AppAssure 5 Deployment Guide - Questsupport-public.cfm.quest.com/579c38bd-b1f3-4afc-a20f-b4bf23c68648… · What’s New in AppAssure 5 | 5 This chapter lists new and changed features

AppAssure 5 Deployment GuideVersion 5.3.6

Notes, Cautions and Warnings

Information in this publication is subject to change without notice.

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Trademarks used in this text: Dell™, the Dell logo, and AppAssure™ are trademarks of Dell Inc. Microsoft®, Windows®, Windows Server®, Internet Explorer®, MS-DOS®, Windows Vista® and Active Directory® are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Red Hat® and Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® are registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Novell® and SUSE® are registered trademarks of Novell Inc. in the United States and other countries. VMware®, Virtual SMP®, vMotion®, vCenter® and vSphere® are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States or other countries.

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Contents | 3

Chapter 1: What’s New in AppAssure 5What’s New in AppAssure 5 Deployment Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Additional Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Chapter 2: Introduction to AppAssure 5About AppAssure 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

AppAssure 5 Core Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Live Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Recovery Assure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Universal Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

True Global Deduplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

AppAssure 5 True Scale™ Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

AppAssure 5 Deployment Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

AppAssure 5 Smart Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

AppAssure 5 Core . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Snapshot Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Replication - Disaster Recovery Site or Service Provider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Product Features of AppAssure 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

True Global Deduplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Encryption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Replication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Recovery-as-a-Service (RaaS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Retention and Archiving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Virtualization and Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Alerts and Event Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

AppAssure 5 License Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Web Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Service Management APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

White Labeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Contents

4 | Contents

Chapter 3: Installing AppAssure 5About the AppAssure 5 Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Roadmap for Installing AppAssure 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Requirements for Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Recommended Network Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

UEFI and ReFS Support Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Dynamic and Basic Volumes Support Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

AppAssure 5 Core Installation Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

AppAssure 5 Central Management Console Installation Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

AppAssure 5 Agent Installation Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

License Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Installing the AppAssure 5 Core . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Using the AppAssure 5 Core Setup Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Installing Agents on Windows Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Installing Agents on Windows Server 2012 Core Edition Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Installing Agents on Linux Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Before you Begin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Installing the Agent on Ubuntu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Installing the Agent on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Installing the Agent on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Starting and Stopping the Linux Agent Daemon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Running Scripts on the Linux Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Installing the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Configuring the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Adding a Core Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Configuring Core Group Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Configuring Core Group Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Adding a Core to a Core Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Configuring Core Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Uninstalling Agents on a Windows Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Uninstalling Agents on a Linux Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Uninstalling an Agent on Ubuntu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Uninstalling the Agent on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Uninstalling the Agent on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Uninstalling the AppAssure 5 Core . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Uninstalling the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Index

What’s New in AppAssure 5 | 5

This chapter lists new and changed features in this release of AppAssure 5.

What’s New in AppAssure 5 Deployment GuideThe table below lists the changes in this version of the documentation to support AppAssure 5.

1 What’s New in AppAssure 5

Topic Description

“UEFI and ReFS Support Limitations” on page 28

Modified topic. It describes the limited support of Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) and Resilient File system (ReFS) in AppAssure 5. The topic has been modified to include Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

“AppAssure 5 Core Installation Requirements” on page 28

Modified topic. It describes the requirements for installing the AppAssure 5 Core. Support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 was added to the topic. In addition, the description about the ASP.Net role requirement was modified to reflect that this is now included automatically with the AppAssure installer.

“AppAssure 5 Central Management Console Installation Requirements” on page 30

Modified topic. It describes the requirements for installing the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console. Support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 was added to the topic.

“AppAssure 5 Agent Installation Requirements” on page 30

Modified topic. It describes the requirements for installing the AppAssure 5 on agent machines. Support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 was added to the topic.

“Installing the AppAssure 5 Core” on page 32

Modified topic. It describes how to install an AppAssure 5 Core. Support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 was added to the topic. In addition, the note about the ASP.Net role requirement was modified to reflect that this is now included automatically with the AppAssure installer.

6 | What’s New in AppAssure 5

Additional ChangesThis version of the AppAssure 5 Deployment Guide also includes the following general changes:

Editorial changes

“Using the AppAssure 5 Core Setup Wizard” on page 34

Modified topic. It describes how to complete the configuration of the AppAssure 5 Core through the set up wizard instead of manually performing the configuration and set up. The topic was modified to include the support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

“Installing the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console” on page 48

Modified topic. It describes how to install the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console. Support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 was added to the topic. In addition, the note about the ASP.Net role requirement was modified to reflect that this is now included automatically with the AppAssure installer

Topic Description

Introduct ion to AppAssure 5 | 7

This chapter provides an introduction and overview of AppAssure 5. It describes the features, functionality, and architecture, and consists of the following topics:

About AppAssure 5 on page 7

AppAssure 5 Core Technologies on page 8

AppAssure 5 True Scale™ Architecture on page 9

AppAssure 5 Deployment Architecture on page 11

Product Features of AppAssure 5 on page 16

About AppAssure 5AppAssure 5 sets a new standard for unified data protection by combining backup, replication, and recovery in a single solution that is engineered to be the fastest and most reliable backup for protecting virtual machines (VM), physical machines, and cloud environments.

AppAssure 5 combines backup and replication into one integrated and unified data protection product that also provides application awareness to ensure reliable application data recovery from your backups. AppAssure 5 is built on the new, patent-pending True Scale™ architecture which delivers the fastest backup performance with very aggressive, near-zero recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO).

AppAssure 5 combines several unique, innovative, and breakthrough technologies:

Live Recovery

Recovery Assure

Universal Recovery

True Global Deduplication

2 Introduction to AppAssure 5

8 | Introduct ion to AppAssure 5

These technologies are engineered with secure integration for cloud disaster recovery and deliver fast and reliable recovery. With its scalable object store, AppAssure 5 is uniquely capable of handling up to petabytes of data very rapidly with built-in global deduplication, compression, encryption, and replication to any private or public cloud infrastructure. Server applications and data can be recovered in minutes for data retention and compliance purposes.

Today's legacy backup tools and first generation VM backup tools are inefficient and ineffective. The outdated backup tools lack the ability to handle large-scale data and do not offer the level of performance and reliability needed for protecting business-critical applications. Combine this with complex and mixed IT environments and it presents an administrative challenge for IT professionals and vulnerability of system data.

AppAssure 5 addresses this complexity and inefficiency through our core technology and support of multi-hypervisor environments including those running on VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V, which comprise both private and public clouds. AppAssure 5 offers these technological advances while dramatically reducing IT management and storage costs.

AppAssure 5 Core TechnologiesDetails about the core technologies of AppAssure 5 are described in the following topics.

Live RecoveryLive Recovery is instant recovery technology for VMs or servers. It gives you near-continuous access to data volumes on virtual or physical servers. You can recover an entire volume with near-zero RTO and an RPO of minutes.

AppAssure 5 backup and replication technology records concurrent snapshots of multiple VMs or servers, providing near instantaneous data and system protection. You can resume the use of the server directly from the backup file without waiting for a full restore to production storage. Users remain productive and IT departments reduce recovery windows to meet today's increasingly stringent RTO and RPO service-level agreements.


Recovery AssureRecovery Assure lets you perform automated recovery testing and verification of backups. It includes, but is not limited to, file systems; Microsoft Exchange 2007, 2010, and 2013; and, the different versions of Microsoft SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2, and 2012. Recovery Assure provides recoverability of applications and backups in virtual and physical environments, and features a comprehensive integrity checking algorithm based on 256-bit SHA keys that check the correctness of each disk block in the backup during archiving, replication, and data seeding operations. This ensures that data corruption is identified early and prevents corrupted data blocks from being maintained or transferred during the backup process.

Universal RecoveryUniversal Recovery technology gives you unlimited machine restoration flexibility. You can restore your backups from physical to virtual, virtual to virtual, virtual to physical, or physical to physical, and carry out bare metal restores to dissimilar hardware; for example, P2V, V2V, V2P, P2P, P2C, V2C, C2P, C2V.

It also accelerates cross-platform moves among virtual machines; for instance, moving from VMware to Hyper-V or Hyper-V to VMware. It builds in application-level, item-level, and object-level recovery: individual files, folders, email, calendar items, databases, and applications. With AppAssure 5, you can also recover or export physical to cloud, or virtual to cloud.

True Global DeduplicationAppAssure 5 provides true global deduplication that dramatically reduces your physical disk capacity requirements by offering space reduction ratios exceeding 50:1, while still meeting the data storage requirements. True Scale inline block-level compression and deduplication with line speed performance, along with built-in integrity checking, prevents data corruption from affecting the quality of the backup and archiving processes.

AppAssure 5 True Scale™ ArchitectureAppAssure 5 is built on AppAssure True Scale™ architecture. It leverages dynamic, multi-core pipeline architecture that is optimized to consistently deliver line-speed performance for your enterprise environments. True Scale is designed from the ground up to linearly scale and efficiently store and manage big data, and deliver RTOs and RPOs of minutes without compromising performance. It comprises a purpose-built object and volume manager with integrated global deduplication, compression, encryption, replication, and retention. The following diagram describes the AppAssure True Scale architecture.


