Data Back up and Restore

Mobile Device Manager Plus MSP stores information like configuration details, status of deployed configurations, and details about reports, in a database. Creating a back up of this database and certain important files like configuration files is necessary to prevent loss of data.

You can back up data automatically, by scheduling a back up using Mobile Device Manager Plus, or taking a back up manually. You can also restore this data when required. For example, assume that your hard disk crashes and you have to re-install Mobile Device Manager Plus. You can use the last back up you took to restore all the required information. Note that this is possible only if the back up file is stored in a computer other than yours.

Best Practises for Back up and restore

These are the few best practices recommended for Back Up and Restore option.

1. Make sure that you add the exclusion list for Anti Virus. When directories containing the MSSQL / PGSQL data are scanned by anti virus software, they misidentify the files content as spam and does not allow to back up that data. Learn how to create exclusions for McAfee, Symantec and Kaspersky.
2. It is recommended to schedule the back up after working hours.
3. Ensure you have a minimum of 5GB space to store the back up data.
4. Ensure you specify a valid destination folder.
5. Ensure the remote database if configured, should be running during back up.

Scheduling Data Back up

You can use Mobile Device Manager Plus MSP to take a back up of the database regularly. For example, if you want to take a back up of the database every Friday at 5 p.m., you can schedule the same using Mobile Device Manager Plus.

1. The time should be specified in the 24-hour format. For example, if you want the database back up to be taken at 6 p.m., the time should be specified as 18:00:00.
2. Using this option you can select how many database back up files should be saved. The older back up files will be deleted. For example, if you want only 7 back up files saved, select 7. This will ensure that at all times only 7 back up files are saved.
3. Ensure that you have configured your mail server settings to receive notifications.

To schedule back up of data, follow the steps given below:

1. On the web console, select the Admin tab
2. In the Tools section, click Database Back up
3. Specify the time at which you want the back up to be taken, in hour:minute:second (hh:mm:ss) format.
4. Select the number of back up files that you want Mobile Device Manager Plus MSP to save.
5. Specify the location where you want the back up files to be stored
6. Check the Notify when the database back up fails checkbox
7. Specify the email address (es) to which you want an e-mail message sent, if the database back up fails, please note that you should have configured your mail server settings to get notified.

6. Click Save Changes

You have scheduled an automatic data back up to take place automatically at a specified time.

Manual Data Back up and Restore

You can manually back up and restore the database. You can do this using the Back up-Restore Utility GUI.

Opening the Back up-Restore Utility Graphical User Interface (GUI)

To open the Back up-Restore Utility GUI, follow the steps given below:

1. Right-click start>Explore>Local Disk (C:)>Program Files>MDMServer>bin
2. Double-click backuprestore.bat

You've opened the Back up-Restore Utility GUI.

Creating a back up file

1. On the Back up-Restore Utility GUI, click the Back up tab
2. Select the location where you want to save the back up file

   If you're using a network share, the directory should have write permission for everyone in the network.

3. Click Back up

A back up file is created and saved in the specified location. The file will be named using the buildnumber-date-time.zip format. For example, 70120-Oct-25-2010-13-26.zip where 70120 is the build number, Oct 25th 2010 is the date and 13:26 is the time.

Restoring a back up file

1. The build number of the Mobile Device Manager Plus MSP MSP server should match the build number of the back up file you are restoring.
2. Ensure that you have shut down the Mobile Device Manager Plus MSP MSP server before restoring a back up file
3. If remote database is configured with the Mobile Device Manager Plus MSP MSP server, ensure that it is running on a remote machine. After restoration, the changes made after the back up date will not be available.

1. On the Back up-Restore Utility GUI, click the Restore tab
2. Browse and select the required back up file.
3. Click Restore

This will restore the specified data to Mobile Device Manager Plus MSP  server.