Backup and restore types
Throughout this documentation, you may find references to several backup and recovery types. In this section, we'll discuss quickly their meaning.
Full backup
As the name suggests, full backups involve creating a complete copy of all selected data. They are the simplest and most common form of data backup strategy. Full backups are always independent, so there is no need to merge backup chains during recovery. The first backup of any source is always a full backup.
Incremental backup
Incremental backups copy or transfer only the data that has changed since the last backup session. All backups in Storware Backup & Recovery are deltas (with the exception of the Citrix XVA image backup strategy, which is differential), meaning that they collect only the data that has changed since the previous backup.
If the backup destination is not synthetic, then during recovery, the entire backup chain (full + all increments) must be restored, merged, and then delivered to the protected platform.
Incremental backups may sometimes require snapshots to be kept on the source platform, so that Storware can refer to the previous checkpoint during the next incremental backup.
It is important to note that you may choose to use only full backups. If you do not add an incremental backup schedule to your policy, Storware will assume this intention and will not keep snapshots under any strategy.
Synthetic
A synthetic backup is a mechanism supported by some file system backup destinations that allows all backups to be synthesized into a complete, independent image without the need to chain delta files with full backups. This significantly improves recovery time, as it allows restoring only the final image without merging backup chains.
You will notice that incremental backups on a synthetic backup destination are displayed as “synthetic” in the backup list. A synthetic backup destination forms the basis for forever incremental backups and the Instant Restore mechanism.
Forever incremental backups
A forever incremental backup is an approach in which only an incremental schedule is defined in the policy, and only one initial full backup is required. All subsequent backups track and store only the data modified since the previous backup, indefinitely. This approach requires a synthetic backup destination; otherwise, recovery could require merging potentially hundreds of backups.
Restore to the source
This is the most common restore workflow - a new instance of the protected entity will be created on the source using the backup data
Restore to the node
The raw backup data will be restored to the selected directory on the node. This is useful if you want to inspect or modify the backup data.
Instant restore
In this mode, the backup data is exposed directly from the backup destination (it must be synthetic), and the hypervisor boots a new VM directly from this temporarily exposed storage. This operation is significantly faster, taking only seconds instead of minutes or hours.
Instant restore may also support storage live migration, which can be initiated immediately or later, allowing VM data to be transferred to the target storage while the VM is already running.
These temporary instances will be visible in the UI in the Mounted Backups view.
Mounted backups
File-level restore
File-level restore mounts an image-based backup (such as VM or storage backup) and allows browsing the file structure directly from the web UI. Note that large amounts of data should be transferred directly from the node (e.g., over SSH) rather than via a web browser.
Files selected in the browser can also be transferred directly from the node to a remote host.
There are two modes for file-level recovery: automatic and manual. The automatic mode attempts to detect mount points within the guest OS backup, while the manual mode uses separate folders for detected file systems. The latter may be necessary if the automatic mounting process fails.
Sharing backups over iSCSI
This option is particularly useful for Windows VMs — a full raw disk can be exposed over iSCSI and mounted on a remote Windows machine. This allows the backup volume to be accessed directly and files to be restored while preserving Windows file permissions.
Last updated