NovaBACKUP^® Central Management Console 12.5

Introducing the Central Management Console

NovaStor introduces the new Central Management Console. The Management Console features a modern, easy to use, web browser-based user interface which is designed to manage multiple installations of widely distributed NovaBACKUP clients (including NovaBACKUP Professional software) in a LAN or through the internet.

Description

The remote management of NovaBACKUP clients is essentially working the same way as it is done using the NovaBACKUP user interface. A Dashboard provides the most important figures to get an immediate status of all connected NovaBACKUP installations and wizards help to create, delete, modify, and schedule backup-jobs. It’s possible to “drill down” into the file system of a single NovaBACKUP to select specific files and folders as well as selecting SQL, Exchange and VMware Virtual machines. Backup policies can be applied to a single NovaBACKUP client, or a group of them. This way it’s very easy to deploy policies to any number of NovaBACKUP clients. This is very useful if whole companies are managed which requires the same individual policies Reports like the total amount of failed backups or how many backup failures have occurred over a period of time for a specific NovaBACKUP client or group of NovaBACKUP’s is available. Log files generated on each of the connected NovaBACKUP’s can be fully viewed.

Key Features

• Remote Management and Control of all NovaBACKUP 12.0 Clients (including NovaBACKUP Professional software)
• Manages from one up to thousands of widely distributed NovaBACKUP 12.0 clients
• Remotely create, modify and schedule backup jobs created by the Management Console
• The management of backup jobs is essentially working the same way as it is done using the NovaBACKUP user interface
• On demand backups and restores
• A backup job can be started, stopped
• The Central Management Console can “drill down” into the file system of a single NBK to select specific files and folders as well as SQL, Exchange and VM’s from ESXi 4.0+ and vSphere servers
• Reports are summarizing specific and overall operation
• User interface can be displayed by all popular browsers
• Remote access to local log files of the NovaBACKUP client

Use Cases

1. A home user runs several computers in his house hold. Each of the parents and all 3 kids have their own computer which are spread all over the house. Utilizing the CMC the father, for example, could remotely manage and monitor the backups using a standard internet browser. Even if the computers are in use or he is in the office while one of the kids need help to restore a particular file, the father can easily restore the file.
2. An IT manager has several client/customers for whom he is managing IT departments and backups. With NovaBACKUP and CMC, he could establish automated local and off-site backup utilizing the Central Management Console. Since the Management Console is a web-based application he can centrally manage and monitor all customer installations wherever he has internet access, using a standard internet browser.
3. A managed service provider offers Backup as a Service to their customers. He takes care for the initial installation and setup of the NovaBACKUP client software at his customer’s side. Utilizing the CMC he is monitoring if all clients at customers side are working correctly. This way he knows immediately when a backup fails or one of the clients didn’t backup since a defined period of time. If necessary he can remotely setup or modify backup jobs and is also able to run a restore of lost files.
4. A Software house is selling their specialized software for example to doctors, hospitals, lawyers etc. They are offering their software with a full service contract. This includes setup, training, support, upgrades and maintaining of the software. In order to make sure that the systems where the software is running don’t lose data and provide a fast recovery in case of a disaster the software house combines or integrate NovaBACKUP. This way they make sure that the systems and the application data is constantly being protected. The CMC helps the software house to manage and monitor the backup on a remote base.

Requirements

Hardware Requirements

• Pentium 4 or better
• 512 MB of RAM minimum
• 3 GB free hard drive available space on OS drive (Full installation is approximately 300MB)
• A Web Browser and Internet Access

System Requirements

• Web Server (IIS or built in web server)
• .NET 3.5 SP1 and .NET 4.0 (can be automatically installed during setup)
• Windows PowerShell 1.0 (optional)
• MS-SQL (or bundled SQLite)

If installing on Windows Server 2003, SP2 is required. If installing on Windows Vista, SP1 is required. If not available, required service packs can automatically be installed during setup.

Being a web based program it does require a web server but one is bundled with the installer if you do not have IIS installed. The backend of the program is also SQL based, but SQLite which requires no installation is bundled with it if you do not want to use Microsoft SQL. The NovaBACKUP Management Server can be installed on windows servers or workstations. It is recommended that you have either a static IP-address or a DNS name associated with the computer that will be hosting the NovaBACKUP Management Server as the NovaBACKUP agent installations will need to communicate with the Management Server.