219 Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2015
Result
The machine will be backed up to tapes according to the specified backup scheme. Tapes with full
backups will be sent to a secure off-site storage.
7.5 Storage nodes
The following sections describe how to use Acronis Backup Storage Node.
Storage nodes are available only in Acronis Backup Advanced.
7.5.1 What is a storage node?
Acronis Backup Storage Node is a server designed to optimize the usage of various resources (such as
the corporate storage capacity, the network bandwidth, or the managed machines' CPU load) which
are required to protect enterprise data. This goal is achieved by organizing and managing the
locations that serve as dedicated storages of the enterprise backup archives (managed vaults).
The most important function of a storage node is deduplication of backups stored in its vaults. This
means that identical data will be backed up to this vault only once. This minimizes the network usage
during backup and storage space taken by the archives.
Up to 50 storage nodes can be set up.
7.5.2 Supported types of storage
A managed vault can be organized:
On the hard drives local to the storage node
On a network share
On a Storage Area Network (SAN)
On a Network Attached Storage (NAS)
On a tape library (p. 198) locally attached to the storage node.
7.5.3 Operations performed by storage nodes
Storage nodes can perform the following operations on archives stored in managed vaults.
Cleanup and validation
Archives stored in unmanaged vaults are maintained by the agents (p. 438) that create the archives.
This means that each agent not only backs up data to the archive, but also executes service tasks that
apply to the archive the retention rules and validation rules specified by the backup plan (p. 439). To
relieve the managed machines of unnecessary CPU load, execution of the service tasks can be
delegated to the storage node. Since the task schedules exist on the machine the agent resides on,
and therefore uses that machine’s time and events, the agent has to initiate the cleanup and the
validation according to the schedule. To do so, the agent must be online. Further processing is
performed by the storage node.
This functionality cannot be disabled in a managed vault. The next two operations are optional.
