3X Systems Offsite Online Backups Review
Hello and welcome to another screen cast review on WebInformantTV. My name is David Strum your host and guide. Today we look at an innovative way to do Offsite backups effortlessly of Windows computers from the company called 3X-Systems.
The product is a combination of hardware and software. I am looking at the main web-base management console of the box where we can see the current condition of the unit and other summary data. There are two other pieces of software that make the solution work. First is a Windows agent that sends the back-up data to the -. Here were looking at its main console and this works for all versions of Windows from 2000 and onwards including servers in 64-bit versions too.
The second of piece of software is a locator service that links each box to a collection of agents running on your clients. So your clients can be anywhere such as in several remote offices behind very firewalls and send their back-up data to your appliance across the internet. If we go to client management quite software, you can see both the unique key that ties each client agent to our particular appliance as well as the links to download the software. There is one more brilliant idea 3X back up. The hardest and length of this part on any online back up solutions such as mossy and carbonate is the initial seeding or copying of a files.
This can take days or weeks depending on the amount of data and the connections band with involve. So at 3X recommends is to first put their box on your internal network and then you move it to a secure off sight location after the initial back up has been completed. You can also create a season that is external USB driving connect that to the appliance.
As long as the right license keys had been entered, the back up service will connect to the right place and all function properly. Here you are looking at the screen that is use to match each client and when we click on each entry in the left we bring up a status screen which is similar to what we saw on the client dashboard.
Let’s go to the process to create a back up set to be familiar to anyone who’s used any back up product. We click on back up sets tab to drill down to the screen here and we click on the folder with the plus sign icon to create a new set. This brings up the back up wizard, which will walk us through the series of screen prompts to select particular folders and files that you want to back up. Schedule particular time and whether you want prior version retained.
You will notice the choice will be the local file system or network because 3X only has window agents. We can use the network the options to back up files that can be map to a particular client such as on lynx or max server. You just enter the UNC path through sever and select the files and folders.
You can choose from preset selections of schedule times on this screen or pick your time. One other option is to directly back-up Microsoft exchange the sequel server data stores. Both retentions policies and back up schedule are also summarized on the management council. Here were looking at the policy screen, which shows you which one is being use by a particular real set of client.
While I was testing this product, there was the hard drive in one of my servers, driving once again the importance of back ups. One of the things I like is the ability to restrict access to the back of appliance from particular IP addresses. Another is the ability to have e-mail notifications, when errors occur as well as nightly reports on back up jobs. You go to admin. System settings and e-mail notification fill the information here. You can use your own SMPT server or the free service provided by 3X.
You can also enable real time device status tracking page by going to admin system settings and monitoring and clicking on the check box. You will see something like this collection of data that displays status and up time. This can also be sent to you via e-mail on a daily basis as part of the summary reports. Finally, I like the detailed online help that provides copyist screen shots and directions in case you stuck.
One of the things I did not like to would be nice to have Mac and limit agents but the network file options are reasonable or alternative. Not all browser versions work with the management council especially IE earlier than version seven.
Finally, the process uses of either restoring a domain controller or a specific deleted e-mail message could be easier but as well documented in the online help.
Thanks for watching Webinformant.TV. This is David Strum. Feel free to check out our other screen cast on our web site or send me e-mail or comments to david@strum.com.
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