Figure 1. AppAssure True Scale™ Architecture

The AppAssure Volume Manager and scalable object store serve as the foundation of the AppAssure 5 True Scale architecture. The scalable object store stores block-level snapshots that are captured from virtual and physical servers. The volume manager manages the numerous object stores by providing a common repository or just-in-time storage for only what is needed. The object store concurrently supports everything with asynchronous I/O that delivers high throughput with minimal latency and maximizes system utilization. The repository resides on different storage technologies such as Storage Area Network (SAN), Direct Attached Storage (DAS), or Network Attached Storage (NAS).

The role of the AppAssure Volume Manager is similar to the role of the volume manager in an operating system, as it takes various storage deviceswhich can be of different sizes and typesand combines them into logical volumes, using striped or sequential allocation policies. The object store saves, retrieves, maintains, and then replicates objects that are derived from application-aware snapshots. The volume manager delivers scalable I/O performance in tandem with global data deduplication, encryption, and retention management.


AppAssure 5 Deployment ArchitectureAppAssure 5 is a scalable backup and recovery product that is flexibly deployed within the enterprise or as a service delivered by a managed service provider. The type of deployment will depend on the size and requirements of the customer. Preparing to deploy AppAssure 5 involves planning the network storage topology, core hardware and disaster recovery infrastructure, and security.

The AppAssure 5 deployment architecture consists of local and remote components. The remote components may be optional to those who do not want to leverage a disaster recovery site or a managed service provider for off-site recovery. A basic local deployment consists of a backup server called the Core and one or more protected machines known as the agents. The off-site component is enabled using replication that provides full recovery capabilities in the DR site. The AppAssure 5 Core uses base images and incremental snapshots to compile recovery points of protected agents.

Additionally, AppAssure 5 is application-aware because it has the ability to detect the presence of Microsoft Exchange and SQL and their respective databases and log files and then automatically group these volumes with dependency for comprehensive protection and effective recovery. This ensures that you never have incomplete backups when you are performing recoveries. Backups are performed using application-aware block-level snapshots. AppAssure 5 can also perform log truncation of the protected Microsoft Exchange and SQL servers.


The following diagram depicts a simple AppAssure 5 deployment. In this diagram, AppAssure Agents are installed on machines such as a file server, email server, database server, or virtual machines and connect to and are protected by a single AppAssure Core, which also consists of the central repository. The AppAssure 5 License Portal manages license subscriptions, groups and users for the agents and cores in your environment. The License Portal allows users to log in, activate accounts, download software, and deploy agents and cores per your license for your environment.

Figure 2. AppAssure 5 Deployment Architecture


You can also deploy multiple AppAssure Cores as shown in the following diagram. Multiple cores are managed by a Web-based, central console.

Figure 3. AppAssure 5 Multi-Core Deployment Architecture

AppAssure 5 Smart AgentThe AppAssure 5 Smart Agent is installed on the machines that will be protected by the AppAssure 5 Core. The Smart Agent tracks the changed blocks on the disk volume and then creates a snapshot of an image of the changed blocks at a predefined interval of protection. This incremental block-level snapshots’ forever approach prevents repeated copying of the same data from the protected machine to the Core. The Smart Agent is application-aware and is dormant when not in use, with near zero (0) percent CPU utilization and less than 20 MB of memory overhead. When the Smart Agent is active, it uses up to two (2) to four (4) percent CPU utilization and less than 150 MB memory, which includes transferring the snapshots to the Core. This is much lower than traditional legacy software programs that use significantly higher levels of CPU and memory bandwidth, even though they are dormant.


The AppAssure 5 Smart Agent is application-aware because it not only detects the type of application that is installed but the location of the data as well. It automatically groups data volumes with dependency, such as databases, and then logs them together for effective protection and rapid recovery. Once the agent is configured, it uses smart technology to keep track of changed blocks on the protected disk volumes. When a snapshot is ready, it is rapidly transferred to the AppAssure 5 Core using intelligent, multi-threaded, socket-based connections. To preserve CPU bandwidth and memory on the protected machines, the smart agent does not encrypt or deduplicate the data at the source, and agent machines are paired with a core for protection.

AppAssure 5 CoreThe AppAssure 5 Core is the central component of the AppAssure 5 deployment architecture. The Core stores and manages all of the machine backups and provides core services for backup, recovery, and retention as well as replication, archival, and management. The Core is a self-contained network-addressable computer that runs a 64-bit variant of the Microsoft Windows operating system. AppAssure 5 performs target-based, inline compression, encryption, and data deduplication of the data received from an agent.

The Core then stores the snapshot backups in a repository, which can reside on different storage technologies such as Storage Area Network (SAN), Direct Attached Storage (DAS), or Network Attached Storage (NAS). The repository can also reside on internal storage within the Core. The Core is managed by accessing the following URL from a Web browser: https://CORENAME:8006/apprecovery/admin. Internally, all core services are accessible through REST APIs. The core services can be accessed from within the Core or directly over the Internet from any application that can send an HTTP/HTTPS request and receive an HTTP/HTTPS response. All API operations are performed over SSL and are mutually authenticated using X.509 v3 certificates.

For replication, a core is paired with another core.

Snapshot ProcessThe AppAssure protection process commences when a base image is transferred from an agent machine to the Core, followed by incremental snapshots forever. The AppAssure 5 Agent for Windows uses Microsoft Volume Shadow copy Service (VSS) to freeze and quiesce application data to disk to capture a file-system-consistent and an application-consistent backup. When a snapshot is created, the VSS writer on the target server prevents content from being written to the disk. During the process of halting of writing content to disk, all disk I/O operations are queued and resume only after the snapshot is complete, while the operations already in flight will be completed and all open files will be closed. The process of creating a shadow copy does not significantly impact the performance of the production system.


AppAssure uses Microsoft VSS because it has built-in support for all Windows internal technologies such as NTFS, Registry, Active Directory, and so on, to flush data to disk before the snapshot. Additionally, other enterprise applications, such as Microsoft Exchange and SQL, use VSS Writer plug-ins to get notified when a snapshot is being prepared and when they have to flush their used database pages to disk to bring the database to a consistent transactional state. It is important to note that VSS is used to quiesce system and application data to disk; it is not used to create the snapshot. The captured data is rapidly transferred to and stored on the AppAssure 5 Core. Using VSS for backup does not render the application server in backup mode for an extended period of time because the length of time to perform the snapshot is seconds and not hours. Another benefit of using VSS for backups is that it lets the agent take a snapshot of large quantities of data at one time since the snapshot works at the volume level.

Replication - Disaster Recovery Site or Service ProviderThe replication process in AppAssure requires a paired source-target relationship between two cores. The source core copies the recovery points of the protected agents and then asynchronously and continuously transmits them to a target core at a remote disaster recovery site. The off-site location can be a company-owned data center (self-managed core) or a third-party managed service provider’s (MSP’s) location or cloud environment. When replicating to a MSP, you can use built-in workflows that let you request connections and receive automatic feedback notifications. For the initial transfer of data you can perform data seeding using external media, which is useful for large sets of data or sites with slow links.

In the case of a severe outage, AppAssure 5 supports failover and failback in replicated environments. In case of a comprehensive outage, the target core in the secondary site can recover instances from replicated agents and immediately commence protection on the failed-over machines. Once the primary site is restored, the replicated core can fail-back data from the recovered instances back to agents at the primary site.

RecoveryRecovery can be performed in the local site or the replicated remote site. Once the deployment is in steady state with local protection and optional replication, the AppAssure 5 Core lets you perform recovery using Recovery Assure, Universal Recovery, or Live Recovery.


Product Features of AppAssure 5Using AppAssure 5, you can manage all aspects of protection and recovery of critical data through the following features and functionality. They include:

“Repository” on page 16

“True Global Deduplication” on page 17

“Encryption” on page 18

“Replication” on page 19

“Recovery-as-a-Service (RaaS)” on page 20

“Retention and Archiving” on page 20

“Virtualization and Cloud” on page 22

“Alerts and Event Management” on page 22

“AppAssure 5 License Portal” on page 22

“Web Console” on page 22

“Service Management APIs” on page 23

“White Labeling” on page 23

RepositoryThe AppAssure repository uses deduplication volume manager (DVM) to implement a volume manager that provides support for multiple volumes, each of which could reside on different storage technologies such as Storage Area Network (SAN), Direct Attached Storage (DAS), Network Attached Storage (NAS), or cloud storage. Each volume consists of a scalable object store with deduplication. The scalable object store behaves as a records-based file system, where the unit of storage allocation is a fixed-sized data block called a record. This architecture lets you configure block-sized support for compression and deduplication. Rollup operations are reduced to metadata operations from disk intensive operations because the rollup no longer moves data but only moves the records.

The DVM can combine a set of object stores into a volume and they can be expanded by creating additional file systems. The object store files are pre-allocated and can be added on demand as storage requirements change. It is possible to create up to 255 independent repositories on a single AppAssure 5 Core and to further increase the size of a repository by adding new file extents. An extended repository may contain up to 4,096 extents that span across different storage technologies. The maximum size of a repository is 32 Exabytes. Multiple repositories can exist on a single core.


True Global DeduplicationTrue Global Deduplication is an effective method of reducing backup storage needs by eliminating redundant or duplicate data. Deduplication is effective because only one unique instance of the data across multiple backups is stored in the repository. The redundant data is stored, but not physically; it is simply replaced with a pointer to the one unique data instance in the repository.

Conventional backup applications have been performing repetitive full backups every week, but AppAssure performs incremental block-level backups of the machines forever. This incremental-forever approach in tandem with data deduplication helps to drastically reduce the total quantity of data committed to the disk.

