UNDERSTANDING

ACRONIS BACKUP
Fundamental concepts in Acronis Backup and Acronis Backup Cloud

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Module Outline
1. Components & Implementations
2. Storing Backups
3. Acronis Backup Cloud 3rd Party Integrations
4. Navigating The Consoles
5. Backup, Recovery and Other Operations

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Components & Implementations
Installable software components and types of deployment and
implementations

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1. 3-Tier Architecture
Physical | Virtual | Cloud
Applications | Users
Data Source Agents

On-premise | Cloud
Backup Console &
Management
Management Server

On-premise | Cloud
Local, Network, Cloud,
Storage
Tape, Storage Node

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1. List of Components
Type Components

Data Source ‒ Agent for Windows ‒ Agent for Office 365 (Windows)

Install on machine or device to be backed up. Supports ‒ Agent for Linux
physical, virtual, cloud, applications and user devices ‒ Agent for Mac
(PC, Mac, iOS, Android)
‒ Agent for VMware (Windows)
‒ Agent for VMware (Virtual Appliance)
‒ Agent for Hyper-V (Windows)
‒ Agent for Virtuozzo (Virtuozzo)
‒ Agent for Exchange (Windows)
‒ Agent for SQL (Windows)
‒ Agent for Active Directory (Windows)
‒ Agent for Oracle (Windows & Linux)
‒ Mobile app for iOS
‒ Mobile app for Android

Management ‒ Web-based Backup Console

Install on-premise or use cloud-based management
‒ Management Server
hosted in Acronis or partner datacenter

Storage Acronis Backup Acronis Backup Cloud

Store data on-premise or on cloud storage provided by ‒ Local, Network, Cloud, SFTP, Tape ‒ Acronis Storage 2.x
Acronis or Service Provider ‒ Acronis Storage Node (ASN)

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 1. List of Components
Type Components

Ancillary ‒ Bootable Media ‒ Acronis Backup Appliance1

Additional components to enable additional features ‒ Bootable Media Builder ‒ Acronis Monitoring Service
‒ Backup Monitor ‒ Components for Remote Installation
‒ Command-Line Tool ‒ Catalog Service
‒ Acronis SharePoint Explorer ‒ PXE Server

Acronis Backup Appliance ‒ CentOS ‒ Agent for Linux

Virtual appliance (.zip archive) for installing Linux-based ‒ Management Server ‒ Agent for VMware (Linux)
Management Server on VMware vSphere ESXi host

Management Server Database ‒ SQLite (built-in, by default)

Database for storing management data ‒ Microsoft SQL Server 2012 or later (external, customize install settings)

1 Also known as All-In-One VMware Appliance (OVF)

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1. Acronis Backup Cloud
Data Source Data Center
Management
Agents Servers
Perform backup, recovery and migration on Service
local, remote, cloud machines, applications Provider
Cloud Management
and mobile devices & Storage Cloud Storage

Management
Management Server | Web-Based Console
Connect using a browser to the cloud-based
Management Server to configure and
manage backups for all devices
PC

Network
Storage Storage
Physical Virtual
Server Host Mac
Cloud | Local | Network Web-Based
Store backups on Acronis or Service Provider Console
cloud storage, local disks and network Agents
Agents
storage
End-User Site

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1. Acronis Backup Cloud Implementations
Management Acronis Hosted
PC
Servers

Physical Virtual Network

Server Host Mac
Cloud Management Storage
& Storage
Agents
End-User Site

Management Hybrid
PC
Servers
Service
Provider Physical
Server
Virtual
Host Mac Network
Cloud Management Storage
& Storage Cloud Storage
Agents
End-User Site

Management SP Hosted
PC
Servers
Service
Provider Physical
Server
Virtual
Host Mac Network
Cloud Management Storage
&Storage
Agents
End-User Site

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Storing Backups
Supported backup locations for local and cloud backup

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2. Backup Locations
‒ Backups can be stored on the following locations:
▪ Cloud Storage: Acronis datacenter or Service Provider cloud storage (Acronis Backup
Cloud only)
▪ Local folder: Local disks and removable media such as USB HDD
▪ Secure Zone: Secure partition on a local disk accessible by Acronis software only
▪ Network folder: SMB/CIFS/DFS shares, NFS folders (Linux and Mac OS X only)

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2. Backup Locations
▪ Acronis Storage: Software-defined-storage with redundancy and automatic self-healing
by Acronis that can be configured as a gateway for storing backups in Microsoft Azure,
Amazon S3 and other S3 compatible storage, Swift as well as NFS back-end

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 2. Supported File Systems
Supported By
File System1 Limitations of File System
Agents Linux-based Win-PE based Mac
FAT16/32   
‒ No limitations
NTFS All agents    ‒ For APFS, disk configuration
should be re-created manually
ext2/ext3/ext4   when recovering to a non-original
machine or bare-metal
HFS+/APFS Agent for Mac 

