Best practices for backing up an appliance

Always use the Insight Control server provisioning backup feature to back up your appliance.

	CAUTION: Do not use any hypervisor-provided capabilities to back up Insight Control server provisioning appliances. Also, do not use any hypervisor-provided capabilities for live snapshots (also called online snapshots). Using these capabilities can cause synchronization errors and result in unpredictable and unwanted behavior.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise recommends performing regular backups, preferably daily, and especially after adding hardware, changing the appliance configuration, and before and after updating the appliance firmware.

Although you can take a backup while the appliance is running normally, it is better to take a backup when the appliance is not performing any tasks.

The backup file format is proprietary, however, Hewlett Packard Enterprise recommends that after you create and download the backup file you encrypt, and then safely store the backup file to protect your sensitive data.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise recommends using an enterprise backup product such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise Data Protector to archive backup files. For information on Hewlett Packard Enterprise Data Protector, see the following website:

http://www.hpe.com/software/dataprotector

Hewlett Packard Enterprise provides REST APIs for integration with enterprise backup products.