The typical disk layout of a server consists of the operating system, application, and data. In most environments, the administrators often use a common flavor of the server and desktop operating system across multiple systems for effective deployment and management. When backup is performed at the block level across multiple machines at the same time, it provides a more granular view of what is in the backup and what is not, irrespective of the source. This data includes the operating system, the applications, and the application data across the environment.

Figure 4. True Global Dedupl ication


AppAssure 5 performs target-based inline data deduplication. This means that the snapshot data is transmitted to the Core before it is deduplicated. Inline data deduplication simply means the data is deduplicated before it is committed to disk. This is very different from at-source or post-process deduplication, where the data is deduplicated at the source before it is transmitted to the target for storage, and in post-process the data is sent raw to the target where it is analyzed and deduplicated after the data has been committed to disk. At-source deduplication consumes precious system resources on the machine whereas the post-process data deduplication approach needs all the requisite data on disk (a greater initial capacity overhead) before commencing the deduplication process. On the other hand, inline data deduplication does not require additional disk capacity and CPU cycles on the source or on the Core for the deduplication process. Lastly, conventional backup applications perform repetitive full backups every week, while AppAssure performs incremental block-level backups of the machines forever. This incremental forever approach in tandem with data deduplication helps to drastically reduce the total quantity of data committed to the disk with a reduction ratio of as much as 80:1.

EncryptionAppAssure 5 provides integrated encryption to protect backups and data-at-rest from unauthorized access and use, ensuring data privacy. AppAssure 5 provides strong encryption. By doing so, backups of protected computers are inaccessible. Only the user with the encryption key can access and decrypt the data. There is no limit to the number of encryption keys that can be created and stored on a system. DVM uses AES 256-bit encryption in the Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) mode with 256-bit keys. Encryption is performed inline on snapshot data, at line speeds without impacting performance. This is because DVM implementation is multi-threaded and uses hardware acceleration specific to the processor on which it is deployed.

Encryption is multi-tenant ready. The deduplication has been specifically limited to records that have been encrypted with the same key; two identical records that have been encrypted with different keys will not be deduplicated against each other. This design decision ensures that deduplication cannot be used to leak data between different encryption domains. This is a benefit for managed service providers, as replicated backups for multiple tenants (customers) can be stored on a single core without any tenant being able to see or access other tenant data. Each active tenant encryption key creates an encryption domain within the repository where only the owner of the keys can see, access, or use the data. In a multi-tenant scenario, data is partitioned and deduplicated within the encryption domains.

In replication scenarios, AppAssure 5 uses SSL 3.0 to secure the connections between the two cores in a replication topology to prevent eavesdropping and tampering.


ReplicationReplication is the process of copying recovery points and transmitting them to a secondary location for the purpose of disaster recovery. The process requires a paired source-target relationship between two cores. Replication is managed on a per-protected-machine basis; meaning, backup snapshots of a protected machine are replicated to the target replica core. When replication is set up, the source core asynchronously and continuously transmits the incremental snapshot data to the target core. You can configure this outbound replication to your company’s own data center or remote disaster recovery site (that is, a “self-managed” target core) or to a managed service provider (MSP) providing off-site backup and disaster recovery services. When you replicate to an MSP, you can use built-in workflows that let you request connections and receive automatic feedback notifications.

Figure 5. Repl ication

Replication is self-optimizing with a unique Read-Match-Write (RMW) algorithm that is tightly coupled with deduplication. With RMW replication, the source and target replication service matches keys before transferring data and then replicates only the compressed, encrypted, deduplicated data across the WAN, resulting in a 10x reduction in bandwidth requirements.


Replication begins with seeding: the initial transfer of deduplicated base images and incremental snapshots of the protected agents, which can add up to hundreds or thousands of gigabytes of data. Initial replication can be seeded to the target core using external media. This is typically useful for large sets of data or sites with slow links. The data in the seeding archive is compressed, encrypted and deduplicated. If the total size of the archive is larger than the space available on the removable media, the archive can span across multiple devices based on the available space on the media. During the seeding process, the incremental recovery points replicate to the target site. After the target core consumes the seeding archive, the newly replicated incremental recovery points automatically synchronize.

Recovery-as-a-Service (RaaS)Managed service providers (MSPs) can fully leverage AppAssure 5 as a platform for delivering recovery as a service (RaaS). RaaS facilitates complete recovery-in-the-cloud by replicating customers' physical and virtual servers along with their data to the service provider's cloud as virtual machines to support recovery testing or actual recovery operations. Customers wanting to perform recovery-in-the-cloud can configure replication on their protected machines on the local cores to an AppAssure service provider. In the event of a disaster, the MSPs can instantly spin-up virtual machines for the customer.

MSPs can deploy multi-tenant AppAssure 5-based RaaS infrastructure that can host multiple and discrete organizations or business units (the tenants) that ordinarily do not share security or data on a single server or a group of servers. The data of each tenant is isolated and secure from other tenants and the service provider.

Retention and ArchivingAppAssure 5 offers flexible backup and retention policies that are easily configurable. The ability to tailor retention polices to the needs of an organization not only helps to meet compliance requirements but does so without compromising recovery time objectives (RTO).


Retention policies enforce the periods of time in which backups are stored on short-term (fast and expensive) media. Sometimes certain business and technical requirements mandate extended retention of these backups, but use of fast storage is cost prohibitive. Therefore, this requirement creates a need for long-term (slow and cheap) storage. Businesses often use long-term storage for archiving both compliance and non-compliance data. The archive feature supports extended retentions for compliance and non-compliance data, as well as being used for seeding replication data to a target core.

In AppAssure 5 retention policies can be customized to specify the length of time a backup recovery point is maintained. As the age of the recovery points approach the end of their retention period, they age out and are removed from the retention pool. Typically, this process becomes inefficient and eventually fails as the amount of data and the period of retention start growing rapidly. AppAssure 5 solves the big data problem by managing the retention of large amounts of data with complex retention policies and performing rollup operations for aging data using efficient metadata operations.

Backups can be performed with an interval of a few minutes; and, these backups age over days, months, and years. Retention policies manage the aging and deletion of old backups. A simple waterfall method defines the aging process. The levels within the waterfall are defined in minutes, hours, and days; weeks, months, and years. The retention policy is enforced by the nightly rollup process.

For long term archival, AppAssure 5 lets you create an archive of the source or target core on any removable media. The archive is internally optimized, and all data in the archive is compressed, encrypted, and deduplicated. If the total size of the archive is larger than the space available on the removable media, the archive will span across multiple devices based on the available space on the media. Recovery from an archive does not require a new core; any core can ingest the archive and recover data if the administrator has the passphrase and the encryption keys.

Figure 6. Retention Pol icy


Virtualization and CloudThe AppAssure 5 Core is cloud-ready, which allows you to leverage the compute capacity of the cloud for recovery.

AppAssure 5 can export any protected or replicated machine to licensed versions of VMware or Hyper-V. Exports can be ad-hoc or continuous. With continuous exports, the virtual machine is incrementally updated after every snapshot. The incremental updates are very fast and provide standby-clones that are ready to be powered up with a click of a button. The supported exports are VMware Workstation/Server on a folder, direct export to a vSphere / VMware ESX(i) host, and Microsoft Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

Alerts and Event ManagementIn addition to HTTP REST APIs, AppAssure 5 also includes an extensive set of features for event logging and notification using email, syslog, or Windows Event Log. Email notifications can be used to alert users or groups of the health or status of different events in response to an alert. The syslog and Windows Event Log methods are used for centralized logging to a repository in multi-operating system environments; while in Windows-only environments, only the Windows Event Log is used.

AppAssure 5 License PortalThe AppAssure 5 License Portal provides easy-to-use tools for managing license entitlements. You can download, activate, view, and manage license keys and create a company profile to track your license assets. Additionally, the portal enables service providers and re-sellers to track and manage their customer licenses.

Web ConsoleAppAssure 5 features a Web-based central console that manages distributed AppAssure 5 cores from one central location. MSPs and enterprise customers with multiple distributed cores can deploy this console to get a unified view for centralized management. The AppAssure 5 Central Management Console lets you organize the managed cores in hierarchical organizational units. These organizational units can represent business units, locations, or customers for MSPs with role-based access. Using the central console, you can also run reports across all of your managed cores.


Service Management APIsAppAssure 5 comes bundled with a set of service management APIs and provides programmatic access to all of the functionality available through the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console. The service management API is a REST API. All the API operations are performed over SSL and are mutually authenticated using X.509 v3 certificates. The management service can be accessed from within the environment or directly over the Internet from any application that can send and receive an HTTPS request and response. The approach facilitates easy integration with any Web application such as relationship management methodology (RMM) tools or billing systems. Also included with AppAssure 5 is an SDK client for PowerShell scripting.

White LabelingAppAssure 5 can be re-branded and white-labeled for select enterprise and OEM partners under the Platinum service provider program. The Platinum service provider program lets partners brand AppAssure 5 with their custom name, logo, and color themes and deliver the product or service with their own branding and look-and-feel to their customers.

As an AppAssure partner, you can tailor the software to meet your business requirements. To further explore how you can brand AppAssure 5 to suit your business needs, contact AppAssure Sales at [email protected] for more information.