JFS 
‒ Files cannot be excluded from a
disk backup
ResierFS3 Agent for Linux 

ResierFS4  ‒ Files cannot be excluded from a

disk backup
ReFS   
All Agents ‒ Volumes cannot be resized during
XFS    a recovery

Linux Swap Agent for Linux  ‒ No limitations

1 Software will automatically switch to sector-by-sector backup when backing up drives with unrecognized or unsupported file systems

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2. New Backup Archive Format: TIBX
‒ Also known as Version 12 and used in Acronis Backup 12.5, Acronis
Backup Cloud 7.7 and Acronis True Image 2019
‒ Benefits:
▪ Fast backup & restore: Faster backup and recovery speeds compared to TIB (Version 11)
and faster browsing and search for files in backups
▪ Reliable: Built-in consistency verification with ability to survive power failures during
backup jobs and backup job resumption
▪ Scalable: Scales to billions of files and 100+ TB archive size
▪ Cost-effective: In-archive deduplication reduces backup file size and increase memory
efficiency for deduplication
▪ Universal: Single format for any type of data, backup type and storage

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2. New Backup Archive Format: TIBX
‒ Improvements:
▪ ~2.5x faster backup
▪ ~2 to 5x faster to restore encrypted archives from cloud
▪ Improved backup reliability with new transactional approach to changes in backed up
data
▪ Improved compression resulting in ~20% smaller backup files size on average
▪ Smaller backup size with the new in-archive deduplication – blocks similar to ones that
are already present in the backup archive would not be backed up
▪ Sparse support – ability to mark blocks in files as free, allowing OS to allocate them for
other files
▪ Lower RAM and CPU consumption

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2. New Backup Archive Format: TIBX
‒ Which backup archive format will be used:
▪ TIBX (Version 12) will be used if there’s no existing backup in the backup destination
▪ TIB (Version 11) will be used if there’s an existing backup in the backup destination and
when certain features are used such as Acronis Backup 12.5 Storage Node
deduplication
‒ Currently, there’s no conversion possible from TIB to TIBX although newer
versions of Acronis software will work with TIB

File System Always Incremental (Single-File) Other Backup Schemes

Version 11 backup format One .tib file and one .xml metadata file Multiple .tib files and one .xml metadata file

Version 12 backup format One .tibx file per backup chain (a full or differential backup and all incremental backups that depend on it

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2. Acronis Cloud Data Centers

500+ Acronis Partner

Data Centers

14 Acronis Cloud
Data Centers now

More coming, it takes only 4

weeks to launch a new one

Strong presence in Asia-Pacific:

Singapore, Japan, Korea, Australia

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2. Hyperscale Cloud Storage
‒ Besides Acronis Data Centers, Service Providers can choose Google Cloud
Platform and Microsoft Azure cloud storage as storage targets for their
customers
‒ Pricing (Per GB) remains the same regardless of whether Acronis Data
Center, Google Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure is used
Cloud Storage Geography Region Location

Americas northamerica-northeast1 Montreal, Canada

Google Cloud Platform
Americas us-west1 The Dallas, OR USA

Europe europe-west2 London, UK

Americas US-Central Iowa

Microsoft Azure

Europe EU-North Dublin

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 2. Cloud Storage Implementations
‒ Service Providers on Acronis Hosted implementation model can leverage
on Acronis Data Centers worldwide for Acronis Data Cloud services
‒ Service Providers on Hybrid1 implementation model will be required to setup
cloud storage using Acronis Cyber Infrastructure software:
▪ Acronis Cyber Infrastructure 2.x: Enables software-defined storage, compute and
networking on industry-standard hardware
▪ Use of Acronis Cyber Infrastructure software as software-defined storage for storing
Acronis Backup Cloud data is free-of-charge, other usage is chargeable, e.g., storing
Acronis Files Cloud data or as block, object or file storage
▪ Compute (virtualization) and software-defined networking (SDN) functionality currently
available as Technical Preview

1 Service Providers on SP Hosted implementation model will need to engage Acronis Professional Services to setup Acronis Data Cloud management and cloud storage

