End users of backup solutions have always wanted the solution to do three things. Take backups. Take backups according to their need. Take backups according to their need without pestering them. Basically, automation.
Without their interference at every step, everything must go on fine. This ubiquitous need from users led to the automation of many steps, right from Backup Scheduling to Recovery or Failover plans. One of the core steps as a part of this evolution, that many backup solution providers have failed to take note of, is the Pre-backup and Post-backup scripts.
These scripts give the IT admin a good night’s sleep by enabling him/her to execute a few steps during the backup schedule without having him/her sacrifice that sleep. Scripts, that may or may not be of the same language of the native application code, execute a few steps that the user has to do manually otherwise.
This opens a world of possibilities in customizing how the backup is taken.
For instance, a user who wants to disable a service, say Antivirus, might not be happy to do that before every backup job. Nor will he/she be happy to enable the service after the job is done. Or consider an application that locks a file during a backup. The backup job will skip this file leading to unnecessary confusions. These frustrating little acts may multiply when so many other conditions need to be addressed in the same system and for so many different backup jobs. Integrate the time and energy spent on the entire IT infrastructure. It is not feasible.
Running Pre & Post Backup Commands will solve this.
Vembu has a separate wizard to configure system level actions by adding Pre and Post commands. As the names indicate, these scripts run before the backup job and after the backup job respectively. Using these commands, users can run a service or execute batch files that execute minor actions like unmounting disks from the proxies or changing the contents of a file. The otherwise time consuming actions are reduced to a mere one time configuration.
This feature exists in Vembu NetworkBackup Client, Vembu ImageBackup Client and Vembu OnlineBackup. When a new backup job is created, the scripts can be added in Advanced Options->Pre & Post Backup Commands. Almost five commands can be added for Pre and Post Backup Commands each.
These commands can be added by entering the Command Name (mandatory) and then adding the Arguments and the Working Path, from which the command will be executed. The command can be batch files, or script files, or application exe, etc.
A Time-out value can be added for every command. This value indicates the time up to which the backup job will wait for the execution of the commands. By default, the timeout value is considered infinite thus making the backup job wait indefinitely till the commands are executed. This feature helps the user making the backup process simpler by automating one of the most time consuming and monotonous actions.
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Got questions? Email us at: vembu-support@vembu.com for answers.
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