Backup Data Seeding on a Computer with High-Speed Connection
In some cases, you may need to initially upload your user’s full backup data using your own high-speed internet and to continue incremental backups to the same location from the original computers. This is useful when your customers have a large amount of data for the initial full backup but slow upload speeds. In such cases, you or your user can back up the data to an external drive, upload it to the cloud from a location with a high-speed connection, and then continue incremental backups seamlessly from the original computer.
Uploading user's data
To upload the user’s data to the cloud storage, run Backup Agent on the computer with a high-speed internet connection and log in with your user account credentials. Use the same user name, password and backup prefix that your user will use. By default, the backup prefix is the original computer name. Once logged in with your customer’s credentials and the correct prefix, you can back up the data from the external drive to the cloud storage that will be used to continue incremental backups.
To verify/change the backup prefix
- In the Backup Agent instance, open the application menu.
- Select the required storage account.
- In the Storage account property box, click Advanced Settings.
- Check the backup prefix.
If needed, you can modify the backup prefix, then click OK.
Continue backup on original computer
After the data is uploaded, users can view it from their computers. The user should log in to Backup Agent using exactly the same login, password and prefix you used to upload data. Repository synchronization will start automatically, and the uploaded data will appear on the Backup Storage tab. If your user later wants to restore data, they can do that from this tab.
To continue the backup, the user has to create a backup plan with the same file structure used in the initial data upload. With the Backup Wizard, the user can easily set up such a plan.
Please note that if you did the initial upload to an external drive, for example, starting with F:[userdata...], and the user has their data on a local drive (e.g., C:), then to let them continue backup to the same location, you will have to rename the cloud folder from F: to C:.
How to rename the cloud folder
To rename the cloud folder, proceed as follows:
Step 1. To rename the cloud folder, you can use CloudBerry Explorer PRO. Download it here: https://www.cloudberrylab.com/explorer.aspx. CloudBerry Explorer PRO comes with a 15-day fully functional trial.
Step 2. Launch CloudBerry Explorer, access your cloud storage account and open your MBS bucket, find the proper user folder MBS-[UserId], where [UserId] identifies the MBS user.
To find the user ID, go to the Managed Backup Service control panel. Open the “Users” tab, find the proper user, and click the Edit button.
Step 3. The window with user account details will open. In your browser’s address box you will see the URL that should look like http://mbs.cloudberrylab.com/Admin/EditUser.aspx?userId=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx. Instead of multiple “x” you’ll see your user ID.
Step 4. Go back to CloudBerry Explorer and open the proper user folder, then open the folder with the customer’s backup that looks like “CBB_[BackupPrefix]”. We have described how to find the backup prefix in the Uploading user's data section above.
Step 5. Now you will see a folder with a drive letter in its name. Give it a proper name. In our example, we’ve renamed the folder from F:\ to C:.
If you have followed this manual correctly, your customers will see their data uploaded and will be able to access it and continue backup from their computers to the same location in the cloud.