Lights-Out for Windows Server Solutions 2011/2012
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Backup How-to

Windows Home Server 2011 client backup provides a reliable solution for backup of important data on your home computers. There are however scenarios, which do not fit perfectly into that picture.

  • How do you handle machines which are shutdown or only used on the week end?
  • How do you handle a second backup a day? Manually?
  • How do you handle computers which do not return to sleep after backup?

All these tasks are handled by Lights-Out!

Description

Double click on a computer in the computer page tab to show the computer properties. There are 3 setting which affect backup.

 

(1) Wake-up (Wake-On-Lan and timer)
You have to wake-up a computer to run a backup. A timer is set on Windows Home Server 2011 Computers. This allows a wake-up of notebooks in standby. Wake-On-Lan is additionally used to start computers from shut down.
This setting is always required to enable and run a backup (even if your machine is already online)!

(2) Run a backup after wake-up
Runs a client computer backup 2 minutes after the configured wake-up. This may be a backup within the standard backup window or an additional, second backup for example in the evening. See below for more details.

(3) After backup
This action is always performed after any backup has completed and gives you additional choices:
  • Do nothing (keep client running)
  • Suspend
  • Hibernate
  • Shutdown
  • Reboot
You can use this setting when a client machine does not return to standby or to run a shutdown.
 
What is the standard client backup schedule?

The standard client backup schedule is the time frame used by Windows Home Server to run client backups. The standard schedule is 0:00 - 6:00 AM. You can change that on the Computers and Backup tab: 

 

A client running a standard client backup schedule (without any Lights-Out backup settings) is displayed like machine (1). You see a Windows Home Server 2011 backup is scheduled for 01:49. 

 

Running a scheduled backup at a fixed time 

When you enable a Lights-Out backup inside of the standard client backup schedule, Lights-Out suppresses any additional Windows Home Server 2011 backup. For a fixed backup, configure a wake-up time for example at 03:20 am. Machine (2) is configured for a fixed backup. 

Note: A fixed backup may interfere with another machine running with a standard client backup schedule. This may result in a delayed execution. 

 

Running an additional backup

Lights-Out gives you the option, to run a second, independent backup. You enable that when you configure a wake-up time outside of the standard client backup schedule. For an evening backup, configure a wake-up time for example at 06:02 pm (18:02) and your machine will run a second backup at 06:04 PM (18:04). In that example an action after backup has been configured to execute a standby. 

Note: Your server has to be active at the time of that second backup! 

 

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Copyright (c) Martin Rothschink, AxoNet Software GmbH 2008-2015
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