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Instal l ing AppAssure 5 | 25

This chapter describes how to install the components you will need to use AppAssure 5. It includes the following topics:

About the AppAssure 5 Components on page 25

Roadmap for Installing AppAssure 5 on page 26

Requirements for Installation on page 27

Installing the AppAssure 5 Core on page 32

Using the AppAssure 5 Core Setup Wizard on page 34

Installing Agents on Windows Machines on page 38

Installing Agents on Linux Machines on page 41

Installing the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console on page 48

Configuring the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console on page 49

Uninstalling Agents on a Windows Machine on page 52

Uninstalling Agents on a Linux Machine on page 53

Uninstalling the AppAssure 5 Core on page 55

Uninstalling the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console on page 56

About the AppAssure 5 Components This section describes the AppAssure 5 components. The purpose of this section is to help you gain an understanding of the components that you will install in your AppAssure 5 environment and how they work together.

AppAssure 5 Core - The central component of the AppAssure architecture. The AppAssure 5 Core provides the essential services for backup, recovery, retention, replication, archival, and management. It stores and manages the backup data for your protected machines. You install the AppAssure 5 Core on a dedicated Windows server. Depending on your license and your environment requirements, you may need to install multiple cores.

3 Installing AppAssure 5

26 | Instal l ing AppAssure 5

AppAssure 5 Core Console - A Web-based console used to manage an individual AppAssure 5 Core and associated Agents. The Core installer automatically installs the AppAssure Core Console software.

AppAssure 5 Central Management Console - A multi-core management portal that simplifies the process of managing multiple AppAssure 5 Cores. Using the Central Management Console, you can group and manage multiple Cores in your environment through a single, Web-based interface. If you will be installing multiple AppAssure 5 Cores, you must install this separate service to manage them.

AppAssure 5 Agent - The agent services and software that enable protection of your data. You install agent software on the Windows and Linux machines in your environment (for example, on an Exchange server, SQL Server, Linux server, and so on). The agent tracks changed data blocks on the disk volume of the machine and creates snapshot images of the data to send to the Core. You manage an agent using the Core Console of the associated Core.

Replication Server - If you plan to set up replication in your AppAssure 5 environment, you must install the AppAssure 5 Core software on an additional Windows server, which could be in an off-site location. For more information about replication, see the AppAssure 5 User Guide.

Virtual Standby Machine - AppAssure 5 supports exporting your data to a virtual standby machine, which provides you with a high-availability copy of the data. Therefore, if a protected machine goes down, you can boot up the virtual machine to then perform recovery. If you plan to export data to a virtual standby machine, a supported virtualization platform such as VMware Workstation, VMware ESX(i), or Microsoft Hyper-V is required. For more information about setting up virtual standby, see the AppAssure 5 User Guide.

Roadmap for Installing AppAssure 5The installation of AppAssure 5 involves installing the AppAssure 5 Core on your dedicated Windows server machine(s) and the AppAssure 5 Agent services on the Windows or Linux machines you want to protect. If you will be setting up and managing multiple cores, you will also need to install the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console service.

The steps you must follow to install AppAssure 5 are:

Step 1: If you haven’t already registered, register at the AppAssure 5 License Portal, create an account, and obtain a license key. The license key is necessary to download the AppAssure 5 Core and AppAssure 5 Agent software and to configure and protect machines. For more information about obtaining a license key or registering and creating a License Portal account, see the documentation, Managing AppAssure 5 Licenses, on the AppAssure 5 Technical Documentation page at: http://docs.appassure.com/display/AA50D/AppAssure+5+Technical+Documentation.


Step 2: Review and ensure the system requirements have been met for the servers and machines on which you will be installing AppAssure 5 components. For more information, see “Requirements for Installation” on page 27.

Step 3: Install the AppAssure 5 Core software on the Windows machine(s) you will use as Core(s). For more information, see “Installing the AppAssure 5 Core” on page 32.

Step 4: Configure the AppAssure 5 Core(s) you have just installed using the AppAssure 5 Core setup wizard. For more information, see “Using the AppAssure 5 Core Setup Wizard” on page 34.

Step 5: Install the AppAssure 5 Agent software on the Windows or Linux machine(s) you will be protecting. For more information, see “Installing Agents on Windows Machines” on page 38 and “Installing Agents on Linux Machines” on page 41.

Step 6: If you will have multiple AppAssure 5 Cores in your environment, you must install and configure the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console, which allows you to manage multiple cores in your environment. For more information about installing the Central Management Console, see “Installing the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console” on page 48. For more information about configuring the Central Management Console, see “Configuring the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console” on page 49.

NOTE: After you have installed all necessary components, you can start to protect your agent machines and servers and associated data; for example, your Exchange server, SQL Server, Linux server, and so on. For more information about protecting agent machines, see the AppAssure 5 User Guide.

Requirements for InstallationThis section describes the system and license requirements for installing the AppAssure 5 Core, AppAssure 5 Agent, and AppAssure 5 Central Management Console.

Recommended Network InfrastructureA decade ago the standard backbone infrastructure comprised speeds of 100 megabytes. Demands for network traffic and input/output have increased steadily and substantially. As a result, standards for network backbones have increased to meet demand. Modern network backbones support speeds such as gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE), which transfers Ethernet frames at one gigabit per second (1,000,000,000 bits per second), or 10 GigE, which is ten times faster.

Dell recommends organizations use a 1 GigE backbone for efficient performance for use with AppAssure 5, and 10 GigE networks for extremely robust environments. The suggestion is based on typical networking needs of a network infrastructure to support all business operations in addition to backup, replication, and recovery capabilities provided by AppAssure 5.


UEFI and ReFS Support LimitationsUnified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a replacement for Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) and is used in the Windows 8, 8.1 and Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2 operating systems. UEFI utilizes the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) system partitions that are handled as simple FAT32 volumes. AppAssure 5 protection and recovery capabilities are not available for EFI system partitions.

Resilient File System (ReFS) is a new type of file system in Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2. AppAssure 5 protection and recovery capabilities are not available for ReFS volumes.

Dynamic and Basic Volumes Support LimitationsAppAssure 4.x and 5.x both support taking snapshots of all dynamic and basic volumes. AppAssure 4.x and 5.x also support exporting simple dynamic volumes that are on a single physical disk. As their name implies, simple dynamic volumes are not striped, mirrored or spanned volumes.

Non-simple dynamic volumes have arbitrary disk geometries that cannot be fully interpreted and therefore AppAssure cannot export them. Neither Replay 4.x nor AppAssure 5.x has the ability to export complex or non-simple dynamic volumes.

AppAssure does not support exporting non-simple or complex dynamic volumes. Notification appears in the user interface to alert you that exports are limited and restricted to simple dynamic volumes. If you attempt to export anything other than a single dynamic volume, the export job will fail.

AppAssure 5 Core Installation RequirementsAppAssure 5 supports installation of the Core on full installations of the operating systems in the following table; you cannot install the Core on the following operating systems which offer limited server roles:

Windows Server 2008 Core edition (Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Web, x86 and x64)

Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2012 Core edition (Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Web)

Hyper-V Server 2008, 2008 R2, and 2012


The system requirements for installing the AppAssure 5 Core are described in the following table.

Requirement Details

Operating System Microsoft Windows 7

Microsoft Windows Server 2008

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2

Microsoft Windows 8

Microsoft Windows 8.1

Microsoft Windows 8 Pro

Microsoft Windows 8 Enterprise

Windows Server 2012 Standard

Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard

Windows Server 2012 Datacenter

Windows Server 2012 Essentials

Windows Server 2012 Foundation

NOTE: AppAssure 5 Core does not support Windows Server 2008 Core edition, 2008 R2 Core edition, or 2012 Core edition. In addition, it does not support Hyper-V Server 2008, 2008 R2, or 2012.

Architecture 64-bit only

Memory 8 GB RAM or higher; ECC memory recommended

Processor Quad-core or higher.

Storage Direct Attached, Storage Area Network or Network Attached Storage


AppAssure 5 Central Management Console Installation RequirementsThe requirements for installing AppAssure 5 Central Management Console are described in the following table.

AppAssure 5 Agent Installation RequirementsYou can install the Agent on all editions of Windows 8, 8.1 and Windows Server 2012, Windows 2012 R2. Note that Resilient File System (ReFS) volumes are not supported; for details, see “UEFI and ReFS Support Limitations” on page 28.

Requirement Details

Operating System Microsoft Windows 7



Microsoft Windows 8









NOTE: AppAssure 5 Core does not support Windows Server 2008 Core edition, 2008 R2 Core edition, or 2012 Core edition. In addition, it does not support Hyper-V Server 2008, 2008 R2, or 2012.

Architecture 64-bit only

For Linux environments, AppAssure 5 only supports the following file systems: ext3, ext4, and xfs.


The requirements for installing AppAssure 5 Agent are described in the following table.

License RequirementsBefore you can install AppAssure 5 components, you must register at the AppAssure 5 License Portal, create an account, and obtain a license key. This license key is required to download the AppAssure 5 Core and AppAssure 5 Agent software and to configure and protect machines.

Requirement Details

Operating System Microsoft Windows XP SP3

Microsoft Windows Vista

Microsoft Windows 7

Microsoft Windows 2003



Microsoft Windows 8









Windows Server 2012 Storage Server Workgroup

Windows Server 2012 Storage Server Standard

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.3, 6.4

CentOS Linux 6.3, 6.4

Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS, 13.04

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP2, SP3

NOTE: We support these Linux distributions and have tested under most of the released kernel versions.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012

NOTE: Agents installed on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 operate in the Core edition mode of Windows Server 2012.

