Backup

You need to configure backup tasks to define the details of virtual machine backups. A single backup task can include one or more virtual machines. After you configure a task, you can start the backup right away or just have it run automatically according to the schedule.

Before You Start

Make sure of the following before adding a hypervisor or virtual machine to Active Backup for Business:

There is at least 8 GB of free space both on the backup destination and on the volume where the package is installed.
If you are backing up Hyper-V virtual machines, their system volumes should have at least 512 MB of free space. This is because Active Backup for Business will install a data mover for backup tasks.

To add a hypervisor:

Click Manage Hypervisor > Add.
Choose one of the hypervisor types: SCVMM, failover cluster, or standalone hypervisor.
Fill in the server address and account information.

Note:

If you are backing up SCVMM and its virtual machines, the credentials you use to sign in to SCVMM can be used to sign in to all the hypervisors managed via SCVMM.
Only the backup of failover clusters and Hyper-V hosts under SCVMM is supported. If you have vSphere hypervisors under your SCVMM, add them as hypervisors directly.
If your NAS cannot be accessed by the Hyper-V server directly, for example, a NAT router hides the NAS from the Hyper-V server, you can click Connection from Hyper-V to Synology NAS to configure network settings.
Adding hypervisors with their IPv6 addresses is not supported.

Apart from adding Microsoft Hyper-V, you can also edit or delete the Hyper-V servers by Manage Hypervisor:

Edit: Select the existing servers and change the account names and passwords.
Delete: Delete the servers that are not needed. If there are protected virtual machines in current backup tasks, you need to delete those tasks in order to delete the servers.

Launch the Backup Wizard

Go to Active Backup for Business > Virtual Machine > Microsoft Hyper-V and single select a virtual machine or press Shift or Ctrl and left click to select multiple virtual machines that you want to back up. Click Create Task to launch the backup wizard.
Go to Active Backup for Business > Virtual Machine > Microsoft Hyper-V, and click Create Task to launch the backup wizard.
Go to Active Backup for Business > Virtual Machine > Task List, and click Create > Hyper-V task to launch the backup wizard.

Backup Wizard

Specify task name and select virtual machines to back up

In the backup wizard, specify the task name and select the virtual machines you want to back up. Then, select a shared folder as the backup destination.

You can switch between views by changing the view mode. Keep in mind that switching between views will clear Auto Discovery settings. You need to decide the scope of Auto Discovery again after the switch.

To configure Auto Discovery:

Auto Discovery can automatically add new virtual machines to the backup task. If you add new virtual machines to a host, folder, or datacenter in the future, they will be included in backups afterwards.

Click Configure Auto Discovery.
Select the folders, hosts, or datacenters where you want to enable Auto Discovery.
Click OK to finish.

Configure backup destination settings

Select a shared folder to be the backup destination. You can check if destination compression and encryption functions are enabled for the shared folder. The free space of each shared folder is also shown here.
If you select a shared folder that has not been used as the backup destination, you can choose whether to enable data compression and encryption at the destination. The settings cannot be changed later. If you want different compression and encryption settings in the future, you need to select or create another shared folder.
- Compression at backup destination: Backup data stored in this shared folder will be compressed. This helps save storage space at the backup destination.
- Encryption at backup destination: Backup data stored in this shared folder will be encrypted. This enhances data security at the backup destination.

Note:

When compression or encryption at backup destination is enabled, you cannot perform Instant Restore to Microsoft Hyper-V or Virtual Machine Manager or Backup Verification on models with certain package arches: Avoton, Braswell, Bromolow, Cedarview, and Grantley. To find out which package arch your Synology NAS uses, check this article.
When compression or encryption at backup destination is enabled, snapshot and replication will not be available if you perform an instant restore in Virtual Machine Manager.

Specify task settings

Maximum quantity of concurrent backup device(s): Configure the number of concurrent backed up devices. The maximum number of backed up virtual machines varies depending on RAM capacity.
Enable Changed Block Tracking: Only transfers the blocks that have changed since the last backup and significantly reduce the transferred data size.
Enable application-aware backup: Performs an application-aware backup to ensure application data is consistent. Please note that this feature leverages Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to ensure the consistency of the backed up data for Linux and Windows virtual machines. Therefore, to enable this option, the Windows virtual machine supporting VSS is required.
Enable data transfer compression: Compresses data during transmission to reduce transferred data size.
Enable data transfer encryption: Encrypts data during transmission to enhance data security.
Enable Microsoft Hyper-V datastore usage detection: Since taking snapshots may require additional space on the host datastore, insufficient space on the datastore may cause the suspension of virtual machine and data loss. By enabling this feature, the backup task will fail when the host datastore is lower than the certain percentage you have set.
Enable backup verification: To enhance backup reliability, Synology Active Backup for Business integrates with Synology Virtual Machine Manager to verify the backups. After the device is backed up, the system will boot up the backed up device on Synology Virtual Machine Manager and take a video of the process at the same time. A preview of the video along with a notification email will be sent for you to ensure the backup device can be booted up properly.
- Take live video for … sec.: Specify the duration of the video according to your needs. The video will be played at 3x speed.
Advanced settings: Set up the script and information for individual virtual machines.
- Select the virtual machines which you wish to specify the script or credential settings for.
- Click Script to browse the script executed in the guest OS and specify the script processing mode.
  - Required successful processing: Virtual machine backup process will stop if the script failed to be executed.
  - Ignore script execution failure and continue the VM backup: Virtual machine backup process will continue even if the script failed to be executed.
- Click VM Information to specify the information for individual virtual machine. You may configure the credential, operating system, and IP address.

