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Creating a protection job

Use the following instructions to create a data protection or full server protection job.

With protection and recovery jobs, your servers can be in a NAT environment. However, you must make sure you have added your servers to the Double-Take Console using the correct IP address. Review the NAT configuration table in the Adding servers section before you start the job creation process.

1. Click Get Started from the toolbar.

2. Select Double-Take DR and click Next.

3. Select Protect files and folders or an entire Windows server and click Next.

4. Choose your source server. This is the server that you want to protect or it contains the data that you want to protect.

   

   • Current Servers—This list contains the servers currently available in your console session. Servers that are not licensed for the workflow you have selected will be filtered out of the list. Select your source server from the list.
   • Find a New Server—If the server you need is not in the Current Servers list, click the Find a New Server heading. From here, you can specify a server along with credentials for logging in to the server. If necessary, you can click Browse to select a server from a network drill-down list.

   If you enter the source server's fully-qualified domain name, the Double-Take Console will resolve the entry to the server short name. If that short name resides in two different domains, this could result in name resolution issues. In this case, enter the IP address of the server.

   When specifying credentials for a new server, specify a user that is a member of the local Double-Take Admin and local administrator security groups.

    

    

5. Click Next to continue.

6. Choose the type of workload that you want to protect. Under Server Workloads, in the Workload types pane, select Full Server for Windows if you want to protect the entire source server, or select Data for Windows if you want to protect specific data on the source server. In the Workload items pane, select the volumes on the source that you want to protect.

   If the workload you are looking for is not displayed, enable Show all workload types. The workload types in gray text are not available for the source server you have selected. Hover your mouse over an unavailable workload type to see a reason why this workload type is unavailable for the selected source.

7. To select your files and folders in more detail, click the Replication Rules heading and expand the volumes under Folders.

   

   Volumes and folders with a green highlight are included completely. Volumes and folders highlighted in light yellow are included partially, with individual files or folders included. If there is no highlight, no part of the volume or folder is included. To modify the items selected, highlight a volume, folder, or file and click Add Rule. Specify if you want to Include or Exclude the item. Also, specify if you want the rule to be recursive, which indicates the rule should automatically be applied to the subdirectories of the specified path. If you do not select Recursive, the rule will not be applied to subdirectories.

   You can also enter wildcard rules, however you should do so carefully. Rules are applied to files that are closest in the directory tree to them. If you have rules that include multiple folders, an exclusion rule with a wild card will need to be added for each folder that it needs applied to. For example, if you want to exclude all .log files from D:\ and your rules include D:\, D:\Dir1 , and D:\Dir2, you would need to add the exclusion rule for the root and each subfolder rule. So you will need to add exclude rules for D:\*.log , D:\Dir1\*.log, and D:\Dir2\*.log.

   If you need to remove a rule, highlight it in the list at the bottom and click Remove Rule. Be careful when removing rules. Double-Take may create multiple rules when you are adding directories. For example, if you add E:\Data to be included in protection, then E:\ will be excluded. If you remove the E:\ exclusion rule, then the E:\Data rule will be removed also.

   If you return to this page using the Back button in the job creation workflow, your Workload Types selection will be rebuilt, potentially overwriting any manual replication rules that you specified. If you do return to this page, confirm your Workload Types and Replication Rules are set to your desired settings before proceeding forward again.

    

8. Click Next to continue.

9. Choose your target repository server. This is the server that will store the image of the source or the image of the protected data from the source.

   

   • Current Servers—This list contains the servers currently available in your console session. Servers that are not licensed for the workflow you have selected and those not applicable to the workload type you have selected will be filtered out of the list. Select your target server from the list.
   • Find a New Server—If the server you need is not in the Current Servers list, click the Find a New Server heading. From here, you can specify a server along with credentials for logging in to the server. If necessary, you can click Browse to select a server from a network drill-down list.

