Bare metal technology is used for disaster recovery of the protected client. The following figure depicts the bare metal protection and recovery process.
Bare metal procedures vary depending on the client operating system. For some operating systems, a hot bare metal backup can run while the client is up and operational. For others, the client must be shut down so a cold bare metal backup can be run. Refer to the table below to determine the procedures used for your client. An overview of bare metal protection types is given here:
| • | Windows integrated bare metal (release 7.4 or higher) – To protect many Windows clients, you can use their file-level backups and the integrated bare metal recovery ISO images provided on the Unitrends Recovery Series or Unitrends Backup appliance. |
| • | Windows image-based bare metal – To protect Windows environments, burn a bare metal ISO image to a CD and run periodic hot bare metal backups. For disaster recovery of the Windows client, you boot from the CD, then restore the bare metal backup followed by any file-level backups (master, differential, etc.). Windows hot bare metal backups can be scheduled in the same manner as file-level backups. See the File-level Backups chapter for details. |
| • | x86 platforms bare metal – For all Intel-compatible platforms built on the x86 architecture, other than Windows and Linux, burn a bare metal ISO image to CD and run periodic cold bare metal backups by shutting down the client, booting from the CD, and selecting the bare metal backup option from the boot menu. For disaster recovery, boot from the CD, then restore the bare metal backup followed by any file-level backups (master, differential, etc.). |
| • | Non-x86 platforms and Linux – To protect non-x86 platforms and Linux environments, burn a bare metal ISO image to CD and run periodic master backups. For disaster recovery, you boot from the CD, then restore the master backup followed by any differential and/or incremental backups. |
Note: For Windows, Linux, and non-x86 platforms, hot bare metal is the recommended approach, but you can run a cold bare metal if desired. Note that for GPT-partitioned Windows and Ubuntu 12.04 systems, you must back up the entire disk as described in Performing cold bare metal backups and restores.