Export enables you to separate a specific backup from a chain of incremental backups for fast recovery, writing onto removable or detachable media or other purposes.

Example. When backing up data to a remote location through an unstable or low-bandwidth network connection (such as backing up through WAN using VPN access), you may want to save the initial full backup to a detachable media. Then, send the media to the remote location. There, the backup will be exported from the media to the target storage. Subsequent incremental backups, which are usually much smaller, can be transferred over the network.

By exporting a managed vault to a detachable media, you obtain a portable unmanaged vault that can be used in the following scenarios:

• Keeping an off-site copy of your vault or of the most important archives.
• Physical transportation of a vault to a distant branch office.
• Recovery without access to the storage node in case of networking problems or failure of the storage node.
• Recovery of the storage node itself.

Export from an HDD-based vault to a tape device can be considered as simple on-demand archive staging.

By default, the exported archive inherits the name of the original archive. Because having multiple archives of the same names in the same location is not advisable, the following actions are disabled with the default archive name:

• Exporting part of an archive to the same location.
• Exporting an archive or part of an archive to a location where an archive of the same name exists.
• Exporting an archive or part of an archive to the same location twice.

In any of the above cases, provide an archive name that is unique to the destination folder or vault. If you need to redo the export using the same archive name, first delete the archive that resulted from the previous export operation.

The exported archive inherits the options of the original archive, including encryption and the password. When exporting a password-protected archive, you are prompted for the password. If the original archive is encrypted, the password is used to encrypt the resulting archive.

When the console is connected to a managed machine, you can export an archive or part of an archive to and from any location accessible to the agent residing on the machine. These include personal vaults, locally attached tape devices, removable media and, in the advanced product versions, managed and unmanaged centralized vaults.

When the console is connected to a management server, two export methods are available:

• Export from a managed vault. The export is performed by the storage node that manages the vault. The destination can be a network share or a local folder of the storage node.
• Export from an unmanaged centralized vault. The export is performed by the agent installed on the managed machine you specify. The destination can be any location accessible to the agent, including a managed vault.

Tip. When configuring export to a deduplicating managed vault, choose a machine where the deduplication add-on to the agent is installed. Otherwise the export task will fail.

An export task starts immediately after you complete its configuration. An export task can be stopped or deleted in the same way as any other task.

Once the export task is completed, you can run it again at any time. Before doing so, delete the archive that resulted from the previous task run if the archive still exists in the destination vault. Otherwise the task will fail. You cannot edit an export task to specify another name for the destination archive (this is a limitation).

Tip. You can implement the staging scenario manually, by regularly running the archive deletion task followed by the export task.

Using the Export page is the most general way to create an export task. Here, you can export any backup, or archive you have permission to access.

You can access the Export page from the Vaults view. Right-click the object to export (archive or backup) and select Export from the context menu. The Export page will be opened with the pre-selected object as a source. All you need to do is to select a destination and (optionally) provide a name for the task.