Physical Machine Backup

NAKIVO Backup & Replication offers capabilities for data protection of physical infrastructures with strict data protection requirements. By using the product, you can seamlessly perform physical machine backups ensuring the consistency of applications and databases. 

• Physical Machine Backup Feature
• How It Works

Physical Machine Backup Feature

NAKIVO Backup & Replication performs incremental backup jobs using a proprietary change tracking method which allows you to save time and storage resources as it transfers only changed blocks of data to the backup repository. To protect your backups, the product utilizes AES 256-bit encryption to transform data into an unreadable ciphertext to prevent unauthorized access to it. To improve backup performance, you can enable network acceleration to speed up data transfer over LAN and WAN networks. The product also allows you to recover files and application objects as well as to recover a physical machine to VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines. This way, you can easily perform the migration of physical workloads to virtual environments. 

How it Works

To ensure your physical machines are successfully backed up and recovered, you need to add a new physical machine to the product inventory first. Support for physical machines is done via the Physical Machine Agent (PMA) deployed in the physical machine OS. Communication between the Director and PMA is secured by means of a Certificate and Pre-shared Key generated by the Director and then injected into the PMA. During a physical machine discovery, NAKIVO Backup & Replication checks to see if the PMA is already installed on the physical machine. If the PMA is detected, the product adds the physical machine to the inventory. If the PMA is outdated, it is automatically updated. If the PMA or a Transporter is not detected, the product:

1. Auto-generates a Self-signed Certificate.

2. Auto-generates a Pre-shared Key.

3. Installs the PMA and injects a Self-signed Certificate as well as a Pre-shared Key into the PMA.

Notes

• The installation path is the same as the one used for the Transporter on the corresponding OS.

• The communication ports are the same as those used for the Transporter on the corresponding OS.

Creating a physical machine backup job is a five-step process:

1. Identify a physical machine that you need to backup.

2. Choose a backup repository for storing backups. 

3. Set the backup job schedule.

4. Specify your retention policy.

5. Configure the backup job options. 

   Notes

   • Agent-based physical machine backup can be used to back up virtual machines.

   • For the list of supported hypervisors, refer to Feature Requirements.

Once the physical machine backup job has started, NAKIVO Backup & Replication captures the necessary data blocks from the physical machine and sends them to the selected backup repository for storage. The backed up data then can be accessed and recovered whenever needed.