://www.stbernard.com ) which might cost around US$100 for each workstation and US$300 for each server if open file backup is required.

An open file option is not required on Linux/Unix/Mac OS X because no files are held exclusively open by applications.

21. How does Volume Shadow Copy works?
Please refer to http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/Library/2b0d2457-b7d8-42c3-b6c9-59c145b7765f1033.mspx

22. Is there a way to backup Oracle 7.3.4 on NetWare?
To backup Oracle 7.3.4 on NetWare 5.1, it is not possible to use the Oracle agent, you need to do the followings:

  1. Backup all Oracle 7.3.4 datafiles, control files, and pfile.
  2. Use "exp" (export utility) to dump Oracle database to a dump file (make this a pre-backup command)
  3. Use OBM to backup this file

When you need to restore the database, just restore all datafiles, control files, pfile to its original location and use "imp" (import utility) to put the data back into Oracle database.

23. How do I remove The Backup Safe completely from my Windows machine?
If you want to completely remove the Job Manager from Windows, you need to:

24. Does The Backup Safe work with dial-up connections?
It makes no difference to The Backup Safe if the connection is always on or dial-up. If you want to Windows to connect to the ISP automatically when a backup starts, you can go to [Control Panel] -> [Internet Options] -> [Connections] and select "Always dial my default connection".   The only limitation with dial-up is how much data can be uploaded to the backup server.

25. How is the data privacy being maintained on USA Data Services's Server?
All data is encrypted with user's defined encrypting key before they are sent to the online backup server. The encrypting key is not stored on our servers. Without the encrypting key, the backup files are useless to anyone. The backup user is the only person who can decrypt the backup files to reveal the original content.

26. What is the purpose of the Retention area, can I disable it?
Deleted and modified files in the current backup are moved to the Retention area of your account and they will stay there as defined by the retention policy of the backup set. You can restore those files that are still in the Retention area. The main purpose of the Retention area is to facilitate retrieval of historical snapshots of a backup set.

Note that the data in the Retention area still counts towards your account's storage quota and it stay there as defined by your backup set's retention policy. Unfortunately, the Retention area cannot be disabled, at its minimum, you can choose to keep deleted files for 1 backup job.

27. Is there an example on how the Retention area works?
Suppose you have 10GB of initial data which grows by 200MB (0.2GB) per day, and on each day 100MB (0.1GB) of the data is modified or deleted from the client machine. Assume he takes the default retention policy setting, i.e. 7 days. Then:

Thus if data is not being modified or deleted frequently, then the size of Retention area should be minimal.

28. I have problem in restoring through the restorer applet on The Backup Safe Server Management Console, any ideas?
If you have problems restoring backup files from the backup server using the web interface, please do this:

  1. Make sure that the decrypting key is entered correctly in exactly the same case
  2. Install Sun Java JRE 1.4.2 or above onto the machine from which you are restoring your backup files and try restoring again.
  3. Take a look at the log entries available in the [Java Console] accessible from the system tray area
  4. Verify with our support staff(support@usadataservices.com) that your restore operations are not limited by IP Address

29. I have problem in restoring large amount of files through the restorer applet on the The Backup Safe Server Management Console, what can I do?
Please try increasing the maximum amount of memory available to the restorer applet to 512MB by following the steps below:

For Java 1.5x
  1. 1. Open [Java Control Panel] from [Control Panel] -> [Java]
  2. 2. Press the [Java] -> [Java Applet Runtime Setting] -> [View] button
  3. 3. Enter "-Xmx512m" (without the quote) into the [Java Runtime Parameters] box of the version of JRE in use
  4. 4. Restart all browser instances and try restoring again
For Java 1.4x
  1. 1. Open [Java Control Panel] from [Control Panel] -> [Java Plug-in]
  2. 2. Press the [Advanced] tag and select the version of JRE in the Java Runtime Environment
  3. 3. Enter "-Xmx512m" (without the quote) into the [Java Runtime Parameters] box and press "Apply"
  4. 4. Restart all browser instances and try restoring again

30. How up-to-date is the data on The Backup Safe's offsite replication server?
When new files are uploaded to our backup servers, the transaction log for the server is amended, and this transaction log will be applied to the replication server when either the transaction log is full or 5 minutes has lapsed, which ever is shorter. Thus Data on the primary backu servers and our replication servers will be out-of-SYNC by at most 5 minutes.