Architecture 32-bit or 64-bit

Memory 4 GB or higher

Microsoft Exchange (for the Microsoft Exchange Agent)

Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 Rollup 5 or later, Exchange 2010, or Exchange 2013

SQL Server (for the SQL Server Agent)

SQL Server 2005 or higher


For more information about the AppAssure 5 License Portal, obtaining a license key, and registering for an account, see the documentation, Managing AppAssure 5 Licenses, on the AppAssure 5 Technical Documentation page at: http://docs.appassure.com/display/AA50D/AppAssure+5+Technical+Documentation.

Installing the AppAssure 5 CoreBecause the AppAssure 5 Core stores and manages the backups of all protected machines in your environment, you should install the AppAssure 5 Core on a dedicated server. Depending on your license and your environment requirements, you may need to install multiple cores.

To install the AppAssure 5 Core, you must log on to the AppAssure 5 License Portal at https://licenseportal.com and register for an account, and then download the installer and obtain a license key to activate the software. For more information, the documentation, Managing AppAssure 5 Licenses, on the AppAssure 5 Technical Documentation page at: http://docs.appassure.com/display/AA50D/AppAssure+5+Technical+Documentation.

After you install the AppAssure 5 Core, you can download the AppAssure 5 Agent installer from the Core or the License Portal for each machine that will be protected by the Core. For more information about the AppAssure 5 Agent installer, see “Installing Agents on Windows Machines” on page 38 or “Installing Agents on Linux Machines” on page 41 as appropriate.

To install the AppAssure 5 Core1. Download the AppAssure 5 Core installer file from the AppAssure 5 License

Portal; for example:

Core-X64-5.x.x.xxxxx.exe

2. Choose one of the following options:

Click Save, and then select the location in which to save the file to run the installer at a later time.

The file will download to your system. Navigate to the location where you saved the installer file and run it. You must run the installer with local administrator privileges.

For optimal performance, it is recommended that you install the AppAssure 5 Core on Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

The AppAssure 5 Core requires a 64-bit Windows platform; 32-bit systems and Linux systems are not supported. For more information, see “AppAssure 5 Core Installation Requirements” on page 28.

Also, note that the Windows 8, 8.1 and Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2 operating systems must have the ASP.NET 4.5 role installed on the server for proper loading of the GUI. This configuration is included for you as part of the AppAssure installer.


Click Run to automatically start the installer.

NOTE: The installer checks that the .NET Framework 4.0 is installed on your system. If it is missing, the installer will prompt you to download and install the framework.

The AppAssure 5 Core Installation wizard appears.

3. On the Welcome page, click Next to continue with the installation.

The License Agreement page appears.

4. Click I accept the terms in the license agreement, and then click Next.

The Prerequisites page appears.

5. Click Install Prerequisites.

The installer will install the required Windows runtime libraries. The Prerequisites page includes a progress bar to let you view the progress of the prerequisites installation.

NOTE: If the prerequisites are already installed on the machine, you will receive a message to indicate that the files exist.

6. Once the prerequisites are installed, click Next.

7. On the Installation Options page, review and modify installation options, and then click Next.

On the Installation Options page, you can perform the following:

Review the destination folder for the installation. If you want to change the location, click Change, and then select a new location.

Click Allow Core to automatically send diagnosis and user information to AppAssure Software to send diagnosis and user information to AppAssure. If you do not want to send this information, clear the option.

Enter a port number to use for communication between the agent and the AppAssure 5 Core. The default value is 8006. If you change the port number, be sure to make note of it in the event that you need to adjust configuration settings at a later time.

8. Click Next.

The Progress page appears and includes a status bar that lets you monitor the progress of the installation.

When the installation is complete, the Completed page appears.


Using the AppAssure 5 Core Setup WizardWhen setting up the AppAssure 5 Core for the first time, you can manually set up and configure the AppAssure 5 Core or use the setup wizard to complete the necessary steps for configuration.

Complete the steps in this procedure to use the AppAssure 5 Core Setup Wizard.

To use the AppAssure 5 Core Setup wizard1. Navigate to the AppAssure 5 Core Console, and then click the Home tab.

2. Click Setup Core to launch the wizard.

NOTE: The Setup Core button will only appear on the Home tab the first time the Core is installed and no repositories are configured for the Core. Once the Core is installed, any setup or configuration must be performed manually.

The Core Setup Wizard Welcome page appears.

3. In the Display Name text box, edit the name for the Core machine, if necessary. This is the name that will display in the AppAssure 5 Core Console.

4. Click Next.

The Repository page appears.

5. In the Details area, enter the information as described in the following table to add a new repository.

6. In the Storage Locations area, click Add Storage Location to define the specific storage location or volume for the repository.

The Add Storage Location dialog box appears.

The AppAssure 5 Core Setup Wizard is only available upon the initial implementation of the AppAssure 5 Core. Once the Core is installed, any modifications or changes to the Core configuration must be performed manually.

For more information about how to access the AppAssure 5 Core Console, see the section Accessing the AppAssure 5 Core Console in the AppAssure 5 User Guide.

For more information about modifying core settings, see the section Managing AppAssure 5 Core Settings in the AppAssure 5 User Guide.

Text Box Description

Repository Name Enter the display name of the repository.

By default, this text box consists of the word Repository and an index number, which corresponds to the number of the new repository. You can change the name as needed. You can enter up to 150 characters.

Comments Optionally, enter a descriptive note about the repository.


7. Specify how to add the file. You can choose to add the file on a local disk or a Common Internet File System (CIFS) share.

NOTE: AppAssure 5 repositories should be stored on primary storage devices. Archival storage devices such as Data Domain are not supported due to performance limitations. Similarly, repositories should not be stored on NAS filers that tier to the cloud as these devices tend to have performance limitations when used as primary storage.

Select Add file on local disk to specify a local machine and then enter the information as described in the following table.

Or, select Add file on CIFS share to specify a network share location, and then enter the information as described in the following table.


Metadata Path Enter the location for storing the protected metadata.

For example, type X:\Repository\Metadata.

When specifying the path, use only alphanumeric characters, the hyphen, and the period (only to separate host names and domains). The letters a to z are case-insensitive. Do not use spaces. No other symbols or punctuation characters are permitted.

Data Path Enter the location for storing the protected data.

For example, type X:\Repository\Data.

The same limitations to the path apply; use only alphanumeric characters, hyphen, or period, with no spaces or special characters.


UNC Path Enter the path for the network share location.

If this location is at the root, define a dedicated folder name (for example, Repository).

The path must begin with \\. When specifying the path, use only alphanumeric characters, the hyphen, and the period (only to separate host names and domains). The letters a to z are case-insensitive. Do not use spaces. No other symbols or punctuation characters are permitted.

User Name Specify a user name for accessing the network share location.

Password Specify a password for accessing the network share location.


8. In the Details area, click Show/Hide Details and enter the details for the storage location as described in the following table.

9. Click Save.

The Repositories page displays to include the newly added storage location.

10. Optionally, repeat Step 6 through Step 9 to add additional storage locations for the repository.

NOTE: Core repositories can size up to 4096 extents, with each extent measuring up to 16 TB, and are scalable to 32 exabytes.


Size Set the size or capacity for the storage location. The default is 250 MB. You can choose from the following:

MB

GB

TB

NOTE: The size that you specify cannot exceed the size of the volume.

If the storage location is a New Technology File System (NTFS) volume using Windows XP or Windows 7, the file size limit is 16 TB.

If the storage location is a NTFS volume using Windows 8, 8.1 or Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, the file size limit is 256 TB.

NOTE: For AppAssure 5 to validate the operating system, Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) must be installed on the intended storage location.

Write Caching Policy The write caching policy controls how the Windows Cache Manager is used in the repository and helps to tune the repository for optimal performance on different configurations.

Set the value to one of the following:

On

Off

Sync

If set to On, which is the default, Windows controls the caching.

NOTE: Setting the write caching policy to On could result in faster performance. If you are using a version of Windows Server prior to Server 2012, the recommended setting is Off.

If set to Off, AppAssure 5 controls the caching.

If set to Sync, Windows controls the caching as well as the synchronous input/output.

Bytes per Sector Specify the number of bytes you want each sector to include. The default value is 512.

Average Bytes per Record

Specify the average number of bytes per record. The default value is 8192.


11. Click Next.

The Email Notifications page appears.

12. Optionally, click Enable email notifications to set up email notifications and email server information for receiving system alerts.

13. Enter the parameters as described in the following table set up email notification for alerts.

NOTE: You must also configure notification group settings, including enabling the Notify by email option, before email alert messages will be sent. For more information about specifying events to receive email alerts, see the topic Configuring Notification Groups in the AppAssure 5 User Guide.

14. Click Next.

The Create Encryption Key page appears.


SMTP Server Enter the name of the email server to be used by the email notification template. The naming convention includes the host name, domain, and suffix; for example, smtp.gmail.com.

You will then need to enter the following:

Port. The port number for sending email notifications. For example, port 587 for configuring the SMTP server for Gmail.

Timeout. The amount of time to wait before a timeout occurs if there is a problem sending email notifications.

TLS. Select this option if the mail server uses a secure connection such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

User name Enter the user name for the email server; for example, administrator.

Password Enter the password associated with the user name required to access the email server.

Email Subject Enter the subject for the email template; for example, <hostname> - <level> <name>.

From Enter the email address that will serve as the originating email address for the email template; for example, [email protected].

