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Using the management server, you can create one or more centralized archive storages (centralized
vaults (p. 390)), which will be shared by the registered machines. A centralized vault can be used by
any backup policy as well as by any backup plan created on the registered machines using direct
management.
Organizing a managed archive storage
What should the capacity of your centralized vault be? What if transferring sizeable backups to the
vault will cause network congestion? Does backup of an online production server affect the server
performance? To ensure that the centralized backup will not slow down business processes in your
company and to minimize the resources required for the data protection, you install Acronis Backup
& Recovery 10 Storage Node (p. 397) and configure it to manage a centralized vault or multiple
centralized vaults. Such vaults are called managed vaults (p. 395).
The storage node helps the agent deduplicate (p. 391) backups before transferring them to managed
vaults and deduplicates the backups already saved in the vaults. Deduplication results in reducing
backup traffic and saving storage space. The storage node also undertakes operations with archives
(such as validation and cleanup), which otherwise are performed by the agent, and thus relieves the
managed machines from unnecessary computing load. Last but not least, Acronis Backup & Recovery
10 Storage Node enables using a tape library as a centralized vault for storing backup archives.
More than one storage node, each managing a number of vaults, can be set up and controlled
centrally from the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server.
For more detailed information about storage nodes please refer to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10
Storage Node (p. 20).
2.12.2
Setting up centralized data protection in a heterogeneous
network
Assume that the network infrastructure includes servers (1, 2, 9) and workstations (3, 5-8) running
Windows and Linux. You also have a VMware ESX server (4) that hosts two guest systems.