Information covered

Purpose

Group multiple physical machines and conveniently manage their backup schedule and settings.

Description

The IDrive BMR device allows you to create groups and add physical machines to it. You can apply local backup settings for a group and it will apply to all the clients in the group, by default. You can also perform backup of an entire group of physical machines.

The Groups sub-tab under the Physical Machines tab displays all the groups created, with an overview of the backup integrity status, last backup time, and backup health.

Create a group

You can create any number of groups. However, a physical machine can be assigned to only one group.

To create a group,

Go to Dashboard > Physical Machines > Groups.
Click Create Group.
Enter the name of the group in the Group Name field and click Create Group.
The created groups appear in the Groups tab.
Click in the required group section. The Manage User Groups page appears.
Select the client machines from the list displayed in the Choose host machines section.
Click Save.

Add physical machines to a group

A group can contain up to 25 physical machines.

To add physical machines to a group,

Go to Dashboard > Physical Machines > Groups. The created groups appear in the Groups tab.
Click in the required group section. The Manage User Groups page appears.
Select client machines from the list displayed in the Choose host machines section under the Add tab.
Click Save.

Remove a physical machine from a group

Physical machines can be removed from a group.

Note: Once a physical machine is removed from a group, it will automatically apply the global backup settings.

To remove physical machine(s),

Go to Dashboard > Physical Machines > Groups. The created groups appear in the Groups tab.
Click in the required group section and go to the Remove tab.
Select the client machine(s) to be removed from the Choose host machines section.
Click Remove.

Perform backup of a group

Backup all the physical machines in a group, in one go, by initiating a full or incremental image backup of the group.

To backup a group,

Go to Dashboard > Physical Machines > Groups. Here the groups are displayed.
Click Backup Now or select Force Full Backup checkbox in the required group to start the backup.

Apply backup settings to a group

Configure various local backup settings that will apply to a group and in turn to the associated client machines.

To apply local backup settings to a group,

Go to Dashboard > Physical Machines > Groups. The created groups are displayed.
Click in the required group section. The Backup settings page appears.
Set the backup interval and max backup speed. Choose the Backup retention settings and schedule the backup.
Set the Volumes you wish to backup as All or select Custom and specify the volumes you want to backup.

Note: Take care to specify the correct volumes for backup, especially when modifying global settings for backup. If volumes that do not exist are specified, the backup will fail.
Click Save & Close.

View and manage recovery points of all machines in the group

Click to open the Manage Recovery Points page for the physical machines in the group. In the Manage Recovery Points page use the dropdown menu to select the physical machines from the group.

Select the recovery points you wish to delete and click Delete Recovery Points and click Yes to confirm. These recovery points will be queued for deletion and removed from the IDrive BMR device in the same order. You can click Refresh to view the latest status of the recovery points.

Delete a group

When you delete a group, the applied settings will be lost and all the client machines of that group will adopt global backup settings.

To delete a group,

Go to Dashboard > Physical Machines > Groups. The created groups are displayed.
Click in the required group section.
Click Yes in the confirmation window.