In a series of Screencasts we will demonstrate the capabilities of Windows Server Backup. This is a totally new backup technology based on block-level volume image based solution. It allows you to perform extremely fast server recovery. In addition, you will find that restoring from backup to a different hardware (something which the administrators feared in the past) is not only possible, but amazingly easy too. If you were planning to duplicate a production server in a test network or to a virtual machine, you will be able to see a demonstration in one of our Screencasts.

Our goal is to demonstrate what you can do with Windows Server Backup and help you to rethink and plan better the way you backup your systems.

Windows Server Backup is a disk-to-disk backup solution – it does not support backing up to tapes. You can create backup images on the following backup targets :
– Direct attached disk volumes
– External USB drives
– Network Shares
– Recordable DVDs

The differences and specific limitations for each backup target will be a topic for a separate Screencast.

It is important to keep in mind that Windows Server Backup has four components:
– Backup Management Console (WBADMIN.MSC) – the GUI
– Command-line user interface (WBADMIN.EXE)

– Backup Service (WBENGINE.EXE) – it is running the jobs which you create
– Set of Powershell Cmdlets

This client-service structure allows you to configure, monitor, and manage backup jobs remotely. One of the problems which you might encounter when trying to manage backup jobs remotely is how to modify the firewall configuration of the managed remote server. We demonstrate this scenario in details in step1.
Splitting the backup into a client and service also provides for a more dependable and stable solution. Closing the user interface (the MMC or the command-line) does not stop the job. The WBENGINE.EXE service continues to take care of the backup job until you explicitly decide to check (either locally or remotely) and terminate it.

In the following step-by-step tutorial, we will show you how to install Windows Server Backup, how to optimize backup performance, and how to create and test one-time and scheduled backup jobs. You will be able to see how to create more complex custom backup jobs by using the Windows Task Scheduler and the Windows Backup command line interface. You can download the text file with the commands used in the Screencast from here.

Step 1 In the first step, we install and optimize Windows Server Backup performance. You will see how to configure Windows Firewall to allow Remote Management of Windows Server Backup.

Step 2 Next, we demonstrate how to create one-time and scheduled backup jobs.

Step 3 In the last step, we will demonstrate how to avoid some of the limitations of the scheduled jobs created by the Backup Console. You will see how to create more complex jobs by using the Windows Task Scheduler and the Command-line interface.