Bulk MSP360 Managed Backup Agent Deployment

Manually installing backup agents, one at a time, on a large number of computers can take a long time. In this guide, we’ll explain how to perform agent installations quickly, and with minimal effort, using MSP360 Managed Backup.

The main topics we’ll cover are:

• Setting up general agent options
• Agent installation
• Agent configuration

How to Set Up MSP360 Managed Backup Agents before Deployment

Let’s begin with the general agent options. In MSP360 Managed Backup, you can set up general preferences that will be applied to all agents that are or will be installed on client machines. This is done from Settings – Global Agent Options.

In this section, you can lock down the agents so they are not accessible from the clients, prevent backup and restore plans from being edited in the agents, allow or prevent remote access, and set whether some backup options like compression, encryption, and VSS are enabled by default.

Next, you can personalize your deployed agents with your own branding from the Settings – Branding section.

Follow the link below to find the explanation of this process.

Further reading How to Set Up a Branding in Managed Backup Service

General options can be changed at any time and they are applied to installed agents immediately. However, we recommend setting up your preferred general preferences before installation to ensure that all the necessary options are configured as needed at deployment time.

 

Now, let’s discuss options to perform a bulk installation of the agents across many clients.

How to Mass-Deploy the MSP360 Managed Backup Agent

To install an agent on multiple endpoints, select the desired build on the Downloads page. If you do not use custom branding, click one of the following options:

• Download – to download the build to your machine
• Link – to get a link to this build
• or PowerShell – to copy a PowerShell installation script to the clipboard

If you use custom branding, click the Download option.

Click the PowerShell icon near the branding you want to use to copy the script to the clipboard, or the Link icon to get a direct link to your custom build.

The script or link is copied to the clipboard and can be pasted when needed. Here’s is how the PowerShell script looks:

There are three ways to bulk-install the agents:

1. Manual installation. You can mail the copied script or link to your users with instructions on how to install. This is not the preferred method for large installs, since you will need to monitor whether or not the users installed the agents.
2. Group Policy. If all your endpoints are connected to the Internet and have access to download the agent installation package, you can create a new group policy using the copied script and send it to these endpoints. Alternatively, if your endpoints have access to the same local network, then you can download the build to a shared folder and deploy the agents from this folder.
3. Remote Monitoring and Management Solution. You can use your preferred RMM solution to deploy the agents. As an example, in our new RMM solution, you can easily deploy the copied script to install the MSP360 Managed Backup agent on your endpoints using the RMM Group Action option.

How to Configure the MSP360 Managed Backup Agents after Installation

After you’ve installed the agents, you need to assign them to the proper company, user, and storage account.

There are two ways to accomplish this task:

1. Use our PowerShell Module to quickly create companies, users, and storage accounts, and assign them to each other.
2. Perform the same task manually within the console without PowerShell

PowerShell Module
If you’re familiar with PowerShell, you can enhance the installation script or create a script for agent configuration using our PowerShell Module  – the module that our developers created to simplify the use of MSP360 Managed Backup. Here is a link to this module description:

Further reading Introduction to the PowerShell Module for MSP360 Managed Backup Service

For example, you can create a .CSV file that contains a list of users and companies and import this list into your MSP360 Managed Backup console using PowerShell cmdlets. Follow this link to get the instructions on this example: How to add users and companies to MBS in bulk

Manual Configuration
Another option is manual configuration.

1. Go to Storage – Storage Accounts and create a new storage account. If your storage account is already created, proceed with the next step.
2. Create the new company from Organization – Companies. Click Add Company and fill in all the necessary information, including the backup destinations. If your company already exists, proceed with the next step.
3. Create the needed user authentication account from Organization – Users. If you use Microsoft Active Directory, you can use our AD Bridge to assist in this process.
   If you want to learn more about Active Directory Bridge functionality, check out the link below:
   Using Active Directory Accounts

If you don't use Active Directory, fill in the user information and assign the user to the proper company.

After the agents are installed and users are created, you can easily connect endpoints to users in the management console. Proceed to RMM – Remote Management and for each unassigned agent, click Add User Account.

Select the desired user from the list and click Save.

Repeat the same actions for each unassigned endpoint. That’s it. Now these computers are assigned and can be monitored and managed from the MSP360 Managed Backup console.

Using these techniques, you can quickly deploy MSP360 Managed Backup agents to customer endpoints and customize the solution according to your needs. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know.

MSP360 Managed Backup.
Simple. Reliable.

Powerful cross-platform backup and disaster recovery that leverages the public cloud to enable a comprehensive data protection strategy.