Data Back up and Restore

Desktop Central stores information like configuration details, status of deployed configurations, and details about reports, like User Logon reports and Active Directory reports, in a database. Creating a back up of this database and certain important files like configuration files is necessary to prevent loss of data.

You can back up data automatically, by scheduling a back up using Desktop Central, or taking a back up manually. You can also restore this data when required. For example, assume that your hard disk crashes and you have to re-install Desktop Central. You can use the last back up you took to restore all the required information. Note that this is possible only if the back up file is stored in a computer other than yours.

Best practices for Back up and restore

These are the few best practices recommended for Back Up and Restore option.

1. Make sure that you add the exclusion list for Anti Virus. When directories containing the  MySQL data are scanned by anti virus software, they misidentify the files content as spam and does not allow to back up that data. Refer the following links which will guide you, how to exclude the Anti Virus.
   McAffe :  https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB50998    
   Symantec : http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH99955
   Kaspersky : http://support.kaspersky.com/us/faq/?qid=208284276  
2. It is always recommended to Schedule the  back up during non-office hours.
3. Make sure that you have a minimum of  5GB space to store the back up data.
4. Make sure that you specify a Valid destination folder.
5. Make sure that the remote database if configured, should be running during back up.

Scheduling Data Back up

You can use Desktop Central to take a back up of the database regularly. For example, if you want to take a back up of the database every Friday at 5 p.m., you can schedule the same using Desktop Central.

To schedule back up of data, follow the steps given below:

1. Select the Admin tab

2. In the Tools section, click Database Back up

3. Specify the time at which you want the back up to be taken, in hour:minute:second (hh:mm:ss) format

4. Select the number of back up files that you want Desktop Central to save

5. Specify the location where you want the backup files to be stored

6. Check the Notify when the database back up fails checkbox

7. Specify the email address (es) to which you want an e-mail message sent, if the database back up fails

6. Click Save Changes

You have scheduled an automatic data backup to take place automatically at a specified time.

Manual Data Back up and Restore

You can manually back up and restore the database. You can do this using the Backup-Restore Utility GUI.

Opening the Back up-Restore Utility Graphical User Interface (GUI)

To open the Back up-Restore Utility GUI, follow the steps given below:

1. Right-click start>Explore>Local Disk (C:)>Program Files>DesktopCentral_Server>bin

2. Double-click back up restore.bat

You've opened the Back up-Restore Utility GUI.

Creating a back up file

1. On the Backup-Restore Utility GUI, click the Back up tab

2. Select the location where you want to save the back up file

3. Click Backup

A backup file is created and saved in the specified location. The file will be named using the buildnumber-date-time.zip format. For example, 70120-Oct-25-2010-13-26.zip where 70120 is the build number, Oct 25th 2010 is the date and 13:26 is the time.

Restoring a back up file

1. On the Backup-Restore Utility GUI, click the Restore tab

2. Browse and select the required back up file.

3. Click Restore

This will restore the specified data to Desktop Central server.