Once you have finished entering the information, click Send Test Email to test your email settings.

Email Enter information for the body of the template that describes the event, when it occurred, and the severity.


15. Optionally, enter the information as described in the following table to add an encryption key for the Core.

NOTE: For more information about encryption, see the topic Managing Security in the AppAssure 5 User Guide.

16. Click Next.

The Deploy Agent page appears.

17. Optionally, to download the Agent software that you can then manually deploy to each machine you want to protect, click Download installer and then click Save File.

For more information about installing Agent software, see “Installing Agents on Windows Machines” on page 38 or “Installing Agents on Linux Machines” on page 41 as appropriate.

NOTE: You can also use the Bulk Deploy feature to deploy the Agent software to multiple machines simultaneously. For more information, see the topic Protecting Multiple Machines in the AppAssure 5 User Guide.

18. Click Finish.

The AppAssure 5 Core Setup wizard closes, and the Core is configured with the initial settings you selected.

You must install the Agent software and protect the machine before your information is backed up to the Core. For more information on protecting an agent machine, see the section Protecting a Machine in the AppAssure 5 User Guide.

Installing Agents on Windows MachinesThis topic provides instructions for installing the Agent on all supported Windows versions except Windows Server 2012 Core edition. To install the Agent software on a Windows Server 2012 Core edition machine, you must follow the installation procedure in “Installing Agents on Windows Server 2012 Core Edition Machines” on page 40.


Name Enter a name for the encryption key.

Description Enter a description to provide additional details for the encryption key.

Passphrase Enter the passphrase used to control access.

Confirm Passphrase Re-enter the passphrase you just entered.

AppAssure 5 uses AES 256-bit encryption in the Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) mode with 256-bit keys. While using encryption is optional, Dell highly recommends that you establish an encryption key, and that you protect the passphrase you define. Store the passphrase in a secure location as it is critical for data recovery. Without a passphrase, data recovery is not possible.


You must install the AppAssure 5 Agent Installer on each server in your environment that will be protected by the AppAssure 5 Core. You can download the installer from the AppAssure 5 License Portal at https://licenseportal.com or from the Core. For more information about the License Portal, see the documentation, Managing AppAssure 5 Licenses, on the AppAssure 5 Technical Documentation page at: http://docs.appassure.com/display/AA50D/AppAssure+5+Technical+Documentation. For more information about installing the Core, see “Installing the AppAssure 5 Core” on page 32,

You can also deploy the Agent software to the agent machine during the process of protecting a machine from the Core Console. This option is only relevant for machines that do not have the Agent software installed. For more information on deploying the Agent software when protecting an agent, see the topic “Deploying the Agent Software When Protecting an Agent” on page 94 in the AppAssure 5 User Guide.

To install agents on Windows machines1. Download the AppAssure 5 Agent installer file from the AppAssure 5 License

Portal or from the AppAssure 5 Core; for example:

Agent-X64-5.x.x.xxxxx.exe

2. Click Run or Save:

If you click Save, select the location in which to save the file.

The file will download to your system. Then, navigate to the location where you saved it, and double-click the file.

If you click Run, the installer will start automatically.

The installer checks that the .NET Framework 4.0 is installed on your system. If it is missing, the installer will prompt you to download and install the framework.

The AppAssure 5 Agent Installation wizard appears.

3. On the Welcome page, click Next.

The AppAssure 5 Agent Installation wizard appears.

4. In the License Agreement page, select I accept the terms in the license agreement, and then click Next.

The Prerequisites page appears.

5. The AppAssure 5 Agent Installer will verify the existence or non-existence of the prerequisite files. Select one of the following options based on the verification results:

If the prerequisite files exist, a message will display to indicate that all prerequisites are installed on the machine. Click Next.

If the prerequisites do not exist, the AppAssure 5 Agent Installer will identify which files are needed and will display the results accordingly; for example, Microsoft System CLR Types for SQL Server 2008 R2 (x64). Click Install Prerequisites.

You must run the installer with local administrator privileges.


6. When the installation of the prerequisite files finishes, click Next.

The Installation Options page appears.

7. Verify the path and destination folder for the installation.

If you need to designate a different path, click Change, select a new path, and click OK.

8. Select one of the following options:

Select Allow Agent to automatically send diagnosis and user information to AppAssure Software to send diagnosis and user information to AppAssure.

Clear the option if you prefer not to have this type of information sent.

9. If necessary, modify the port number in the Port Number text box. The port number is used as a communication channel between agent machines and the AppAssure 5 Core. The default setting is 8006.

NOTE: If you change the port number, be sure to make note of it in the event that you need to adjust agent configuration settings at a later time.

10. Click Next.



11. Select one of the following options, and then click Finish:

Click Yes, I want to restart my computer now.

Or, click No, I will restart my computer later.

You must restart your system before using the AppAssure 5 Agent instance.

12. Once you have restarted the machine, you should start the Agent service.

Installing Agents on Windows Server 2012 Core Edition MachinesComplete the steps in the following procedure to install the Agent software on a Windows Server 2012 Core machine.

To install agents on Windows Server 2012 Core edition machines1. Download the AppAssure 5 Agent installer file from the AppAssure 5 License

Portal or from the AppAssure 5 Core.

The following procedure installs the Agent software in console mode. To install in silent mode instead, append /silent to the installer file name on the command line. For example, Agent-X64-5.X.X.xxxxx.exe /silent.


2. From a command prompt, navigate to the directory containing the AppAssure 5 Agent installer file and enter the installer file name to begin the installation:


The installation program installs the Agent and displays progress in the console. Upon completion, new installations trigger an automatic restart of the machine, whereas Agent upgrades may not require a machine restart.

Installing Agents on Linux MachinesThe installation instructions for installing the Agent on a Linux machine differ slightly depending on the Linux distribution you are using. For more information about preparing for and installing the Linux agent, see the following sections:

“Before you Begin” on page 41

“Installing the Agent on Ubuntu” on page 43

“Installing the Agent on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS” on page 44

“Installing the Agent on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server” on page 45

“Starting and Stopping the Linux Agent Daemon” on page 46

“Running Scripts on the Linux Agent” on page 46

Before you BeginRefer to the following important information before you begin installation of the Linux Agent.

“Downloading the Linux Distribution” on page 41

“About Security” on page 42

“Firewall Configuration” on page 42

“Location of Linux Agent Files” on page 42

“Agent Dependencies” on page 43

Download ing the Linux DistributionYou must download the distribution specific 32-bit or 64-bit installer on every Linux server that you want to protect. You can download the installers from the AppAssure 5 License Portal at https://licenseportal.com. For more information, see the documentation, Managing AppAssure 5 Licenses, on the AppAssure 5 Technical Documentation page at: http://docs.appassure.com/display/AA50D/AppAssure+5+Technical+Documentation.


About SecurityThe security around protecting a machine is based on the Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) in Linux. Once a user is authenticated through libpam, the user is only authorized to protect the machine if the user is in one of the following groups: sudo, admin, appassure, or wheel. For information on protecting a machine, see the section, “Protecting a Machine” in the AppAssure 5 User Guide.

Firewall ConfigurationThe Linux Agent installation overwrites any firewall rules that were not applied through UFW, Yast2, or system-config-firewall. If you manually added firewall rules, then you must manually add AppAssure ports after the installation. A backup of existing rules will be written to:

/var/lib/appassure/backup.fwl

You need to add firewall exceptions to all servers running the AppAssure agent for TCP ports 8006 and 8009 for the AppAssure 5 Core to access agents.

Location of Linux Agent FilesLinux agent files will be located in the following directories for all distributions:

mono:

/opt/appassure/mono

agent:

/opt/appassure/aagent

aamount:

/opt/appassure/amount

aavdisk and aavdctl:

/usr/bin

configuration files for aavdisk:

/etc/appassure/aavdisk.conf

wrappers for aamount and agent:

/usr/bin/aamount

/usr/bin/aagent

autorun scripts for aavdisk and agent:

/etc/init.d/appassure-agent

/etc/init.d/appassure-vdisk


Agent Dependencies The following dependencies are required and are installed as part of the Agent installer package:

For Ubuntu:

The appassure-vss requires:

dkms, gcc, make, linux-headers-‘uname-r‘

The appassure-aavdisk requires:

libc6 (>=2.7-18), libblkid1, libpam0g, libpcre3

The appassure-mono requires:

libc6 (>=2.7-18)

For Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS:

The nbd-dkms requires

dkms, gcc, make, kernel-headers-‘uname-r‘ kernel-devel-‘uname-r‘


dkms, gcc, make, kernel-headers-‘uname-r‘ kernel-devel-‘uname-r‘


nbd-dkms, libblkid, pam, pcre


glibc >=2.11

For SUSE Linux Enterprise Server:

The nbd-dkms requires:

dkms, gcc, make, kernel-syms


dkms, kernel-syms, gcc, make


libblkid1, pam, pcre


glibc >= 2.11

Installing the Agent on UbuntuComplete the following steps to install the AppAssure 5 Agent on Ubuntu.

Before performing these steps, ensure that you have downloaded the Ubuntu specific installer package to the /home/system directory.


To install the AppAssure 5 Agent on Ubuntu:1. Open a terminal session with root access.

2. To make the AppAssure 5 Agent installer executable, type the following command:

chmod +x appassure-installer_ubuntu_amd64_5.x.x.xxxxx.sh

NOTE: For 32-bit environments, the installer is named “appassure-installer_ubuntu_i386_5.x.x.xxxxx.sh”.

