Overview
Understanding if you want to have an appliance for a given location or just use Local Cache for Direct-to-Cloud (D2C) is a very important step in putting your backup solution in place. To know which option you will use, you must understand the pros and cons of both choices.
Local Cache for Direct-to-Cloud (D2C)
Local Cache is an option you can use for your Direct-to-Cloud (D2C) backups.
Direct-to-Cloud was built to help MSPs simplify the work of managing backups. It does not require an appliance and allows for silent installation with an RMM, which means it can be deployed without the cost and complexity of on-site visits. You can have quick, painless protection that uses our chain-free, image-based backups sent directly to your Axcient Cloud vault. You can also opt to deploy your own cloud vault on your own hardware that you manage.
During backups, all backup data is sent to the cloud vault with each backup job. The cloud vault contains all metadata about the backups, including recovery points, volumes, disk topology, etc.
When enabled, Local Cache for D2C greatly accelerates the recovery of D2C-protected systems by eliminating the need to download bulky data from the cloud. A copy of the actual data blocks for each volume is also sent to the local cache.
Note that Local Cache for D2C does not contain any metadata about backups or recovery points. Local cache is strictly a "big bucket of block data" that can be used to avoid downloading backup data from the internet during a recovery.
The local cache contains 64K data blocks that are globally unique, deduplicated within the database, and indexed by hash keys. Hash keys for a given recovery point are retrieved from the cloud vault during recovery and are then used to look up data in the local cache. This will include all block data from your recent backups
Note: You can configure local cache to a single target. The single target can be either (a) a locally attached USB device or other local hard drive, or (b) a network share. Network share targets can be shared by multiple protected systems, and all data stored within the local cache will be globally deduplicated. This provides a slight improvement in overall storage efficiency.
When performing a recovery, the local cache repository provides you with that data locally (so you don't have to download that data over the internet.)
In order to set up backups, x360Recover Direct-to-Cloud requires either
- an Axcient-hosted cloud vault or
- a self-hosted private vault enabled for Direct-to-Cloud.
Recovery options include
- FTPS File and folder recovery
- Virtual disk export with all major hypervisor disk formats supported
- Bare Metal Restore (BMR) to disparate hardware
- Instant Virtualization with Local Cache and Recovery Center
- Virtual Office for total site disaster recovery in the Axcient cloud
For recovery of Direct-to-Cloud endpoints, you have all the options you would normally expect when recovering from the Cloud:
- Virtualize the system in the Axcient Cloud
- Download a virtual disk image of the protected system in various formats compatible with all major Hypervisor platforms
- Mount a recovery point to perform file and folder recovery using the file browser on the vault
Local Cache for D2C can be used by the Bare Metal Recovery tool to directly image a bare hardware system from your cloud backup - at speeds comparable to recovery from a local appliance.
When performing recoveries that are not BMRs, you can access the Axcient Recovery Center attached to a local cache, and then quickly perform local file and folder recovery, export virtual disks in numerous formats or even directly virtualize a protected system on a local Hyper-V host. Your ability to restore files and folders or virtualize a system will be dependent on the hardware you have available locally to perform the restores from.
You will also have the ability to use our cloud recovery environment – Virtual Office – in many disaster recovery situations if you backup to the Axcient hosted cloud.
X360Recover Appliance
When utilized, the x360Recover Appliance is the core customer-facing component of the x360Recover solution. The Appliance holds the backup data received from installed agents, manages replication to off-site vaults if applicable, provides the web interface for the local site, and will host the virtual machine environment in the event of disaster.
Having an onsite appliance will keep you from needing to use our cloud recovery environment – Virtual Office – in many disaster recovery situations.
An appliance gives you local storage space to mount and explore backups for file/folder recovery purposes or local hardware resources if a virtual machine is needed for restore purposes – either to pull file/folder data from the machine or to run temporarily until new hardware can be put in place for a down machine.
The appliance takes backups onsite and does not require bandwidth to the cloud for the backups to occur. Utilizing a local appliance allows you to have two copies of the data if you choose to do so – locally on the appliance and one in the cloud (your private cloud if you opt to manage your own offsite data or the Axcient cloud).
To use an x360Recover Appliance, you will incur the cost of the necessary hardware. This cost can be limited by repurposing existing equipment or building your own new appliance, if it meets the minimum requirements: Bring your own device
Recovery options
To best understand and determine which option is appropriate for your customer and situation, you need to understand what recovery options you have and how they work. You can see all your options in our Recovery Playbook
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