Version(s): Connected Backup 8.x
Component(s): Agent
Last updated: October 10, 2008
Document number:1818

Overview

This document describes several procedures and best practices for the Heal feature of the Connected Backup version 8.x Agent. For more information about Heal, see the Connected Backup Agent Deployment manual, "Chapter 13: Heal".

For Heal best practices, see the following sections of this document:

• Heal Basics

• Heat Dates and Compactor

• Heal and Hardware Issues

• Heal Considerations and Expectations

• Heal and Microsoft Windows Vista

Heal Basics

This section lists the main steps in the Heal process.

1. Verify that the target computer to restore with Heal matches the hardware specifications of the source computer that contains the files you want to recover. For details, refer to the section on Heal and Hardware Issues.
2. Reinstall the operating system (OS) on the target computer.

   Important: If your source computer had an OS that was customized by a hardware manufacturer or vendor, you must restore their version of the OS. Otherwise, Heal will fail. You must use the system restore media provided by the hardware manufacturer or vendor instead of using the Microsoft OS installation media.

   Abide by the following best practices:

   • The source computer and the target computer must have the same OS and service pack at the time of the Heal date.

   • You must install the OS to the same directory on the target computer as it was installed on the old hard drive.

   Note: If you installed Pointsec on the source computer, you must install Pointsec on the target computer before you perform a Heal. For details on Heal and Pointsec, see the section on Heal Considerations and Expectations.

3. If you backed up .pst or .nsf email files with Connected EmailOptimizer for the Heal date you selected, you must install the appropriate version of Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes on the target computer to reconstruct the email files.

4. To access the account information for the computer you want to heal, complete either of the following tasks:

   • Non-LDAP accounts -- Log on to the computer with the user’s account, and access the Account Management Website for the user’s Agent account.

   • LDAP accounts -- Log on to Support Center and view the Account Summary page for the account you want to heal. Click Access User’s Account Online to view the Account Management Website page for the account.

5. Install the Connected Backup Agent and perform an Account Recovery with the following steps.

   1. Start Heal by downloading the Agent Setup file from the Account Management Website.

   2. Click Save to save the Agent Setup to your local drive. Then, you can install the Agent again at any time.

      If you click Run to install the Agent, Heal will progress normally but the Agent Setup file will be stored in the Web browser’s temporary file folder. Therefore, the Agent Setup would not be available if you needed to install the Agent in the future.

   3. When the Agent prompts you to enter a password to run the Agent, click Advanced, and enter a technician login to avoid the need for LDAP authentication information.

6. Perform the Heal operation.

7. Heal retrieves the files from the Data Center and restarts the target computer. To verify that Heal worked, run any application on the target computer.

Heal Dates and Compactor

Compactor can make Heal dates unavailable to the Agent for the following reasons:

• Maintains the archives and references to the files in the databases for all accounts on the Data Center server

• Examines each account completely on a regular schedule

• Deletes files that have been deleted on the host systems

• Rebases files to handle out-of-date delta changes

• Deletes archives that became corrupted in the Data Center

Compactor removes the Heal dates in the following two ways:

• Expiration rules -- Compactor removes the Heal dates by using the expiration rules to delete files from a particular Heal date. For files that an end-user backs up on a regular basis, several Heal dates can be available. If Compactor finds too many stored versions of files, Compactor rebases and deletes the data from the Data Center. If the compaction process deletes any files in a backup set for a specific Heal date, Compactor notifies the Agent to remove that Heal date from the Select Backup list in the Agent.
• Corrupted files -- Compactor also can remove the Heal dates by deleting corrupted files encountered during compaction. Compactor examines the accounts and performs health checks on the archive sets and the files associated with an account. If Compactor finds a corrupted archive set on the Data Center, Compactor deletes that archive set and sends a notification to the Agent to back up the corrupted files again. If the corrupted archive set contained any files in a backup set for a Heal date, Compactor notifies the Agent to remove that Heal date from the Select Backup list in the Agent.

Verifying Heal Dates

If a Heal date is not in the Select Backup list in the Agent, you can view the CompactionLog table on the Data Center to see when Compactor was last run on that account. To do so, run the following query, where XXXXXXXXX represents a placeholder for the 9-digit account number.

use Directory

select Account,FinishTime from CompactionLog where Account=XXXXXXXXX

Heal Dates for Accounts Upgraded from 7.x to 8.x

If you upgrade a 7.x Agent to an 8.x Agent for an account, the Heal dates from completed successful backups for the 7.x Agent are not in the Select Backup list in the 8.x Agent.