Note:

Active Backup for Business 2.2.0 and above versions support concurrently backing up 10 file servers. For personal computers, physical servers, and virtual machines, the maximum number for concurrent backups can be up to 50. The actual number varies by RAM capacity:
- Less than 8 GB: 10
- Between 8 GB and 31 GB: 30
- 32 GB and more: 50
By setting up the script and enabling the virtual machine script execution, the credential and the IP address of the virtual machine are required. An error message will display if the information is missing. The IP address will be automatically filled in if the integration service is installed.
To ensure backup verification can be performed properly, please check the followings:
- Synology Virtual Machine Manager 2.3 or above version is installed.
- At least 3 GB memory on your Synology NAS is required for Synology Virtual Machine Manager to boot up the backed up device. Please refer to this article for more information.
- The cluster of Synology Virtual Machine Manager and Active Backup for Business backup destination are on the same volume.
- Your Synology NAS needs to be connected to the Internet to activate h.264 video codec if codec has never been activated on your Synology NAS before.

Check for necessary services on virtual machines

The system needs to check if the necessary services on the virtual machines are configured correctly. This makes sure that backups can be performed successfully in the future. You can also enable the required services before you start creating a backup task.

Define backup schedule

Manual backup: A backup task will only be performed when Backup is clicked manually. No scheduled backup will be performed.
Scheduled backup: Define the desired backup schedule to daily or only on specific days. The task can run once a day or once an hour according to the settings. The backup task will be started when it is the set point of time on the defined days. For example, when the schedule is set as Run on: Wednesday and Saturday, Repeat type: Hourly, and Start at: 03:00, the task will start from 03:00 on Wednesday and Saturday each week and repeat running every hour until the end of these two days.
Only run backup tasks within the allowed backup windows: Click Configure Backup Window to specify the time when the backup task is allowed or forbidden to be run in order to maintain the operational efficiency of the backup source device. Only the restore points scheduled by time will be displayed on the time slot since the restore points of manual backup are not predictable.

Configure backup retention

Setting a retention policy helps you manage your storage space more efficiently by keeping the versions you want. There are three options of retention policies to choose from:

Number of latest versions to keep: Specify the number of the latest versions to retain.
Keep all versions for: Retain all versions backed up within certain days.
Advanced retention policy: Versions can be kept for longer periods but your storage space can be saved at the same time. Click Set Rules to edit the retention rules.
- You can set multiple rules and customize the retention policy according to your needs.
  - Specify the days on which all versions backed up will be saved.
  - Advanced retention policy also allows you to keep the latest versions of a different time frame for certain periods. You can choose how long the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly versions will be retained in the system. For example, Keep the latest version of the week for 7 weeks means that the system will retain the last version during a week for seven weeks after it is backed up.
  - You will also need to set the Number of the latest versions to keep. If there are fewer versions than the specified number, the retention policy will not take effect. This is a required field.
- Advanced retention policy employs the GFS, or Grandfather-Father-Son retention mechanism.
- A version can meet more than one retention rule at a time. For example, a version can be retained by the weekly retention rule and daily retention rule at the same time.

Example:

It's October now and you have a backup schedule that backs up once every day. If you are planning for a retention policy that covers the past nine months and want to keep

Daily versions for the first 3 months (September, August, and July)
Weekly versions for the 4th to 6th months (June, May, and April)
Monthly versions for the 7th to 9th months (March, February, and January)
10 latest versions

you may refer to the following settings:

A version can meet more than one retention rule. Therefore, the first weekly version can also be the seventh daily version, and the first monthly version can also be the fourth weekly version.

Setting the Number of latest versions to keep prevents the retention policy from deleting all versions when the system stops backing up your device, and the 10 latest versions will be the daily versions backed up in the past 10 days.

Specify user privileges

Check the user/group whom you want to grant the privilege for performing Guest Files (Windows / Linux) Restore for the task and browsing the backup versions of the task. To ensure that only eligible users can have access to restore backed-up files and versions of the backup task, privilege settings can be configured during or after the creation of the backup task.

Note:

Only package managers and operators with the restore privilege are allowed to perform Instant Restore and Full Virtual Machine Restore for virtual machine backup tasks. Other users who are enabled in this step can only perform Guest Files (Windows / Linux) Restore from Active Backup for Business Portal.
Package managers are eligible to restore the backup task by default.

Finish up wizard

At the Summary step of the wizard, complete the task configuration procedure.

Review details of the backup task. Click Done to close the wizard.
You will be asked if you want to back up the virtual machines right after you finish the configuration. If you do not want to start a backup immediately, the task will run according to the schedule your set.

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