Scheduling backups

Scheduled backups ensure that files are backed up regularly without fail and frees up manual resources to focus on other operational tasks.

When you schedule a backup, you automate the backup to occur at a pre-set date, time and location. The backup is initiated at the set time without any manual interfacing.

To schedule a backup:

- In the shortcuts section of the Home page
  , click Backup/Restore (Tools section).

- In the Backup/Restore submenu, click Scheduled Backup. The Scheduled Backup window opens.

- Click New. The Backup form opens. Follow the wizard to schedule a backup.

go to wizard Step1 Step2 Step3 Step4

You need to choose the type of backup (Appliance, Reseller, Site), enter the backup schedule information, provide necessary FTP account details, and other miscellaneous information.

wizard Step1: Choose the type of backup

1. Choose the type of backup, by selecting one of the following option buttons in the Backup area.

1. Appliance - Backs up the complete appliance

2. Resellers (if available) - Backs up all the reseller accounts on the appliance

Click the arrow in the Resellers list, and choose only one of the following.

- All - Backs up all the reseller accounts on the appliance

- <name of the reseller> - To back up a particular reseller. Press Ctrl and the left mouse button to select multiple resellers.

- Note: An "All" reseller backup is not the same as an appliance backup, as the appliance configuration information is not backed up in a reseller backup.

3. Sites - Backs up all the sites hosted on the appliance

Click the arrow in the Sites list, and choose only one of the following.

- All - To back up all the sites hosted on the appliance

- <name of the site> - To back up a particular site.
  Press Ctrl and the left mouse button to select multiple sites.

wizard Step2: Enter backup Schedule information

2. Schedule your backup.

3. Important: Premium sites, demanding applications, volatile data entities may qualify for daily scheduled backups.

Select any one of the options in the Frequency field.

- Daily - Backs up files daily at the scheduled time

- Weekly - Backs up files weekly at the scheduled time

- Monthly - Backs up files monthly at the scheduled time

3. Click the arrow in the Minutes list, and select a number between 0 and 59.

4. Click the arrow in the Hours list, and select a number between 0 and 23.

5. Click the arrow in the Day of Week list, and select a day between Sunday and Saturday.

6. Click the arrow in the Day of Month list, and select a number between 1 and 31.

7. Important: Selecting a value that is not common to all months in the Day of Month field will fail to run the backup as scheduled on certain months.
   For example, if you select 31, no backup will be initiated on months that contain only 30 or 28 days.

wizard Step3: Enter FTP information

7. In the FTP Server field, enter the name of the FTP server you want to use as the backup server.

8. In the FTP Login field, enter the user name of your account on the FTP server.

9. In the FTP Password field, enter the password of your account on the FTP server.

10. In the FTP Location field, enter the complete directory path of the backup directory on the FTP server. If you leave the field blank, the data will be saved to the home directory of the user specified in Step 8.

- Important: If the specified directory does not exist, the backup fails and an email message containing the error message is sent to you.

wizard Step4: Enter miscellaneous information

11. Optional: In the Maximum Backup File Size field, enter the maximum file size of the backup, and click the arrow in the Unit field to select the appropriate data quantifying unit (Megabytes or Gigabytes).

12. Important: Various file systems and FTP server utilities have limits on the file size they can handle. If the size of your backup file exceeds the file management threshold of the file system or the FTP server utility on your backup server, the files are split into multiple files before continuing with the backup.
    The split files follow the naming convention as given below:
    <backupfilename.tar.gz>
    <backupfilename.1.tar.gz>
    <backupfilename.2.tar.gz>
    where backupfilename is the name of your backup file.

12. In the Email field, enter the email address at which you want to receive email notifications about your backups.

13. Click Schedule.

The list of scheduled backups is updated.