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2. Archiving/Backup/Cold Storage
Backup destination for Acronis Backup and Acronis Backup Cloud
‒ Uses industry-standard hardware and ‒ Support for Google
manageable redundancy options Acronis Cyber Cloud Storage, Microsoft Other DC
Azure and AWS
‒ Adds an additional layer of data protection Infrastructure
with geo-replication to another datacenter ‒ Connect remote iSCSI
Virtualization SAN as disk to Storage
‒ Eliminates service interruptions with ability to
node
change or upgrade hosts or disks on live
production systems
Software-Defined Network
‒ Provides an easy-to-use interface with a
single-pane-of-glass management console
Software-Defined Storage
‒ Allows replicating of backup data to cloud
services and store backups on NAS via NFS NFS
protocol using Acronis Backup Gateway S3
‒ Encrypts data at rest iSCSI/FC Private/Public
Backup and Cloud Services Google Cloud
Restore Data Backup Gateway Microsoft Azure
Amazon AWS

iSCSI
Cluster nodes
Acronis Backup Cloud SAN
Acronis Backup 12.5U2

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Acronis Data Cloud
3rd Party Integrations
Supported Service Provider automation platforms

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3. Integration via RESTful API and APS
‒ Acronis Data Cloud supports automation integration via packages and
plugins for various management platforms
‒ Integration packages and plugins are based on either RESTful API or APS
(Application Packaging Standard)
‒ Operations possible include but are not limited to:
▪ Selling customized services based on Acronis Backup Cloud, Acronis Files Cloud and
Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud in addition to other cloud services such as hosting,
connectivity, SaaS and IaaS
▪ Automating billing, customer provisioning and service configuration via existing web
portals and tenant webpages

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3. Supported Platforms

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Navigating the Consoles
How to navigate the web-based consoles for Acronis Data Cloud and
Acronis Backup

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4. Navigating Acronis Data Cloud Consoles
Exit

Services & Management Portal Selector

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4. Navigating Acronis Data Cloud Consoles
Breadcrumb Add New, Search, Help, Account Settings
Services

List of Tenants

Tabs/Menus

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4. Navigating Acronis Backup Cloud Consoles
Switch to Account Management Switch Views

Add Agents

Selected machine
Main Menus

Actions available

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Backup, Recovery & Other
Operations
Understanding backup, recovery, deduplication, Active Protection™, and
Acronis Notary™

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5. Backup Operation – Agent Based Backup
Managed Machine

Agent

Web Browser
Backup Plan 1 Disk 1 Cloud Storage
Task 1 Backup
Always Inc. (Single-File) F Backup 1
I Backup 2
Task 2 I Backup 3
Cleanup
Backup Management Console

Backup Plan 2
Disk 2 Local Storage
Task 1
Weekly Full, Daily Inc. Backup
F Backup 1
Task 2
Replicate Backup
I Backup 2
Manage Task 3 Maintain
Cleanup
Management Server Archive

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5. Backup Operation – Agentless Backup
Hypervisor

VM-1
Web Browser

VM-n
Backup Management Console
Agent
(VMware/Hyper-V)
Disk 1 Local/Cloud
Backup Plan 1 Backup
Task 1 F Backup 1
Backup VM-1 to VM-n
I Backup 2
Task 2
Manage Cleanup
Maintain
Management Server Archive

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5. Backup Operation – Off-Load Backup
Managed Machine Hypervisor
(ESXi Host)

Agent VM-1
(VMware)
Web Browser
Backup Plan 1 VM-2
Task 1 Backup
Backup VM-1 to VM-2
Task 2
VM-3
Cleanup
Backup Management Console

Backup Plan 2
Task 1
Backup VM-3 to VM-n Backup
Task 2
Replicate Backup

Manage Task 3
Cleanup
Management Server VM-n

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5. Recovery Operation – Online Recovery
Managed Machine

Agent

Web Browser
Recovery Task Disk 1 Cloud Storage
Task 1 Recover
Validate Backup F Backup 1
I Backup 2
Task 2 I Backup 3
Backup Management Console Restore Backup Select
Recovery
Point
Disk 2 Local Storage
F Backup 1

I Backup 2
Manage
Management Server

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5. Recovery Operation – Bare Metal Recovery
Managed Machine

Agent
(Bootable Media)
Bare Metal
Recovery Task Disk 1 Cloud Storage
Task 1
Validate Backup F Backup 1
I Backup 2
Task 2 I Backup 3
Restore Backup
Boot

Recovery Task
Task 1 Local Storage
Validate Backup
F Backup 1
Task 2
Restore Backup
I Backup 2
Manage Task 3 Select
Bootable Media Apply Universal Restore
Recovery
Point

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5. Snapshot Technologies
‒ Acronis Backup Agents performs disk imaging backup of physical and virtual
machines by leveraging on various snapshot technologies
‒ Hardware and software snapshot technologies are available and the
technology used depends on the backup source:
▪ Windows and Hyper-V: Microsoft VSS (Microsoft Shadow Copy Provider)
▪ Linux: Acronis SnapAPI (Acronis Snapshot Technology)
▪ VMware vSphere: VADP (VMware vStorage API for Data Protection) or SAN storage
snapshots (NetApp SAN only)
▪ Hardware storage devices that comes with Microsoft VSS enabled: Hardware
snapshots

