Restore Scenario Frequently Asked Questions

Topic

This article provides disaster recovery guidance for partners with production systems that may have specific restoration needs.

Environment

  • Datto SIRIS
  • Datto ALTO
  • Datto NAS

Overview

While a Datto appliance is capable of restoring data to a production environment, disaster recovery scenarios sometimes require a partner to take certain post-restore actions in their environment to bring the newly-restored system back to full production.

In other situations, a full restore may not be necessary. The following FAQ provides answers to common questions about both scenarios.

NOTE  While Datto can provide guidance related to mounting and accessing restores, support for methods described in external content must be requested through the listed software vendor.

FAQ

The most efficient way to perform an Active Directory restore is to follow the Microsoft best-practices article which most closely applies to your disaster recovery scenario:

The Datto-supported method of performing a System State Restore is by following the Bare Metal Restore (BMR) process. If a Bare Metal Restore is out of scope for your disaster recovery scenario, you can follow Microsoft's Restoring System State process (external link).

If an SQL Granular Restore is out of scope for your disaster recovery scenario, you can perform the following steps to restore the database to production:

  1. Shut down the production machine.
  2. On your Datto appliance, start a local virtualization of the most recent snapshot of the production machine which contains the data needing to be restored. Configure the virtualization to temporarily act as the production machine.
  3. Back up the SQL database from the virtualization to your local SQL backup media.
  4. Shut down the virtualization, and bring your production machine online.
  5. Restore the backup of the SQL database from your local backup media to the production machine. The database should now be restored.

After restoring a production machine or production partition which contained one or more Windows shares, see Microsoft's Saving and Restoring Existing Windows Shares article (external link) to restore the share's local users and permissions.

You can perform an iSCSI Restore, mount the share in Windows and then use Robocopy to transfer the files back to the production machine while preserving their permissions.

You can perform an iSCSI Restore and then use Robocopy to transfer the files needing restoration back to their destinations while preserving their permissions.

While they are not officially-supported by Datto, products such as WinMerge and BeyondCompare (external links) can compare the contents of a Datto file restore or iSCSI restore with a production system, and restore only those files that have changed.

For Windows virtualizations, Datto recommends using the High Performance power mode with the Sleep and Hibernate modes disabled. You can change this setting in the virtualization's Power Options in the Windows Control Panel. The virtualization will retain the setting until the next time you unmount it.

Datto devices do not back up individual Docker containers. However, they can capture the container data by backing up the host machines in which they live. See this article for more information. For a Datto device to successfully restore Docker container information, the entire protected endpoint containing the Docker data must be backed up and restorable.

  1. Restore the endpoint, either as a physical or virtual host.
  2. Boot the host and run the docker run command from the command line within the protected OS.

If you experience any issues with the Docker container after a successful restore of the host OS, contact Docker Technical Support.

'Fast Failback' is a collective term that refers to using a Rescue Agent for disaster recovery failover while performing a continuously-mirrored Bare Metal Restore (BMR) of your production machine. This process is incompatible with encrypted agents.

To perform a Fast Failback restore, your backups and your production environment must meet all prerequisites defined in Rescue Agents and USB Bare Metal Restore: Getting Started.

To perform a Fast Failback, perform the following steps:

  1. Start a local virtualization on your Datto appliance, and during the setup process of the virtual machine, create a Rescue Agent.
  2. Carry out your business continuity activities in the local virtualization, ensuring that successful backups are appearing on the Manage Recovery Points page for the rescue agent.
  3. When you are ready to restore back to production, perform a USB Bare Metal Restore of the downed production machine from the Rescue Agent's dataset, ensuring that you have selected the Continuous Mirroring option as part of the restoration process.
  4. The backups your Rescue Agent takes will continue to be written to your production machine until you end the Bare Metal Restore process.

A full copy of a database can be restored from a Datto restore point back onto your production server. This procedure can save time and effort by avoiding a complete system restore like a Bare Metal Restore or Image Export.

IMPORTANT  This process includes creating a Rescue Agent on the local Datto device. Do not create the Rescue Agent with a network connection, as it will likely conflict with the production database server.

  1. Create a Rescue Agent of the database server on the Datto device.
  2. Log into the Rescue Agent via VNC.
  3. Click the screenshot within the Manage Rescue Agent page. The VNC connection to the virtual machine will launch in your web browser.
  4. Within the Rescue Agent, open your database software and export the database.

This process will differ depending on what program and software version you used to create your database.

NOTE  Datto Technical Support Technicians are not trained on non-Datto database software applications. The support we can provide on exporting the DB file is limited.

  1. Note where the database export was saved to, you'll need this path later.
  2. Once the export has completed, power off the Rescue Agent through its internal OS.
  3. Go to the Protect Tab in the Datto web UI and locate the Rescue Agent, then select Take A Snapshot. This step creates a backup of the Rescue Agent, capturing the changes you just made, on the Datto that you can now restore.
  4. Return to the Restore tab. Mount a file restore from the snapshot you just took.
  5. Select the Rescue Agent as the source of your file restore, and its most recent snapshot as the restore point.
  6. Connect to the Samba share provided by the file restore. Within the share, navigate to where you saved the DB file.
  7. Copy the DB file onto the production server and import it into your database software.