Prepare for Backup
Review the following information to prepare for restoring a backup.
Important: If you create a backup on an instance of Manufacturing Connect Edge running on a virtual machine, you can't use the same backup to restore an instance of Manufacturing Connect Edge running on a physical device.
Make sure you do the following before restoring a backup.
- Obtain a license for backup and restore. A new license is needed each time the Manufacturing Connect Edge device changes its MAC address.
Tip: Request a License Key
Contact your Manufacturing Connect Edge representative to request a license key.
Once an additional license key has been received, go to System > License to enter the license key and activate the license. See Upgrade a License or Upgrade a License Offline.
Your organization's standards and requirements dictate the frequency of device backups.
Some virtual machines (such as VMware ESXI or MS HyperV) offer snapshots as a disaster recovery feature. Therefore, for these virtually deployed Manufacturing Connect Edge instances, configuration backups should not be used as the primary means of disaster recovery.
A snapshot is the state of a virtual machine at a specific point in time. In addition to being able to save a Manufacturing Connect Edge’s state like a configuration backup can, snapshots also preserve the virtual device’s memory and disc allocation.
For these virtual machines, configuration backups can be used instead to reset the configuration of a virtual device or to duplicate the setup of one device to many other virtual devices.