   If you enter the target server's fully-qualified domain name, the Double-Take Console will resolve the entry to the server short name. If that short name resides in two different domains, this could result in name resolution issues. In this case, enter the IP address of the server.

   When specifying credentials for a new server, specify a user that is a member of the local Double-Take Admin and local administrator security groups.

    

10. Click Next to continue.

11. You have many options available for your DR protection job. Configure those options that are applicable to your environment.

    Click a link below to see the options available for that section of the Set Options page.

    General

    

    For the Job name, specify a unique name for your job.

    Image Protection

    

    • Image name—Specify the name of the image that will store the protected data from the source.

    • Virtual Disk—For each volume you are protecting, a virtual disk will be created on the target that contains the protected data from the source. Specify if you want to create a new disk or use an existing disk.

      Reusing a virtual disk can be useful for pre-staging data on a LAN and then relocating the virtual disk to a remote site after the initial mirror is complete. You save time by skipping the virtual disk creation steps and performing a difference mirror instead of a full mirror. With pre-staging, less data will need to be sent across the wire initially. In order to use an existing virtual disk, it must be a valid virtual disk and it cannot be attached to a virtual machine. Additionally, the disk cannot be a differencing disk.

      In a WAN environment, you may want to take advantage of using an existing disk by using a process similar to the following.

      1. Create a job in a LAN environment, letting Double-Take create the virtual disk for you.
      2. Complete the mirror process locally.
      3. Delete the job and when prompted, do not delete the virtual disks.
      4. Copy or move the .vhd virtual files to your remote site.
      5. Create a new protection job for the same source and reuse your existing disk.
    • Virtual Disk Path—Specify the location on the target where you want to store the virtual disk that contains the protected data from the source.
    • Disk Name—Specify the name of the virtual disk file.
    Mirror, Verify & Orphaned Files

    

    • Mirror Options—Choose a comparison method and whether to mirror the entire file or only the bytes that differ in each file.

      If you are using a data protection job and are using a database application or are protecting a domain controller, do not use the compare file attributes only options unless you know for certain that you need it. With database applications and because domain controllers store their data in a database, it is critical that all files, not just some of the files, are mirrored. In this case, you should compare both the attributes and the data.

       

      • Do not compare files. Send the entire file.—Double-Take will not perform any comparisons between the files on the source and target. All files will be mirrored to the target, sending the entire file. This is equivalent to selecting the mirror all files option prior to Double-Take version 7.1.
      • Compare file attributes. Send the entire file.—Double-Take will compare file attributes and will mirror those files that have different attributes, sending the entire file. This is similar to selecting the mirror different files and the only if source is newer options prior to Double-Take version 7.1. This option is not available for full server protection jobs.
      • Compare file attributes. Send the attributes and bytes that differ.—Double-Take will compare file attributes and will mirror only the attributes and bytes that are different. This is equivalent to selecting the mirror different files, only if source is newer, and use block checksum options prior to Double-Take version 7.1. This option is not available for full server protection jobs.
      • Compare file attributes and data. Send the attributes and bytes that differ.—Double-Take will compare file attributes and the file data and will mirror only the attributes and bytes that are different. This is equivalent to selecting the mirror different files and use block checksum options prior to Double-Take version 7.1. If you are using a database application on your source, select this option.

    • Verification Options—Choose if you want to periodically confirm that the source replica data on the target is identical to the actual data on the source. Verification creates a log file detailing what was verified as well as which files are not synchronized. If the data is not the same, you can automatically initiate a remirror, if configured. The remirror ensures data integrity between the source and target. 

      Because of the way the Windows Cache Manager handles memory, machines that are doing minimal or light processing may have file operations that remain in the cache until additional operations flush them out. This may make Double-Take files on the target appear as if they are not synchronized. When the Windows Cache Manager releases the operations in the cache on the source and target, the files will be updated on the target.