3. Press <Enter>.

The file becomes executable.

4. To extract and install the AppAssure 5 Agent, type the following command:

./appassure-installer_ubuntu_amd64_5.x.x.xxxxx.sh

5. Press <Enter>.

The Linux Agent begins the extraction and installation process. Any missing packages or files required by the Agent will be downloaded and installed automatically as part of the script.

NOTE: For information on the files required by the Agent, see “Agent Dependencies” on page 43.

After the installer completes, the Agent will be running on your machine. For more information on protecting this machine with the Core, see the chapter “Protecting Workstations and Servers” in the AppAssure 5 User Guide.

Installing the Agent on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOSComplete the steps below to install the AppAssure 5 Agent on Red Hat Enterprise and CentOS.

To install an agent on Red Hat Enterprise and CentOS:1. Open a terminal session with root access.


chmod +x appassure-installer__rhel_amd64_5.x.x.xxxxx.sh

NOTE: For 32-bit environments, the installer is named “appassure-installer__rhel_i386_5.x.x.xxxxx.sh”.

3. Press <Enter>.


Before performing these steps, ensure that you have downloaded the Red Hat or CentOS installer package to the /home/system directory. The following steps apply to both 32-bit and 64-bit environments.



./appassure-installer_rhel_amd64_5.x.x.xxxxx.sh

5. Press <Enter>.


NOTE: For information on the files required by the Agent, see “Agent Dependencies” on page 43.


Installing the Agent on SUSE Linux Enterprise ServerComplete the steps below to install the AppAssure 5 Agent on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES).

To install an agent on SLES:1. Open a terminal session with root access.


chmod +x appassure-installer_sles_amd64_5.x.x.xxxxx.sh

NOTE: For 32-bit environments, the installer is named “appassure-installer__sles_i386_5.x.x.xxxxx.sh”.

3. Press <Enter>.



./appassure-installer_sles_amd64_5.x.x.xxxxx.sh

5. Press <Enter>.


For information on the files required by the Agent, see “Agent Dependencies” on page 43.

Before performing these steps, ensure that you have downloaded the Red Hat or CentOS installer package to the /home/system directory. The following steps apply to both 32-bit and 64-bit environments.


6. When prompted to install the new packages, type “y”, and then press <Enter>.

The system finishes the installation process.


Starting and Stopping the Linux Agent DaemonYou can manually start, stop, and view the status of the Agent and aavdisk in all supported distributions by using the default commands as described in the following tables, respectively.

Running Scripts on the Linux AgentAppAssure 5 provides the ability to run Bourne Shell scripts on the Linux Agent machine before and after a transfer.

Supported Scripts for the Linux AgentThe following scripts are supported for the Linux Agent. When using them, you should add them to the location, /opt/appassure/scripts.

PreTransferScript.sh

To start the... Use the following command...

agent service sudo /etc/init.d/appassure-agent start

aavdisk sudo /etc/init.d/appassure-vdisk start

To stop the... Use the following command...

agent service sudo /etc/init.d/appassure-agent stop

aavdisk sudo /etc/init.d/appassure-vdisk stop

To view the status of... Use the following command...

agent service sudo /etc/init.d/appassure-agent status

aavdisk sudo /etc/init.d/appassure-vdisk status

Note that if a script is not executable, the transfer job will fail.


PostTransferScript.sh

Supported Transfer and Post Transfer Script ParametersThe following parameters are supported on Linux for transfer scripts.

TransferPrescriptParameter_VolumeNames=$TransferPrescriptParameter_VolumeNames

TransferPrescriptParameter_ShadowCopyType=$TransferPrescriptParameter_ShadowCopyType

TransferPrescriptParameter_TransferConfiguration=$TransferPrescriptParameter_TransferConfiguration

TransferPrescriptParameter_StorageConfiguration=$TransferPrescriptParameter_StorageConfiguration

TransferPrescriptParameter_Key=$TransferPrescriptParameter_Key

TransferPrescriptParameter_ForceBaseImage=$TransferPrescriptParameter_ForceBaseImage

TransferPrescriptParameter_IsLogTruncation=$TransferPrescriptParameter_IsLogTruncation

TransferPrescriptParameter_LatestEpochSeenByCore=$TransferPrescriptParameter_LatestEpochSeenByCore

The following parameters are supported on Linux for post transfer scripts.

TransferPostscriptParameter_VolumeNames=$TransferPostscriptParameter_VolumeNames

TransferPostscriptParameter_ShadowCopyType=TransferPostscriptParameter_ShadowCopyType

TransferPostscriptParameter_TransferConfiguration=$TransferPostscriptParameter_TransferConfiguration

TransferPostscriptParameter_StorageConfiguration=$TransferPostscriptParameter_StorageConfiguration

TransferPostscriptParameter_Key=$TransferPostscriptParameter_Key

TransferPostscriptParameter_ForceBaseImage=$TransferPostscriptParameter_ForceBaseImage

TransferPostscriptParameter_IsLogTruncation=$TransferPostscriptParameter_IsLogTruncation

TransferPostscriptParameter_LatestEpochSeenByCore=$TransferPostscriptParameter_LatestEpochSeenByCore

For more information about scripting in AppAssure 5 as well as a complete list of supported scripts on the Core, refer to Appendix A: Scripting in the AppAssure 5 User Guide.


Installing the AppAssure 5 Central Management ConsoleThe AppAssure Central Management Console provides a central interface for configuring and managing multiple cores.

To install the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console1. Download the AppAssure 5 Central Console installer file from the AppAssure Web

site; for example:

Central Console-X64-5.X.X.xxxxx.exe

NOTE: The AppAssure 5 Central Management Console requires a 64-bit Windows platform, as 32-bit system configurations are not supported platforms.

2. Click Run or Save.

If you click Save, select the location in which to save the file.

The file will download to your system. Navigate to the location where you saved the installer file, and then double-click the file. You must run the installer with local administrator privileges.

If you click Run, the installer will start automatically.

NOTE: The installer checks that the .NET Framework 4.0 is installed on your system. If it is missing, the installer will prompt you to download and install the framework.

The AppAssure 5 Central Console Installation wizard appears.

3. On the Welcome page, click Next to continue with the installation.

The License Agreement page appears.

4. Click I accept the terms in the license agreement, and then click Next.

The Installation Options page appears.

5. Verify the path and destination folder for the installation and then click Next.

If you want to designate a different path, click Change, select the new location, and then click OK.



6. Click Finish.

You will only need to install the AppAssure 5 Central Console if your environment will contain more than one core.

Also, note that the Windows 8, 8.1 and Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2 operating systems must have the ASP.NET 4.5 role installed on the server for proper loading of the GUI. This configuration is included for you as part of the AppAssure installer.


Configuring the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console

Complete the steps in this procedure to set up and configure the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console. Once you complete the configuration, you can manage settings and all cores from one central location.

To configure the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console1. Log on to the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console.

The Welcome page appears. On the Welcome page, you can identify the Core groups that you will manage in the console.

Figure 7. AppAssure 5 Central Management Console - Welcome tab

Adding a Core GroupComplete the steps in the following procedure to add a core group to the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console.

To add a core group1. From the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console, click Switch to Manage and

then click Add Group.

The Add Group page appears.


2. Select the parent group and the display name as described in the following table.

3. Click Save.

Configuring Core Group SettingsComplete the steps in the following procedure to configure core group settings.

To configure core group settings1. From the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console, click Switch to Manage and

then select the Core group.

The Settings page appears.

2. In the Settings tab, modify the information for the Core group as described in the following table.

3. Click Save.

Configuring Core Group AccessComplete the steps in the following procedure to configure core group access.

To configure core group access1. From the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console, click Switch to Manage and



2. Click the Access tab.

3. Click Add.

The Allow Access page appears.


Parent Group Select the parent group of the Cores for the new Core group you want to add.

Display Name Enter a name for the Core group.


Parent Group Select the parent group of the Cores for the new Core group settings you want to add.

Display Name Enter a name for the Core group.


4. In the Name text box, enter the name of the individual to whom you want to assign access privileges.

5. Click Check Name to verify the validity of the name you entered.

If the name entered is valid, a message to indicate that the account is verified will display.

NOTE: You can validate individuals and groups.

6. Click Is Group to specify that the group name was previously entered in the Name text box.

7. Click Save.

The Core group information will display in the Access tab.

Adding a Core to a Core GroupComplete the steps in the following procedure to add a core to a core group.

To add a core to a core group1. From the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console, click Switch to Manage and

then Add Core.

The Add Core page appears.

2. Enter the credentials for the Core parent group as described in the following table.

3. Click Test connection to test the configuration.

If the test is successful, a message will display to indicate that the connection was successful.

4. Click Save.


Parent Group Select the parent group of the Cores for the new Core you want to add.

Display Name Enter a name for the Core.

Host Name Enter the IP address for accessing the Core.

Port Enter a port number for the connection. The default value is 8006.

User Name Enter a user name to access the Core service for the newly added Core.

NOTE: This is a required text box.

Password Enter a password to access the Core service for the newly added Core.

NOTE: This is a required text box.


Configuring Core SettingsComplete the steps in the following procedure to configure core settings.

To configure core settings1. From the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console, click Switch to Manage and



2. In the Settings tab, modify the core information as described in the following table.

3. Click Test Connection.

If the test is successful, a message will display to indicate that the connection was successful.