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 5. Backup Process
I/O frozen I/O unfrozen Other tasks in the Backup Plan
Backup
START END
Pre Initiate Pre data Take Post data Start Complete Post
command1 snapshot capture snapshot capture backup backup command1
technology command1 command1

Snapshot taken
Backup Plan Agent(s) starts Agent(s)
Backup Plan Freeze all disk of all disk Unfreeze all
script deployed backup process finishes backup
created I/O blocks to be disk I/O
to computer(s) as per script process
backed up

Pre data Post data

Pre commands capture capture Post commands
are executed commands are commands are are executed
executed executed

Snapshot Backup starts Other tasks in

Disk volume(s) Disk volume(s)
technologies with reference the Backup
are quiesced2 are unquiesced
are initiated to snapshot Plan

1 Pre/Post commands and Pre/Post data capture commands are optional and can be configured in Backup options
2 Quiescing is the action of completing all operations and flushing all buffers to disk, i.e., ensuring all relevant data is written to disk to prepare for snapshot and backup

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5. Snapshot Technologies
‒ Backups created with snapshot technologies will be crash-consistent:
▪ Snapshot will be taken at the exact same time of data (disk blocks) to be backed up on 1 or
more disk volumes; backed up data will be at the same point-in-time and will be
consistent upon recovery
▪ Sufficient for systems without database application(s)
‒ Backups created on Windows/Hyper-V will be application-consistent:
▪ Microsoft VSS will quiesce all VSS-aware databases on the system prior to taking a
snapshot, results in consistent databases that’s usable upon recovery
▪ If there’s non VSS-aware databases on the system, they have to be manually
quiesced or there’s a risk of them being inconsistent and unusable upon recovery
▪ Similarly for Linux/Mac, if there’s database applications on the system, they have to be
manually quiesced or there’s a risk of them being inconsistent and unusable upon
recovery

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5. Snapshot Technologies
‒ To manually quiesce databases, use Backup option > Pre/Post data
capture command to insert commands for quiescing/resuming the
database
‒ On Windows/Hyper-V, Microsoft VSS have to be functional in order for
backup to be successful:
▪ Use vssadmin list writers to check status of writers of VSS-aware databases to identify
if there’s any issues with VSS
▪ Download and run Acronis VSS Doctor (free) to diagnose and resolve VSS issues
‒ Recommend to have 20% or more free space per volume to be backed up
for storing snapshots and other meta-data during backup

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5. Acronis Active Protection™
‒ Actively protects a system from ransomware:
▪ Available for machines running Windows
Vista/Windows 2008 and later
▪ Monitor running processes on protected machines
using behavioral heuristics to compare against
machine-learning models trained in Acronis Cloud Self-
defense
AI infrastructure to recognize ransomware types
and suspicious behavior
File protection
▪ When a 3rd party process tries to encrypt files, heuristics
Active Protection generates an alert and performs
additional actions if configured
▪ In addition, prevents unauthorized changes to
Acronis software processes, registry records,
executable and configuration files and MBR

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5. How Active Protection™ Works
‒ How Active Protection works:
▪ Active Protection Driver and Service will be installed together with Agent for Windows
▪ When Active Protection Plan is applied, Driver will be enabled and Service will be started
▪ Driver: Analyze file content and type before and after a change, if content type is
changed – suspect in-place encryption
▪ Service: When consecutive suspicious changes occur – trigger alert, takes configured
action in Active Protection Plan such as generate an alert, stop the process and recover
encrypted files from cache

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5. Enabling Active Protection™
‒ Enabled via Active Protection Plan from
Management Server:
▪ Active Protection Plan is universal, i.e., 1 plan only
and changes in the Active Protection plan affects
all machines with Active Protection enabled
▪ Enabling Active Protection on a machine starts the
Active Protection service
▪ Active Protection driver will then monitor file
changes performed by unsigned processes
▪ Self-protection allows only Acronis-signed
processes to modify backup archives (TIB/TIBX)
and backup configurations

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5. Active Protection™ New Features
‒ Protect NFS and SMB network shares:
▪ Monitors attempts to encrypt data stored on mounted network folders, stops it and
automatically recover data (if Revert from cache is used)
‒ Scans external drives and removable devices when they are plugged in:
▪ Scans added devices to prevent ransomware infiltration into protected machines:
▪ Types of devices: USB flash drives, External USB HDD drives, Memory cards, Photo,
Video and other devices if they are mounted as a volume
‒ Selectively allows processes that are allowed to modify backup files for
better control, e.g., allowing file explorer to move backup files between
folders
‒ Detects and stops illicit cryptomining malware

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Questions?

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New Generation Data Protection
www.acronis.com

twitter.com/acronis blog.acronis.com facebook.com/acronis

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