Synology DS920+ Network Attached Storage – Active Backup for Business
One of the great features built into the Synology DS920+ is an application called “Active Backup for Business”. This is an application that you can download from the Package Center on the NAS device. Once installed you are able to add a shortcut to the menu bar that I noted in my previous article – Synology DS920+ – Web Console.
Active Backup allows for you to back up things like –
- PC or Laptop – you are able to download an Agent to install and direct to the Synology device
- Physical Server – Windows or Linux and there is an Agent install
- File Server – allows for SMB or rsync backups
- Virtual Machine – you can add VMware or Hyper-V hypervisors to access VMs
***NOTE: The backup Agent must be installed before proceeding with the tasks below and can be downloaded from this screen below. In this case under the PC tab, there is an ADD DEVICE button and when that comes up it allows the download of the Agent software as noted in Figure 1 below***
Figure 1: Add Device – Agent Installer download links
You navigate through each of the tabs in Figure 2 below to display the settings for each type of backup noted. When you get to the “Virtual Machine” tab this is where you can add your hypervisor for either or VMware and/or Hyper-V. You specify the server, port and credentials to connect. Once that is done you set up “Tasks” which are backup jobs. For my laptop, I have a weekly job configured as you can see In the screen in Figure 2 which runs weekly on Friday. You can set up tasks for Daily, Weekly and Monthly to back up your servers or virtual machines.
Figure 2: Active Backup for Business window
When you click on the tab of the particular system you want to back up, in my case, I am selecting the PC tab for my laptop it is here that you create the Task (backup):
Figure 3: PC tab for laptop – Create Task button
Once you click the “Create Task” button it launches a wizard that you step through to create your backup job as seen below in the follow screenshots:
Figure 4: Task name, Source type and transfer settings
Note in Figure 4 above that if you select “Entire Device” the option for backing up externally attached USB drives is turned on by default. You just may want to disable that depending on the size or quantity of the drives attached to your system.
Figure 5: Backup Destination – default is the ActiveBackupforBusiness share
Figure 6: Backup Destination settings – configured when setting up initially
Figure 7: Scheduled backup – Daily, Weekend, Weekdays with checkboxes
Figure 8: Repeat type – Daily/Weekly or Hourly
Figure 9: Retention Policy – Keep all or GFS set up for daily, weekly, monthly, yearly
Figure 10: Task Summary – validate settings and then apply to create
Now the task you have created going through the wizard will run as scheduled to your Synology NAS.
As you can see Backup for Business could be a way for SMBs to leverage backup software that is included in the Synology devices and the licenses are FREE! You cannot beat that.
Stay tuned to my next article as I will cover a component that pairs with the Backup for Business called – “Hyper Backup”. This allows you to send the backups from your NAS to a Cloud Service Provider including a new offering from Synology called “Synology C2”. Here is a sneak peak at the screen within the console of which I have signed up for a trial of the Synology C2 offering:
I will discuss this as well as other providers that you can register in the Synology NAS for sending your backups offsite. If you want more information on Backup for Business or Synology C2 please visit the following websites: