Automatic imaging of PC and IPC drives and straightforward restoration
If a faulty PC or IPC causes a stoppage, you need to act quickly. Each minute of downtime can cost thousands. Disk imaging can be used as a fast recovery strategy, but only if you always have up-to-date disk images AND the ability to locate and restore them quickly. The AUVESY Image Service gives you both of these things, but the benefits don't stop there.
AUVESY Image Service
The AUVESY Image Service can be installed manually on individual PCs, or on multiple PCs using a software distribution tool. In addition to creating images (using DriveSnapshot technology) the service also provides you with useful information about the PCs being imaged, including the condition and remaining capacity of their drives. This information can be used for preventative maintenance, further increasing efficiency.
Using the service to ensure there is always an up-to-date image available is very straightforward. Simply create a job in versiondog and set it to automatically create an image at whatever interval you choose. You also specify the storage location.
Hardware changes to computers that are being regularly imaged will be detected. This triggers a warning that any images taken prior to the changes might now be incompatible and no longer usable.
"There's a big bonus that comes with the Image Service. Besides images, you also get a lot of other useful data about the PCs you are imaging. It'll tell you things like the remaining disk capacity, and it'll detect bad sectors. And more. This is a great source of information for preventative maintenance. You can set versiondog to send warnings to maintenance personnel the moment issues are found. If there are bad sectors on a disk that's being automatically imaged, for example, you need to know that at the point of imaging and not find out later when you try to restore the image. But more than that, it's a useful extra benefit to have this kind of information for general maintenance."
Jochen Lang, Project Manager AUVESY GmbH
Automatic imaging and preventative maintenance
Once your imaging jobs have been set up, they can be left to run automatically. But the AUVESY Image Service doesn't stop there. It continually double-checks that the images being created are usable, and that they will be available and quickly restorable if needed. A lot of information is gathered. As Jochen Lang, Project Manager at AUVESY, puts it: "There's a big bonus that comes with the Image Service. Besides images, you also get a lot of other useful data about the PCs you are imaging. It'll tell you things like the remaining disk capacity, and it'll detect bad sectors. And more. This is a great source of information for preventative maintenance. You can set versiondog to send warnings to maintenance personnel the moment issues are found. If there are bad sectors on a disk that's being automatically imaged, for example, you need to know that at the point of imaging and not find out later when you try to restore the image. But more than that, it's a useful extra benefit to have this kind of information for general maintenance."
Coming in versiondog 8.5
Further development of the Image Service for versiondog 8.5 is already well underway. New features are set to include data transfer via FTP, as an alternative to shared folders in Windows, and an option to specify differential images, as a less data-intensive alternative.
The need to keep production running at full efficiency is making preventative maintenance more and more of a hot topic. It has become important to take advantage of every opportunity to gather data that can be used for preventative maintenance. Creating backups is just such an opportunity. That's why it's one of the areas to which we're paying a lot of attention for the next version. We're looking at active monitoring of bios batteries, disk condition and capacities of the drives being imaged, as well as detecting bad sectors and changes to hardware configuration, etc.
Software versions are also going to be monitored for differences, and the results made available in a clear and easily comprehensible list view. And there are plenty of other useful solutions on the way, such as a mobile Image Client to provide support for other operating systems besides Windows.
Quickly backup disk images
Automotive supplier uses versiondog as a central tool for their maintenance. The following case study is taken from a production facility of an automotive supplier that recently was recognized for its predictive maintenance by the state of Baden-Württemberg. The company uses the data management system versiondog.
The benefits of a highly integrated production facility include short distances, concentrated expertise, and integrated structures. It doesn't matter whether we are talking about an automotive supplier, a producer of consumer products, or a broad-based, medium-sized company. All companies are united by the pressure to have a tightly integrated supply and order chain. In order to meet the demands that come with this, companies are restructuring their production facilities, so that maintenance is given top priority. Two important aspects of this include preventative maintenance and reduction of planned and unplanned downtime.
AUVESY Image Service is licensed per job in versiondog.
To backup a Windows workstation, you need a license. To backup a Windows server, you need three licenses. The distinction is made in Job configuration via the drop-down menu Operating system.
No third-party licenses are required, the AUVESY Image Service licenses cover everything.
The license for the AUVESY Image Service includes the necessary Drive Snapshot licenses. The use of existing licenses must be clarified individually. For more information, please contact your contact person at AUVES.
Yes, you can test all functions of the Image Service using the demo.
Access to the AUVESY Image Service can be provided either by the local system (on which the demo is executed) or on other devices via the network.
Yes, you can test all functions of the Image Service using the demo.
Access to the AUVESY Image Service can be provided either by the local system (on which the demo is executed) or on other devices via the network.
Yes, this is easily done using the Drive Snapshot user interface. Once you copied the backup with versiondog to the desired directory, the directory will contain the application snapshot.exe. By selecting View contents of saved Disk Image you can mount the image as a virtual drive and access all data and copy it if necessary.
Yes, we provide a tool for creating a bootable USB stick. With this USB stick, you can also restore a PC with initialized hard disks. The documentation can be found in versiondog INFO V 8.0 onwards.