       

      • Enable scheduled verification—When this option is enabled, Double-Take will verify the source replica data on the target.
      • Verify on this interval—Specify the interval between verification processes.
      • Begin immediately—Select this option if you want to start the verification schedule immediately after the job is established.
      • Begin at this time—Select this option if you want to start the verification schedule at the specified date and time.

      • Report only—Select this option if you only want to generate a verification report. With this option, no data that is found to be different will be mirrored to the target. Choose how you want the verification to compare the files.

      • Report and mirror files—Select this option if you want to generate a verification report and mirror data that is different to the target. Select the comparison method and type of mirroring you want to use. See the previous mirroring methods described under Mirror Options.

    • General Options—Choose your general mirroring options.

      • Calculate size of protected data upon connection—Specify if you want Double-Take to determine the mirroring percentage calculation based on the amount of data being protected. If you enable this option, the calculation will begin when mirroring begins. For the initial mirror, the percentage will display after the calculation is complete, adjusting to the amount of the mirror that has completed during the time it took to complete the calculation. Subsequent mirrors will initially use the last calculated size and display an approximate percentage. Once the calculation is complete, the percentage will automatically adjust down or up to indicate the amount that has been completed. Disabling calculation will result in the mirror status not showing the percentage complete or the number of bytes remaining to be mirrored.

        The calculated amount of protected data may be slightly off if your data set contains compressed or sparse files.

         

      • Delete orphaned files—An orphaned file is a file that exists in the replica data on the target, but does not exist in the protected data on the source. This option specifies if orphaned files should be deleted on the target.

        Orphaned file configuration is a per target configuration. All jobs to the same target will have the same orphaned file configuration.

        The orphaned file feature does not delete alternate data streams. To do this, use a full mirror, which will delete the additional streams when the file is re-created.

        If delete orphaned files is enabled, carefully review any replication rules that use wildcard definitions. If you have specified wildcards to be excluded from protection, files matching those wildcards will also be excluded from orphaned file processing and will not be deleted from the target. However, if you have specified wildcards to be included in your protection, those files that fall outside the wildcard inclusion rule will be considered orphaned files and will be deleted from the target.

        If you want to move orphaned files rather than delete them, you can configure this option along with the move deleted files feature to move your orphaned files to the specified deleted files directory. See Target server properties for more information.

        During a mirror, orphaned file processing success messages will be logged to a separate orphaned file log on the source. This keeps the Double-Take log from being overrun with orphaned file success processing messages. Orphaned files processing statistics and any errors in orphaned file processing will still be logged to the Double-Take log, and during difference mirrors, verifications, and restorations, all orphaned file processing messages are logged to the Double-Take log. The orphaned file log is located in the Logging folder specified for the source. See Log file properties for details on the location of that folder. The orphaned log file is appended to during each orphaned file processing during a mirror, and the log file will be a maximum of 50 MB.

         

    Network Route

    

    By default, Double-Take will select a target route for transmissions. If desired, specify an alternate route on the target that the data will be transmitted through. This allows you to select a different route for Double-Take traffic. For example, you can separate regular network traffic and Double-Take traffic on a machine with multiple IP addresses. You can also select or manually enter a public IP address (which is the public IP address of the server's NAT router) if you are using a NAT environment.

    If you change the IP address on the target which is used for the target route, you will be unable to edit the job. If you need to make any modifications to the job, it will have to be deleted and re-created.

     

    Snapshots

    

    A snapshot is an image of the image of the source or of the image of the protected data from the source. In other words, your DR job will create an image of the source or an image of the protected data from the source. If you take a snapshot of that image, you are creating an image of an image. A snapshot is an image taken at a single point in time. You can recover to a snapshot. However, you cannot access the snapshot in VSS to recover any data.

    Turn on Enable scheduled snapshots if you want Double-Take to take snapshots automatically at set intervals.

