Bare-metal restore
Encyclopedia
Bare-metal restore is a technique in the field of data recovery and restoration where the backed up
data
is available in a form which allows one to restore a computer
system from "bare metal", i.e. without any requirements as to previously installed software or operating system
.
Typically, the backed up data includes the necessary operating system, applications and data components to rebuild or restore the backed up system to an entirely separate piece of hardware. In some configurations, the hardware receiving the restore needs to have an identical configuration to the hardware that was the source of the backup, although virtualization techniques and careful planning can enable a bare-metal restore to a hardware configuration different from the original.
Disk imaging applications enable bare-metal restores by storing copies (images) of the entire contents of hard disks to networked or other external storage, and then writing those images to other physical disks. The disk image application itself can include an entire operating system, bootable from a live CD or network file server, which contains all the required application code to create and restore the disk images.
utility on a Linux
boot CD
can be used to copy file system
s between disk images and disk partitions
to effect a bare-metal backup and recovery. These disk images can then be used as input to a new partition of the same type but equal or larger size, or alternatively a variety of virtualization
technologies as they often represent a more accessible but less efficient representation of the data on the original partition.
Microsoft
introduced a new backup utility (Wbadmin
) into Windows Server 2008 family of operating system in 2008 which has built-in support for bare-metal recovery. Users of this software can also recover their system to a Hyper-V
virtual machine.
CBMR, developed by Cristie Software, is a backup utility that is capable of bare-metal recovery and dissimilar hardware recovery available on Windows, Linux
, AIX, HP-UX
and Oracle Solaris.
Backup
In information technology, a backup or the process of backing up is making copies of data which may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form is back up in two words, whereas the noun is backup....
data
Data
The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. Data are often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which...
is available in a form which allows one to restore a computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
system from "bare metal", i.e. without any requirements as to previously installed software or operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
.
Typically, the backed up data includes the necessary operating system, applications and data components to rebuild or restore the backed up system to an entirely separate piece of hardware. In some configurations, the hardware receiving the restore needs to have an identical configuration to the hardware that was the source of the backup, although virtualization techniques and careful planning can enable a bare-metal restore to a hardware configuration different from the original.
Disk imaging applications enable bare-metal restores by storing copies (images) of the entire contents of hard disks to networked or other external storage, and then writing those images to other physical disks. The disk image application itself can include an entire operating system, bootable from a live CD or network file server, which contains all the required application code to create and restore the disk images.
Examples of software used for bare-metal recovery
The ddDd (Unix)
In computing, dd is a common Unix program whose primary purpose is the low-level copying and conversion of raw data. According to the manual page for Version 7 Unix, it will "convert and copy a file". It is used to copy a specified number of bytes or blocks, performing on-the-fly byte order...
utility on a Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
boot CD
Live CD
A live CD, live DVD, or live disc is a CD or DVD containing a bootable computer operating system. Live CDs are unique in that they have the ability to run a complete, modern operating system on a computer lacking mutable secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive...
can be used to copy file system
File system
A file system is a means to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device which contain it. A file system organizes data in an efficient manner and is tuned to the...
s between disk images and disk partitions
Disk partitioning
Disk partitioning is the act of dividing a hard disk drive into multiple logical storage units referred to as partitions, to treat one physical disk drive as if it were multiple disks. Partitions are also termed "slices" for operating systems based on BSD, Solaris or GNU Hurd...
to effect a bare-metal backup and recovery. These disk images can then be used as input to a new partition of the same type but equal or larger size, or alternatively a variety of virtualization
Hardware virtualization
Computer hardware virtualization is the virtualization of computers or operating systems. It hides the physical characteristics of a computing platform from users, instead showing another abstract computing platform...
technologies as they often represent a more accessible but less efficient representation of the data on the original partition.
Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
introduced a new backup utility (Wbadmin
Wbadmin
WBAdmin is a command-line utility built into Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. The command is used to perform backups and restores of operating systems, drive volumes, files, folders, and applications from a command-line interface.WBAdmin replaces the...
) into Windows Server 2008 family of operating system in 2008 which has built-in support for bare-metal recovery. Users of this software can also recover their system to a Hyper-V
Hyper-V
Microsoft Hyper-V, codenamed Viridian and formerly known as Windows Server Virtualization, is a hypervisor-based virtualization system for x86-64 systems. A beta version of Hyper-V was shipped with certain x86-64 editions of Windows Server 2008, and the finalized version was released on June 26,...
virtual machine.
CBMR, developed by Cristie Software, is a backup utility that is capable of bare-metal recovery and dissimilar hardware recovery available on Windows, Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, AIX, HP-UX
HP-UX
HP-UX is Hewlett-Packard's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on UNIX System V and first released in 1984...
and Oracle Solaris.
Comparison with other data backup and restoration techniques
- Bare-metal restore differs from local disk image restore where a copy of the disk image, and the restoration software, are stored on the computer that is backed up.
- Bare-metal restore differs from simple data backups where application data, but neither the applications nor the operating system are backed up or restored as a unit.
See also
- EVault System Restore
- CommVault 1-Touch
- ShadowProtectShadowProtectShadowProtect is a backup and system-restore program. It allows bare-metal restores to be performed, even remotely using VNC technology. It was reviewed in PC Magazine and Windows IT Pro....
- R1Soft Continuous Data Protection
- Symantec System Recovery
- CBMR
- Acronis True ImageAcronis True ImageAcronis True Image is disk imaging software, developed by Acronis, that creates backups and recovers PC systems. The software allows a user to create an image of a disk while it is running Microsoft Windows or offline by booting from CD/DVD, USB flash drives, PXE, or other bootable media...
- ClonezillaClonezillaClonezilla is a free disaster recovery, disk cloning, disk imaging and deployment solution. Clonezilla is designed by Steven Shiau and developed by the NCHC Free Software Labs in Taiwan...
- Mandriva Pulse2
- PartimagePartimagePartimage is a disk cloning utility for Linux/UNIX environments. Partimage can save partitions in many formats to a disk image. Utilities such as Partimage are useful in a number of situations which are commonly encountered by network administrators as well as advanced computer users who maintain...
- Comparison of disk cloning software
- UltraBac
- Redo Backup and RecoveryRedo Backup and RecoveryRedo Backup and Recovery is free backup and disaster recovery software. It is a bootable Linux CD image that starts up a nice GUI for running bare-metal backup and recovery on disk partitions...