{"id":5431,"date":"2020-03-03T15:53:20","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T15:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.n-able.com\/?p=5431"},"modified":"2025-05-08T10:26:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T09:26:03","slug":"backup-monitoring-part-1-manage-exception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.n-able.com\/es\/blog\/backup-monitoring-part-1-manage-exception","title":{"rendered":"Backup Monitoring: Part 1\u2014Manage by Exception"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog has been updated, please visit the updated blog Backup Monitoring: Part 1 \u2013 Manage by Exception (2025 Update)<\/a><\/i><\/span><\/h2>\n

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From a very young age we are conditioned to the duality of things like pass\/fail, stop\/go, red\/green, and on\/off with little room in between. When it comes to monitoring backups, that pass\/fail approach may seem ideal if you have just a single screenful of devices under management. However, once you\u2019ve grown to hundreds, or even thousands, of devices the accuracy of a pass\/fail\u00a0<\/i>result can be a bit ambiguous.<\/p>\n

The reality is there are many more factors worth considering before you simply declare a backup job a success or flag it as a failure to be logged into a ticketing system. Assign too broad a definition of success and you risk overlooking devices that have real issues, while too narrow a definition allows for the potential to lose critical issues among a sea of informational ones.<\/p>\n

This is the first blog in a multi-part blog series focused on how to define and implement effective monitoring of the gray areas between pass and fail with\u00a0SolarWinds\u00ae<\/sup>\u00a0Backup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All devices<\/h3>\n

Seeing all your configured backup devices is the default\u00a0dashboard view<\/a>\u00a0when you initially launch SolarWinds Backup. You can click the column headers to sort by \u201cCustomer,\u201d \u201cBackup status,\u201d \u201cErrors,\u201d etc., and you can also change the number and density of devices viewed on the screen. However, when you get to more than a single screen of devices, monitoring your success at a glance becomes problematic. One option is to click the \u201cExport\u201d button and review the device statistics offline in Microsoft Excel, but you really need to start to consider how you will identify and manage devices by exception.<\/p>\n

Unsuccessful backups<\/h3>\n

Expanding dashboards from the left\u00a0vertical menu<\/a>\u00a0presents a set of predefined\u00a0dashboard views<\/a>. To display only unsuccessful backups, you would specifically select the second dashboard view entry, \u201cUnsuccessful backups,\u201d to filter out systems that last report as \u201cNo backup,\u201d \u201cIn process,\u201d \u201cCompleted,\u201d or \u201cCompleted with errors.\u201d Each of these predefined views adds specific columns and filters to the dashboard to display a unique set of statistics to identify unsuccessful or outdated backups, cloud or physical assets, devices leveraging disaster recovery, or other advanced features.<\/p>\n

Unsuccessful backups and completed with errors<\/h3>\n

Since we do not have a predefined view that includes \u201cUnsuccessful backups\u201d and \u201cCompleted with errors,\u201d we will simply edit the existing filter set by the prior discussed \u201cUnsuccessful backups\u201d view. Look below the\u00a0Toolbar<\/a>\u00a0for the \u201cSelect from Backup status\u201d filter, click the drop-down arrow, and check criteria \u201cCompleted with errors.\u201d While the \u201cUnsuccessful backups\u201d view included multiple status filters that you may typically consider unsuccessful\u2014such as \u201cFailed,\u201d \u201cAborted,\u201d \u201cInterrupted,\u201d \u201cNot started,\u201d etc.\u2014it did not include \u201cCompleted with errors\u201d since the actual number or type of error might easily shift it back and forth between what would pass for a \u201cCompleted\u201d or \u201cFailed\u201d status.<\/p>\n

Unsuccessful backups more than 48 hours ago on server operating systems<\/h3>\n

Assuming server protection is more important to you than workstations, you can quickly view systems that have been unsuccessful over 48 hours by using the three interactive\u00a0doughnut widgets<\/a>\u00a0located at the top of the console. Viewed from left to right they provide visibility into your managed assets, last protection status, and current compliance status. Start with the \u201cAll devices\u201d view and then just click the widget colors to filter \u201cServers, Unsuccessful and More than 48 hours ago.\u201d This gives you immediate access to a condensed list of systems that are likely worthy of further review.<\/p>\n

Unsuccessful backups more than 48 hours ago on server operating systems with Microsoft SQL<\/p>\n

Maybe this is still too many devices to interact with or assign to a technician to resolve. If this is the case, one approach is to use additional filters to further divide the devices by \u201cActive data sources\u201d for example systems with Microsoft SQL configured. This can be done easily by clicking the \u201cSelect filter\u201d drop down and checking \u201cActive data sources\u201d and then selecting \u201cMS SQL VSS\u201d or other data sources. There are well over 300 filters and columns available to choose from when drilling deeper into device statistics.<\/p>\n

Customizing and saving views<\/h3>\n

Building even more elaborate views and filters is possible and they can be\u00a0saved<\/a>\u00a0for later use. As an example, we can build upon the prior view and use the steps above to customize it to include devices that \u201cCompleted with errors.\u201d Then you can use the \u201cColumns\u201d button to replace \u201cOS type\u201d with \u201cOS version.\u201d Next, scroll your columns to the right and drag \u201cOS version\u201d to the left of column \u201cData sources.\u201d Now you will want to click \u201cSave view\u201d and name this view prior to clicking \u201cSave as new.\u201d Finally, go ahead and check\u2014your new view should be visible in the drop-down lists, on the left side \u201cDashboard views<\/a>\u201d and right side \u201cSave views<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Daily notification of unsuccessful backups<\/h3>\n

Assuming you want to be notified periodically with a list of devices that meet your saved view criteria for an \u201cUnsuccessful backup,\u201d then emailed views are the way to go. Start by clicking the \u201cSave view\u201d drop-down and selecting \u201cEmail view.\u201d Now \u201cAdd schedule,\u201d select or add email recipients, select the appropriate dashboard view, set a schedule and \u201cSave\u201d or click \u201cSend it now\u201d to get a live sample in your inbox.<\/p>\n

Advanced search<\/h3>\n

All the search filters discussed in this post use the filter \u201cNormal search\u201d mode. These interactive filters are displayed just below the doughnut widgets and give a tremendous amount of customization to your dashboard views. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to managing backup by exception because filters also include an \u201cAdvanced search\u201d query language that lets you build even more specific filters based on statistics like date, time, duration, size, error count, etc. This makes it possible to look at things like performance, usage, deduplication ratios, and under protected devices.<\/p>\n

Defining and constructing these advanced filters will be the focus of several of the next blog posts.<\/p>\n

Eric Harless is the head backup nerd at\u00a0SolarWinds MSP<\/a>. Eric has worked with SolarWinds Backup since 2013 and has over 25+ years of data protection industry experience in sales, support, marketing, systems engineering and product management.<\/em><\/p>\n

You can follow Eric on Twitter\u00a0at\u00a0@backup_nerd<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Other blogs in this series<\/strong><\/p>\n