Heal and Hardware Issues

The Heal process retrieves file versions from the Data Center or a CD or DVD, and then applies the Registry changes to the target computer. If Heal encounters any hardware issues, the Heal operation could fail. To perform a successful Heal, consider the following guidelines to prevent hardware issues:

• Perform a Heal operation only on computers with the same hardware. If the computers have different video drivers, or different hard drive partitioning and bus connections (such as replacing an IDE drive with a SATA drive), you might not be able to start the target computer after a Heal finishes.
• Sometimes Heal can appear to succeed initially, but can still exhibit problems if you had changed the hardware. When Heal restarts the target computer, Heal reads the Registry settings for the target computer's hardware from disk into memory. Heal then overwrites the Registry settings on disk, but those Registry settings in memory are still for the current hardware. After the next restart, the Registry reads the restored settings from the disk that do not match the current hardware, and displays a blue screen error. Be sure that the computer you want to restore using Heal and the target computer have the same hardware.
• Healing to a smaller partition will fail. However, if a new hard drive has more space than on the original partition, and you restore the OS to the original partition, Heal will work.
• If a new hard drive has the OS on a different partition from the Heal image, the Heal fails.
• If new hardware has the OS installed in a different directory, Heal fails.
• If a new hard drive has a different OS file structure than the last backup, Heal fails. The OS file structure affects computers that have upgraded OS, but have had their hard drives reimaged without the same upgrade path.

Heal Considerations and Expectations

• Heal does not support a dual-boot system. On a dual-boot system, you cannot successfully complete a Full System backup.
• Collecting files is the most time-consuming part of the Heal process for the following reasons:

  •  The Agent software must identify the files.

  • The Data Center reserves the files, and often moves the files from tape to disk (for HSM only).

  • The server rebases the files, which can be time consuming with files that have many delta versions and must be assembled into the version of the file present on the computer during the selected backup. The greater the delta depth, the longer the rebasing process takes.

  • Larger files take longer to send.

  • Every file receipt by the Agent generates an Acknowledgement (ACK) or Non-Acknowledgement (NAK) which the server receives prior to sending the next file, or retransmitting a failed file send. Generating an ACK or a NAK can lengthen the file retrieve process in reduced bandwidth network situations, and even small files (1K) can take significant time to retrieve.

  • The retrieve speed depends on the file size, the total amount of data to be sent, and the volume of files. The following examples can cause a Heal performance bottleneck:

    • The number of files as a result of rebasing and reduced network bandwidth

    • The server tape retrieval times, and generally not the total available network bandwidth

  • The process time for rebasing affects CD and DVD Heals because Heal uses the Agent rather than the Data Center to perform rebasing. When a file has significant delta versions, the Agent must seek across one or more CDs or DVDs to recover all delta versions of the file to restore it completely. Because this information might be highly fragmented (similar to hard disk fragmentation), the number of non-sequential seeks and reads can degrade retrieval time significantly.

  • After all files have been retrieved, Heal applies the backed up Registry keys, restarts the target computer, copies the system files that are currently in use, and implements the new Registry changes. The time it takes for the Heal to perform all these tasks can vary, depending on the computer boot speed and the number of Registry changes.

• For Heal and Connected EmailOptimizer, Heal needs a fully configured MAPI client to rebuild a .pst file.
• According to Pointsec (a hard drive encryption product) best practices, you must install Pointsec after Heal finishes; however, this practice causes a Blue Screen error on the target computer. To avoid the error, when you perform a Heal on a backup date with Pointsec installed on the source computer, be sure to install Pointsec on the target computer before you attempt to restore with Heal.

Heal and Windows Vista

Issue

The Microsoft Windows Vista OS contains a new security feature, User Account Control (UAC). UAC prevents unauthorized changes to your computer such as accessing Windows files, application system files, and settings on a computer, which typically require administrator privileges. When you perform a Heal, you might not be able to restore the Windows and application system files. UAC will prompt you for permission or an administrator password before you continue with the task.

Solution

 Disable UAC during the Heal to increase the possibility of successful Heal results and then enable UAC after the Heal completes. For details on UAC, see the Microsoft Windows Vista OS documentation.