Acronis Backup for Windows Server Essentials - User Guide - Manual (Page 215)

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are required to protect enterprise data. This goal is achieved by organizing and managing the
locations that serve as dedicated storages of the enterprise backup archives (managed vaults).
The most important function of a storage node is deduplication of backups stored in its vaults. This
means that identical data will be backed up to this vault only once. This minimizes the network usage
during backup and storage space taken by the archives.
Up to 50 storage nodes can be set up.
7.5.2 Supported types of storage
A managed vault can be organized:

On the hard drives local to the storage node

On a network share

On a Storage Area Network (SAN)

On a Network Attached Storage (NAS)

On a tape library (p. 194) locally attached to the storage node.
7.5.3 Operations performed by storage nodes
Storage nodes can perform the following operations on archives stored in managed vaults.
Cleanup and validation
Archives stored in unmanaged vaults are maintained by the agents (p. 431) that create the archives.
This means that each agent not only backs up data to the archive, but also executes service tasks that
apply to the archive the retention rules and validation rules specified by the backup plan (p. 431). To
relieve the managed machines of unnecessary CPU load, execution of the service tasks can be
delegated to the storage node. Since the task schedules exist on the machine the agent resides on,
and therefore uses that machine’s time and events, the agent has to initiate the cleanup and the
validation according to the schedule. To do so, the agent must be online. Further processing is
performed by the storage node.
This functionality cannot be disabled in a managed vault. The next two operations are optional.
Deduplication
A managed vault can be configured as a deduplicating vault. This means that identical data will be
backed up to this vault only once to minimize network usage during backup and to minimize storage
space taken by the archives. For more information, see the "Deduplication" (p. 226) section.
Encryption
A managed vault can be configured so that anything written to it is encrypted and anything read
from it is decrypted transparently by the storage node. This is done by using a vault-specific
encryption key stored on the node server. In case the storage medium is stolen or accessed by an
unauthorized person, the malefactor will not be able to decrypt the vault contents without access to
this specific storage node.
If the archive is already encrypted by the agent, the storage node applies its own encryption over the
encryption performed by the agent.