    • Take snapshots on this interval—Specify the interval (in days, hours, or minutes) for taking snapshots.
    • Begin immediately—Select this option if you want to start taking snapshots immediately after the protection job is established.
    • Begin at this time—Select this option if you want to start taking snapshots at a later date and time. Specify the date and time parameters to indicate when you want to start.

    See Managing snapshots for details on taking manual snapshots and deleting snapshots.

    Snapshots are stored inside the image of the source on the target, so be sure that you have selected a volume that has enough space for the image of the source with its snapshots, as well as any other source images and their snapshots.

    You may want to set the size limit on how much space snapshots can use. See your VSS documentation for more details.

     

    Compression

    

    To help reduce the amount of bandwidth needed to transmit Double-Take data, compression allows you to compress data prior to transmitting it across the network. In a WAN environment this provides optimal use of your network resources. If compression is enabled, the data is compressed before it is transmitted from the source. When the target receives the compressed data, it decompresses it and then writes it to disk. You can set the level from Minimum to Maximum to suit your needs.

    Keep in mind that the process of compressing data impacts processor usage on the source. If you notice an impact on performance while compression is enabled in your environment, either adjust to a lower level of compression, or leave compression disabled. Use the following guidelines to determine whether you should enable compression.

    • If data is being queued on the source at any time, consider enabling compression.
    • If the server CPU utilization is averaging over 85%, be cautious about enabling compression.
    • The higher the level of compression, the higher the CPU utilization will be.
    • Do not enable compression if most of the data is inherently compressed. Many image (.jpg, .gif) and media (.wmv, .mp3, .mpg) files, for example, are already compressed. Some images files, such as .bmp and .tif, are decompressed, so enabling compression would be beneficial for those types.
    • Compression may improve performance even in high-bandwidth environments.
    • Do not enable compression in conjunction with a WAN Accelerator. Use one or the other to compress Double-Take data.

    All jobs from a single source connected to the same IP address on a target will share the same compression configuration.

     

    Bandwidth

    

    Bandwidth limitations are available to restrict the amount of network bandwidth used for Double-Take data transmissions. When a bandwidth limit is specified, Double-Take never exceeds that allotted amount. The bandwidth not in use by Double-Take is available for all other network traffic.

    All jobs from a single source connected to the same IP address on a target will share the same bandwidth configuration.

     

    • Do not limit bandwidth—Double-Take will transmit data using 100% bandwidth availability.
    • Use a fixed limit—Double-Take will transmit data using a limited, fixed bandwidth. Select a Preset bandwidth limit rate from the common bandwidth limit values. The Bandwidth field will automatically update to the bytes per second value for your selected bandwidth. This is the maximum amount of data that will be transmitted per second. If desired, modify the bandwidth using a bytes per second value. The minimum limit should be 3500 bytes per second.
    • Use scheduled limits—Double-Take will transmit data using a dynamic bandwidth based on the schedule you configure. Bandwidth will not be limited during unscheduled times.
      • New—Click New to create a new scheduled bandwidth limit. Specify the following information.
      • Daytime entry—Select this option if the start and end times of the bandwidth window occur in the same day (between 12:01 AM and midnight). The start time must occur before the end time.
      • Overnight entry—Select this option if the bandwidth window begins on one day and continues past midnight into the next day. The start time must be later than the end time, for example 6 PM to 6 AM.
      • Day—Enter the day on which the bandwidth limiting should occur. You can pick a specific day of the week, Weekdays to have the limiting occur Monday through Friday, Weekends to have the limiting occur Saturday and Sunday, or Every day to have the limiting repeat on all days of the week.
      • Start time—Enter the time to begin bandwidth limiting.
      • End time—Enter the time to end bandwidth limiting.
      • Preset bandwidth—Select a bandwidth limit rate from the common bandwidth limit values. The Bandwidth field will automatically update to the bytes per second value for your select bandwidth.
      • Bandwidth—If desired, modify the bandwidth using a bytes per second value. The minimum limit should be 3500 bytes per second.
      • Edit—Click Edit to modify an existing scheduled bandwidth limit.
      • Delete—Click Delete to remove a scheduled bandwidth limit.

