MSP360 Products
Getting Started with Remote Deploy in MSP360 Managed Backup
In this guide, we’ll overview the functionality of Remote Deploy – a feature in MSP360 Managed Backup Service that allows you to perform bulk actions on your clients’ computers.
Remote Deploy: Capabilities
Here are the main features of Remote Deploy in MSP360 Managed Backup Service:
- Bulk computer configuration. Change the options for MSP360 Managed Backup Service agents for a specific company or all companies at once.
- Bulk plan deployment. Configure a backup plan on any number of clients’ machines and speed up the initial backup agent deployment. This feature works for file-level backups on all supported operating systems, and image-based backup on Windows only
- Bulk plan amendment. Utilize a script that will make the required changes on specific machines through the MSP360 Managed Backup Service console. Wire up our PowerShell module to process changes even more easily. Follow this link to learn more about this module: Introduction to the PowerShell Module for MSP360 Managed Backup Service
- Backup configuration report. Use the history tab to check if everything has been applied properly.
How to Customize Backup Preferences on Multiple Computers with Remote Deploy
To start configuring your machines, proceed to the RMM tab, Remote Deploy section. Here, you can create a set of options for the MSP360 Managed Backup Service agent and deploy these options to all the computers needed. This set of options is called a configuration. It consists of two parts: general and backup plan options
To create a new configuration for your computers, click Add Configuration. You will see a slide-in on the right with the General tab opened.
General options
Name your configuration. From the drop-down menu, choose the OS that your computers are on: Windows, macOS, or Linux. Select All types if you want to create a single configuration for different systems. Add a description – this will help you to remember the configuration details without the need to review them. Switch on the Enable the Configuration option if you want it to be applied automatically when saved.
Settings
Proceed to the Settings tab. You’ll need to click the switch near an option to make this option available for editing.
The Protect Console with Master Password option gives an additional protection level for your connections.
Change the interface language of the MSP360 Managed Backup Service agent if needed.
To set up bandwidth options, move the appropriate switch and click the pencil icon near it. A new window will appear. Here, you can set limits for backup bandwidth usage – for example, if you don’t want to slow down your clients’ work during weekdays.
To access the Proxy settings, move the switch and click the pencil icon, just as you did with bandwidth. Use auto-detection or customize proxy manually.
Apply To
In the Apply To tab, specify which computers will receive new options set. You can select all companies or some of them; then, after choosing this option, click Add companies and mark the required ones. The last option allows you to create a granular computer selection; click Apply to Selected Computers Only, then Add computers. You’ll see a list of companies with computers that are assigned to them. Select the required machines. Companies/computers that you’ve chosen will appear in this tab as a list.
Backup Plans
The next tab is Backup Plans. Here, you can create a file-level backup for any OS and an image-based backup plan for Windows.
Now we’ll overview the file-level backup plan, as it is available for all operating systems, and then we’ll add some details for the image-based backup.
Creating a File-level Backup Plan
To start creating a file-level backup plan, click Files Backup. A new window will appear – the Files Backup Plan Wizard.
Step 1. Name the plan. It will be sent to all the selected computers and this name will help you to distinguish this plan from others.
Step 2. Choose the backup destination. If you haven’t yet set up the backup destination, go to the Storage tab, Storage Accounts section.
Step 3. Configure Advanced Options; back up NTFS permissions, force using VSS if you are not sure that users won’t be working on their machines when the backup starts, etc.
Step 4. Select folders for backup. To do this, type or copy-paste the path to the required folder into the appropriate field and click plus. If you have made a mistake, you can change or delete the path.
Step 5. In the Advanced Filter tab, you can determine what files or folders to back up or skip. For example, you can exclude large files or back up files with particular extensions only.
Step 6. Enable compression and/or encryption. Compression allows you to save storage space; encryption is a must when you want to protect the data. Bear in mind that if you forget the password you’ve set here, you won’t be able to restore files.
Step 7. Specify the retention policy. Define how old the files should be in order to be deleted automatically, how many versions should be kept for each file, whether the solution should remove files that have been deleted locally and, if so, what the period between deleting them locally and from the storage should be.
Step 8. In the Schedule Options section, you can set up the backup frequency. The plan can be run once or you can make it recurring – with a predefined or manually customized template.
A simple schedule allows setting up frequency in general.
With an advanced schedule, you get access to more granular settings.
For this guide, we’ve chosen manual running of the backup plan.
Step 9. In the Pre-/Post-Action section, you can add scripts to run before the plan starts or after it completes. For bulk plan amendments, use our PowerShell module, which is specially developed for the MSP360 Managed Backup Service. You will find a link to the module description in the narration.
Additionally, you can schedule another backup plan to run after the current one.
Step 10. Set up notifications.
Step 11. Click Save to finish creating the plan.
Customizing an Image-Based Backup Plan
If you want to create an image-based backup plan, there are some differences throughout the process. Here’s a short overview of them.
Step 3 is omitted. In the next step, you choose what partitions to back up instead of files and folders.
The Advanced Options step is also different.
And, additionally, the Retention Policy settings are easier to customize.
All other steps are similar to those of the file-level backup plan.
That’s it. After clicking Save, the plan you’ve just created will appear in your configuration.
Now click Create, Save, then Save and apply. You’ll see your new configuration in the configurations list. If you have enabled it, the configuration will apply to all selected computers automatically and you’ll be able to see the results of this action.
Click the arrow near the configuration name to open a short summary of backup plans included in this configuration. In the Show History tab, you can see a list of applied configurations. Each of the records contains information about what computers were involved and what the result of the application was.
If you haven’t enabled your configuration yet, click Edit Configuration near it. In the General tab, move the Enable the Configuration switch to the right and click Save. You can also make other changes using the Edit Configuration option, but bear in mind that if the configuration is enabled, these changes will re-apply to all the machines you’ve selected for this configuration.
If you want to create a copy of an existing configuration, use the Clone Configuration option. The configuration will appear in a disabled state in the list.
Now you know how the Remote Deploy option works. You can use it for different purposes: changing the default backup settings on users’ machines, creating backup plans to keep their data safe, and making bulk changes in these plans. The time it takes you won’t depend on the number of computers you’re working with. Remote Deploy makes your job easier. If you have any questions, please contact our pre-sales team.
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