Online Backup Guide

Acronis True Image Echo

How does one ensure that mission critical data is backed up regularly and recovered instantly in the event of disaster? Acronis True Image Echo range of products address the disaster recovery needs of corporations and enterprises, which have large volumes of mission critical information stored in their servers. Acronis describes this range True Image Echo products as “disk imaging, backup and bare-metal recovery software… as well as migration software for physical and virtual environments” in the Acronis® True Image Echo™ Corporate Overview & Reviewer’s Guide that is available on its website as a PDF document.

The operative part of the software creates an exact duplicate image of the live disk drives including the operating system; configuration files; programs, updates, databases at the drive sector level. The image is independent of the hardware on which the files were originally located and the format in which it was stored on the disk drive being imaged. This image can then be saved to an external disk drive or on the drive being imaged in a secure zone. The image can then be used for disaster recovery, data backup, system migration or disk cloning.

Products

The corporate range of Acronis True Image Echo products includes, Enterprise Server, Server for Windows, Server for Linux and Workstation. Each of these products perform complete online server backup and recovery through out a network; they create an exact, transportable server disk image over the network and across the network domains and they backup and restore individual files and databases. The disk can then be used for instant server disaster recovery, bare metal server restore, migration to and from virtual and physical environments on networked servers and central administration and remote backup and restore.

Centralized control

The most attractive aspect of this range of offering is the wizard driven interface that makes disaster recovery a breeze though the workstation and Enterprise versions require the installation of a software agent that enables control of the affected server remotely from another machine on the network. This makes for centralized control.

Acronis True Image Home 2009

Features:

Enhanced support for Virtual Machines

The latest versions of the True Image Echo range of products include enhanced support for virtual machines using a combination of Acronis universal restore and enhancements to virtual technology such as the products of Microsoft, VMware, ZenSource, SWsoft or Parallels. This technology helps move images from physical to virtual machines, physical to physical machines or virtual to physical machines. The conversion tools for virtual machines that are now included in the software helps convert Acronis images to VMDX or VHD files for instant virtualization.

Dynamic disk support, reboot and wake on LAN

The latest products also offer dynamic disk support, automatic reboot, wake-on LAN support, backup throughout the day either incrementally or fully.

Backup features

The product also allows cloning of existing schedules and periodic backup verification. Interestingly, the backup and imaging process can happen even when the OS is running. However, restore operations require booting separately.

Data Backup options

Data backup options that are presented to the user are varied. Options include mounting the image; creating bootable media; using the shell feature of the application or using the Acronis Secure zone. Among the restore options the Universal restore is a much talked about feature of this application. This feature allows the Windows machine to be restored on a completely different set of hardware. Acronis Universal Restore option is designed to overcome issues relating to restoration of Microsoft windows that do not have proper Hardware Abstraction Layer or storage drivers installed in the operating system.

Boot Options

The BootCD for the Windows Server uses a version of Linux and relies on hardware drivers that are not available on Windows. This problem can be avoided by using the plug-in of True Image on a BartPE disk (that comes with the program) or a VistaPE disk. Free trials of the software are available for those who want to try before they buy!

Compatibility

Acronis True Image provides backward compatibility for image files created in the immediate previous versions of the software. Backups are also compatible between different editions of True Image. File systems that are supported are NTFS, FAT16, FAT32, ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, Reiser4 and Linux Swap. The Additional feature of RAW sector backup and restore options to other file systems is extremely useful for selective restore operations.

The Flip Side

On the flip side of this product is its inability to support newer GUID Partition tables resulting in its inability to backup up BootCamp Windows partition table on an Apple Macintosh computer.

The Verdict

User feedback in forums and reviews of Acronis True Image Echo scattered across product review journals and ezines indicate that Acronis True Image products are very well appreciated. The problems seem to be minor and the benefits overwhelmingly large. Hence, it is strongly recommended.