System Image Capture
There are two key parts to the image capture process. Firstly, the snapshotting of server images in your network and the transfer of snapshots to Plan B DR, and secondly the processing of those snapshots into ‘Rescue images’ and their conversion to run on Plan B DR’s virtualised Rescue platform. The process is outlined below:
Plan B DR captures system images of protected systems via a dedicated appliance that sits inside the customer’s network.
Once the simple configuration process is complete, the Plan B DR appliance will automatically, poll each system it is set up to protect, and take a ‘delta’ copy of the system images of each machine. We call this a ‘Snapshot’. Snapshots only contain files from a particular system that have changed since the last snapshot was taken. The base service takes Snapshots every 24 hours, but more regular snapshots can be taken if required.
Captured Snapshots are then encrypted for secure transfer to Plan B DR for processing and testing.
The appliances are completely autonomous and control all work associated with capturing snapshots, minimising the amount of data required to be transmitted and then securely sending that data to a Plan B DR Rescue Platform. The appliances have been developed to be inherently secure and accept no incoming connections of any nature, not even from Plan B DR.
Data sent by appliances is stored in Plan B DR’s Snapshot storage system. This holds an up-to-date copy of every file contained within every host that we provide protection for. It also holds a ‘Last known good’ set of files for regression if the new snapshot fails its testing for any reason.
