Backup/Restore
The Backup/Restore and Template tabs allow you to do the following:
- Configure and initiate system backups and restore operations. To prepare for possible hardware failures, Manufacturing Connect Edge provides a disaster recovery plan to support device replacement.
- Create detailed, granular backup templates and exchange these templates between edge devices as JSON files.
Important:
- Backup/restore operations are not intended for replication of configurations. These operations will fail when attempted.
- 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.
Manufacturing Connect Edge offers a backup option which consists of generating a backup file with a list of configuration settings that can be applied to the same device or a new device.
You can use Backup and Restore in the following ways:
- From the Manufacturing Connect Edge UI
- From Manufacturing Connect
An alternative non-Manufacturing Connect Edge backup option is also available, see Image Backup for more details.
The following use cases are supported:
- Set up a newly installed Manufacturing Connect Edge device with a different device’s configuration.
- User deleted or overwrote a portion of the configuration and wants to reset to a last-known good configuration.
- Device hardware fails and the device must be replaced with another one. See Replace a Damaged Device.
The Template tab allows you to select configurations available for the Manufacturing Connect Edge device and download them to a JSON file, thereby creating an edge device configuration template, which can be used for replication of Manufacturing Connect Edge configurations.
To review what configurations are included in a template file, see Manage Templates.
You can create multiple versions of edge device configuration files. You can then upload the template file to another edge device. A successful upload applies the configuration to that device.
You can also apply templates to Manufacturing Connect Edge using Manufacturing Connect, potentially changing the configurations for hundreds of edge devices.
For more information about templates, see Templates.
Upon a backup operation, Manufacturing Connect Edge create a snapshot of a predetermined list of configuration settings (specified in Backup File Contents and File Management) and stores it into a .DAT file.
Upon a restore operation, the Manufacturing Connect Edge is temporarily set into a blank state. Then it retrieves all the configuration settings stored in the .DAT file and applies all the settings into the Manufacturing Connect Edge instance appropriately. The Manufacturing Connect Edge instance is then automatically rebooted.
| Backup and Restore | Download/Upload Template |
|---|---|---|
Purpose | Restore a hardware-damaged Manufacturing Connect Edge Device | Clone a Manufacturing Connect Edge Device to other devices |
Customizability | Cannot be customized and contains a predetermined list of configuration settings. | Can be customized to contain a list of selectable configuration settings. |
Files Generated/Used | .DAT file | .json file |
Operation | Replicate and overwrite the Manufacturing Connect Edge device's system state from the backup (.DAT) file | Append (and not overwrite) its configurations settings to the Manufacturing Connect Edge device. |