      If you change your job option from Use scheduled limits to Do not limit bandwidth or Use a fixed limit, any schedule that you created will be preserved. That schedule will be reused if you change your job option back to Use scheduled limits.

      You can manually override a schedule after a job is established by selecting Other Job Options, Set Bandwidth. If you select No bandwidth limit or Fixed bandwidth limit, that manual override will be used until you go back to your schedule by selecting Other Job Options, Set Bandwidth, Scheduled bandwidth limit. For example, if your job is configured to use a daytime limit, you would be limited during the day, but not at night. But if you override that, your override setting will continue both day and night, until you go back to your schedule. See the Managing and controlling jobs section for your job type for more information on the Other Job Options.

       

    Scripts

    

    You can customize mirroring by running scripts on the target at pre-defined points in the mirroring process. Scripts may contain any valid Windows command, executable, or batch file. The scripts are processed using the same account running the Double-Take service, unless you have identified a specific account through the server's properties. See Script credentials. There are three types of mirroring scripts.

    • Mirror Start—This script starts when the target receives the first mirror operation. In the case of a difference mirror, this may be a long time after the mirror is started because the script does not start until the first different data is received on the target. If the data is synchronized and a difference mirror finds nothing to mirror, the script will not be executed. Specify the full path and name of the Script file.
    • Mirror Complete—This script starts when a mirror is completed. Because the mirror statistics may indicate a mirror is at 99-100% when it is actually still processing (for example, if files were added after the job size was calculated, if there are alternate data streams, and so on), the script will not start until all of the mirror data has been completely processed on the target. Specify the full path and name of the Script file.
    • Mirror Stop—This script starts when a mirror is stopped, which may be caused by an auto-disconnect occurring while a mirror is running, the service is shutdown while a mirror is running, or if you stop a mirror manually. Specify the full path and name of the Script file.
    • Arguments—Specify a comma-separated list of valid arguments required to execute the script.
    • Allow script to interact with desktop—Enable this option if you want the script processing to be displayed on the screen. Otherwise, the script will execute silently in the background.
    • Delay until script completes—Enable this option if you want to delay the mirroring process until the associated script has completed. If you select this option, make sure your script handles errors, otherwise the mirroring process may never complete if the process is waiting on a script that cannot complete.
    • Test—You can test your script manually by clicking Test. Your script will be executed if you test it. If necessary, manually undo any changes that you do not want on your target after testing the script.

    If you establish mirroring scripts for one job and then establish additional jobs to the same target using the same target path mapping, the mirroring scripts will automatically be applied to those subsequent jobs. If you select a different target path mapping, the mirroring scripts will have to be reconfigured for the new job(s).

     

12. Click Next to continue.

13. Double-Take validates that your source and target are compatible. The Summary page displays your options and validation items.

    Errors are designated by a white X inside a red circle. Warnings are designated by a black exclamation point (!) inside a yellow triangle. A successful validation is designated by a white checkmark inside a green circle. You can sort the list by the icon to see errors, warnings, or successful validations together. Click on any of the validation items to see details. You must correct any errors before you can continue. Depending on the error, you may be able to click Fix or Fix All and let Double-Take correct the problem for you. For those errors that Double-Take cannot correct automatically, you will need to modify the source or target to correct the error, or you can select a different target. You must revalidate the selected servers, by clicking Recheck, until the validation check passes without errors.

    Before a job is created, the results of the validation checks are logged to the Double-Take Management Service log on the target. After a job is created, the results of the validation checks are logged to the job log. See the Double-Take Reference Guide for details on the various Double-Take log files.

14. Once your servers have passed validation and you are ready to establish protection, click Finish, and you will automatically be taken to the Manage Jobs page.

Jobs in a NAT environment may take longer to start.