4. Click Save.

Uninstalling Agents on a Windows MachineComplete the steps described in this topic to uninstall an AppAssure 5 Agent instance on a Windows machine.


Parent Group Select the parent group of the Cores for the new Core settings you want to add.

Display Name Enter a display name for the Core.

User Name Enter the user name for the Core

Password Enter the password for the Core.

How should the management portal connect to [core name]?

Select the option that specifies the connection. You can choose to:

Use [core name’s] last known IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx), or

Use the hostname or IP address.

If you choose to specify the connection through the use of a host name or IP address, you must enter the appropriate information.

On what port is [core name] listening?

Select either of the port options. You can choose:

Default Port (8006), or

Custom Port

If you choose to specify the port, enter the port number in the Custom Port text box.


Before You BeginBefore you begin uninstalling an agent from a Windows machine, stop the agent services. From the Administrative Tools in Windows, select Services. Select the AppAssure Core Service, and then click Stop.

Uninstall ing an AgentComplete the steps below to uninstall an agent from a Windows machine.

To uninstall an agent from a Windows machine1. On the computer from which you want to uninstall the AppAssure 5 Agent

instance, open the Control Panel, click Programs, and then click Uninstall a Program.

2. In the Programs and Features window, double-click the installed AppAssure 5 Agent instance; for example:


The AppAssure 5 Agent installation wizard will appear to display the Repair/Remove page.

3. Click Remove, and then click Next.

The Modify Settings page appears.

4. Click Uninstall configuration settings and data including all backup images and change logs and then Next.

The Progress page appears. You can view the progress of the uninstall on the Progress page.

When the uninstall is complete, the Completed page appears.

5. Click Finish.

Uninstalling Agents on a Linux MachineComplete the steps described in this section to uninstall the AppAssure 5 Agent from a Linux machine.

The uninstall instructions differ depending on the Linux distribution you are using. For more information on uninstalling a Linux agent, see the following topics:

“Uninstalling an Agent on Ubuntu” on page 54

“Uninstalling the Agent on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS” on page 54

“Uninstalling the Agent on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server” on page 55


Uninstalling an Agent on UbuntuComplete the steps below to uninstall the AppAssure 5 Agent on Ubuntu.

To uninstall an agent on Ubuntu:1. Open a terminal session with root access.

2. Change to the directory that includes the AppAssure installation script, for example:

/home/appassure/.

3. Enter the following command:

./appassure-installer_ubuntu_amd64_5.x.x.xxxxx.sh -u

The system removes the AppAssure Agent’s files and directories.

After completing this process, the Agent is removed from the system and will no longer be able to be protected by the Core.

Uninstalling the Agent on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOSComplete the steps below to uninstall the AppAssure 5 Agent on Red Hat Enterprise and CentOS.

To uninstall an agent on Red Hat Enterprise and CentOS:1. Open a terminal session with root access.

2. Change to the directory that includes the AppAssure installation script, for example, /home/appassure/.

The following steps apply to both 32-bit and 64-bit environments.


To find the specific release and build number for your AppAssure Agent files, run the “rpm -qa |grep appassure” command in your terminal session. For 32-bit RHEL and CentOS systems, the file extension in the steps below will change from “x86_64” to “i386”.



./appassure-installer_rhel_amd64_5.x.x.xxxxx.sh -u

After completing this process, the Agent is removed from the system and will no longer be protected by the Core.

Uninstalling the Agent on SUSE Linux Enterprise ServerComplete the steps below to uninstall the AppAssure 5 Agent on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES).

To uninstall an agent on SLES:1. Open a terminal session with root access.

2. Change to the directory that includes the AppAssure installation script, for example, /home/appassure/.


./appassure-installer_sles_amd64_5.x.x.xxxxx.sh -u

After completing this process, the Agent is removed from the system and will no longer be protected by the Core.

Uninstalling the AppAssure 5 CoreComplete the steps in this procedure to uninstall the AppAssure 5 Core.

To uninstall the AppAssure 5 Core 1. On the server where you want to uninstall the AppAssure 5 Core, open the

Control Panel, click Programs, and then click Uninstall a Program.

2. In the Programs and Features window, double-click the installed AppAssure 5 Core instance; for example:

Core-X64-5.x.x.xxxxx.exe

The AppAssure 5 Core installation wizard will appear to display the Repair/Remove page.





4. To remove your repository, as well as all recovery points and change logs, click Uninstall configuration settings and data including all backup images and change logs, and then click Next.


When the uninstall is complete, the Completed page box appears.

5. Click Finish.

Uninstalling the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console

Complete the steps in this procedure to uninstall the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console.

To uninstall the AppAssure 5 Central Management Console1. On the server where you want to uninstall the AppAssure 5 Central Management

Console, open the Control Panel, click Programs, and then click Uninstall a Program.

2. In the Programs and Features window, double-click the installed AppAssure 5 Central Management Console instance; for example:

Central Console-X64-5.x.x.xxxxx.exe

The AppAssure 5 Central Management Console installation wizard will appear to display the Repair/Remove page.



4. Click Uninstall configuration settings and data including all backup images and change logs and then Next.


When the uninstall is complete, the Completed page appears.

5. Click Finish.

If you select this option, you will delete all data in the repository, including the repository folder and all subfolders. This option is appropriate for typical installations where the repository is installed on an otherwise empty volume. If you have other data on the directory where your repository is located, do not select this option.

Index | 1

Symbols.NET Framework - 33, - 39, - 48

Aagents

about security on Linux machines - 42before installing on Linux machines - 41dependencies for Linux machines - 43downloading the Linux installer - 41firewall configuration for Linux machines - 42installing - 38installing on Linux machines - 41installing on Windows Server 2012 Core - 40location of Linux agent files - 42running scripts on Linux machines - 46uninstalling Linux - 53uninstalling Windows - 52

AppAssure 5core technologies - 8deployment architecture - 11installation components - 25installation requirements, other - 31installing - 27license portal - 22overview of - 7product features - 16roadmap for installation - 26What’s New - 5

AppAssure 5 Agentinstallation requirements - 30wizard, uninstall - 53

AppAssure 5 Central Consolewizard, installation - 48

AppAssure 5 Central Management Consolecore group access, configuring - 50core group settings, configuring - 50core group, adding - 49core settings, configuring - 52core, adding - 51installation requirements - 30installing - 48set up - 49

AppAssure 5 Coreinstallation requirements - 28installing - 32uninstalling - 55, - 56

wizard, uninstall - 55, - 56AppAssure 5 Core Setup Wizard

using - 34average bytes per record - 36

Bbasic volumes - 28bytes per sector - 36

CCentOS

installing agent - 44uninstalling - 54

cloudabout - 22

core installation optionsselecting - 33

core technologiesAppAssure Live Recovery - 8AppAssure Recovery Assure - 9AppAssure True Deduplication - 9, - 17AppAssure True Scale™ Architecture - 9AppAssure Universal Recovery - 9

Ddata path - 35deployment architecture

AppAssure 5 Core - 14recovery - 15replication, disaster recovery site - 15replication, service provider - 15snapshot process - 14

deployment architecture, AppAssure 5 Smart Agent - 13

dynamic volumes - 28

Eencryption keys

creating - 37

Ffile size

specifying - 36

Index

2 | Index

Iinstallation

about the AppAssure 5 components - 25AppAssure Agent, requirement - 31requirements - 27roadmap for installing - 26

installation optionsselecting - 40

installation, dynamic and basic volumes support - 28

installation, UEFI and ReFS support - 28installing agents on Linux machines - 41

about security - 42agent dependencies - 43before you begin - 41downloading the installer - 41firewall configuration - 42location of Linux agent files - 42

Llibpam - 42license agreement

accepting - 33, - 39, - 48Linux

about security for agents - 42agent files, locating - 42agent, dependencies - 43before installing agents - 41downloading the agent installer - 41firewall configuration for installing agents - 42installing agents - 41installing the agent on Red Hat Enterprise and

CentOS - 44installing the agent on SUSE Linux Enterprise

Server - 45installing the agent on Ubuntu - 43starting and stopping the Linux agent daemon -

46supported scripts for pre and post transfer and

export - 46Linux Agent Daemon

starting - 46starting and stopping - 46

Mmetadata path - 35

PPluggable Authentication Module (PAM) - 42prerequisites

installing - 39product features

alerts and event management - 22archiving - 20encryption - 18license portal - 22Recovery-as-a-Service (RaaS) - 20replication - 19repository - 16retention - 20service management APIs - 23Web console - 22white labeling - 23

RRecovery-as-a-Service (RaaS)

about - 20Red Hat Enterprise

installing agent - 44Red Hat Enterprise Linux

uninstalling - 54ReFS - 28

Sscripts

pre and post transfer and export for Linux agent - 46

storage locationadding - 34

SUSE Linux Enterprise Serverinstalling agent - 45uninstalling - 55

System - 31

UUbuntu

installing agent - 43uninstalling - 54

UEFI - 28UNC path - 35

Vvirtualization

about - 22

Wwhite labeling

about - 23Windows Server 2012 Core

installing agents - 40wizard

agent installation, using - 38write caching policy - 36

Index | 3

4 | Index

AppAssure 5 Deployment Guide - Questsupport-public.cfm.quest.com/579c38bd-b1f3-4afc-a20f-b4bf23c68648… · What’s New in AppAssure 5 | 5 This chapter lists new and changed features

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