Activities

Active Backup for Business provides administrators with a comprehensive set of tools to manage events effectively. On the Activities tab, administrators can review activity logs, activity details, and customizable daily, weekly, monthly, and annual reports.

To access logs, do any of the following:

• Go to the Activities tab.
• On the Overview tab, click on a specific day on the calendar.
• On the Overview tab, click the go to icon.

Note:

• Ongoing events are only displayed on the Ongoing Activities section of the Overview tab and the task monitor.
• The search bar only supports searching by task name or device name.

Log

This tab contains a list of all events that have occurred on the backup server.

The log list displays the following details:

• Type:
  Logs are categorized into the following three types:
  • Information: When a task has been carried out properly and successfully.
  • Warning: When a task was only partially successful or canceled. This sometimes happens for file server and virtual machine backups.
  • Error: When the task has failed. Common errors include damaged source disks or insufficient space on your NAS.

  Note:

  • For troubleshooting and additional information, click on the details icon.
• Time:
  The time when a task is completed, failed, or canceled.
• Event:
  A brief description is provided for each event. For more detailed information about a task, click on the task name.

To view a task's log history:

To view a task's log history, including the backup duration and transferred size, click on the details icon located on the right side of the log.

To set retention rules for logs:

1. Click on Settings.
2. By default, logs are permanently stored if no retention options are selected. Select and configure the following options to set up retention rules for logs:
   • Number of logs exceeds: Logs will be deleted when the number of logs on the server exceeds the specified quantity.
   • Log is older than: Logs will be deleted when they are outdated.
3. Click OK to apply your retention rules.

To export all logs:

Click Export to export logs in a .csv file.

To delete all logs:

1. Click on Settings.
2. Click Delete all logs, and confirm the action if you do not need to keep any logs on the server.

To send logs to a log server:

You can send Active Backup for Business logs to a syslog server.

1. Click Settings.
2. Under the Log Forwarding tab, tick the Send logs to a syslog server checkbox.
3. Enter the syslog server's information:
   • Server: Enter the syslog server's hostname or IP address.
   • Port: Enter the port number on the syslog server that you will use to receive syslog messages.
   • Transfer protocol: Make sure to select the same transfer protocol as the syslog server.
     • UDP: UDP (User Datagram Protocol) is a simplified message-based connection protocol that is faster than other protocols. However, it offers less security and lacks error correction.
     • TCP: TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) uses flow control to ensure that all packets are successfully sent before new ones are processed. If you select TCP, you can enable Secure log transfer with SSL and import a trusted certificate.
   • Log messages format: Select the format of the logs.
4. Click Send Test Log to send a test log to the syslog server.

Task History

In the Task History tab, you can view additional information about each completed task and export the task logs.

To view detail information of a completed task:

1. Click on the task and then click Information, or simply double-click on the task you want to view.
2. In the Detailed Information window, you can view the following details:
   • Duration: The amount of time taken to perform the task.
   • Transferred size: The size of the transferred data.
   • Log list: All the events that occurred during the task. You can hover your mouse over the log to view the complete entry.

   In file server and virtual machine backup tasks, there will be an additional indicator that displays the number of files processed successfully, partially, or unsuccessfully.

To export task history logs:

Click Export to export logs in a .csv file.

To check the speed and utilization rates:

The log list also includes information such as backup speed and utilization rates.

1. To view details on backup speed and utilization rates, refer to the final log entry recorded before the backup completed.
2. To view the complete log entry, hover your mouse over the log.
   • Average backup speed: Calculated based on transferred size per second.
   • Utilization rates:
     • Snapshot operation: The percentage of time required to take snapshots.
     • Source disk read: The percentage of time required to read the source disk.
     • Source data transfer: The percentage of time required to transfer data.
     • Data deduplication: The percentage of time required for data deduplication.
     • Write to file: The percentage of time required for writing files.

Report

Active Backup for Business offers a detailed and customizable report for IT admins to monitor backup performance. Reports can be generated daily, weekly, monthly, or annually upon request or according to a configurable schedule in the Reports tab.

All generated reports are listed in the Report tab. You can always click Open report at the end of each generated report entry to view the report.

To generate a report instantly:

1. Click Generate Report.
2. Select a report type: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Annual.
   • Daily: Data recorded in the past 23 hours. For example, if the report is generated on July 22nd at 16:30, it will show the data collected since July 21st at 17:00.
   • Weekly: Data recorded in the past 7 days. For example, if the weekly report is generated on July 22nd at 16:30, it will show the data collected since July 16th at 00:00.
   • Monthly: Data recorded in the past 31 days. For example, if the monthly report is generated on July 22nd at 16:30, it will show the data collected since June 22nd at 00:00.
   • Annual: Data recorded in the past 12 months. For example, if the annual report is generated on July 22nd, 2018 at 16:30, it will show the data collected since August 1st, 2017 at 00:00.
3. To send the report via email, enter one or more email addresses in the text box, separating multiple emails with commas.

To generate a report by a schedule:

1. Click Schedule.
2. Tick the Generate reports according to customized schedule checkbox.
3. Set up a schedule for generating reports.
4. To send the report via email, enter one or more email addresses in the text box, separating multiple emails with commas.

Report Overview

• Error Task Warning: The report will display all errors that occurred during the selected interval.
• Storage: The storage usage during different time intervals can be easily monitored here.
  • Volume information: The storage information of the volume where Active Backup for Business is installed.
  • Total backup size: This number refers to the original size of the backup data from the source side before changed block tracking, compression, or deduplication were applied. For example, if you back up 1 TB of data to your NAS daily, the total backup size for the week would be 7 TB. However, this figure does not reflect the total size stored on your NAS.
  • Increment: This number refers to the size of the deduplicated data for PC, Physical Server, and VM backups. You can hover over each bar to display detailed information about the increment on the top left of the chart.
  • Free space remaining on (date): This information is directly retrieved from the DSM and represents the actual storage capacity that remains.
  • Estimated date that space runs out: The estimated date of storage depletion will vary depending on the report type (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly).
  • Legend on the chart: Different colors represent different devices. For instance, navy blue on the chart indicates data changes (increments).