About the Administration Console

After you close the Getting Started with Backup Exec page, the Administration Console appears.

From the Administration Console, you can access all Backup Exec features.

The main Administration Console screen includes the following components:

Table: Getting Started page options

Item

Description

Menu bar

Backup Exec's menu bar appears across the top of your screen. To display a menu, click the menu name or use the keyboard shortcut. You can launch Backup Exec operations by clicking options from a menu. Some options may be unavailable until you select an item from the console screen. For example, you cannot select Rename from the Edit menu unless you have first selected an item to rename from either the Devices view or the Media view.

Navigation bar

The navigation bar appears under the menu bar and enables you to navigate to Backup Exec's views.

Views that can be accessed through the navigation bar include the following:

  • Backup. Use this view to create a backup job.

  • Restore. Use this view to create a restore job.

  • Media Servers. This view displays only if you have installed the Central Admin Server Option (CASO). Use this view to monitor and manage media servers in a CASO-enabled Backup Exec environment.

  • Job Setup. Use this view to perform tasks for new backup, restore, and media rotation jobs, as well as to launch some utility jobs.

  • Job Monitor. Use this view to monitor jobs and job history. Through this view, you can also access the Outlook-like job calendar and the System Summary.

  • Alerts. Use this to view and respond to alerts, view alert history, apply alert filters, and set up notification recipients to receive e-mail or pager communications when alerts occur.

  • Reports. Use this to view, print, save, and schedule reports about your media server, its operations, and its device and media usage. Also, you can use this to create a custom report. You can view a report in Backup Exec in a PDF or HTML format. You can also save and print reports in PDF, XML, HTML, Microsoft Excel (XLS), and Comma Separated Value (CSV) formats.

  • Devices. Use this view to create drive pools, cascaded drive pools, and backup-to-disk folders, and to perform device operations and access device properties pages.

  • Media. Use this view to manage your media, create media sets, and create media locations.

Task pane

The task pane displays on the left side of the Administration Console by default, but can be hidden by selecting View, and then selecting Task Pane. Through the task pane, you can initiate actions such as creating a new backup job or responding to an alert. The contents of the task pane are dynamic, changing according to the view selected from the navigation bar. Some options may be unavailable until an item is selected from the console screen or a prerequisite task is performed. For example, you cannot select Rename from the Devices task pane unless you have first selected an item that can be renamed, such as a user-created drive pool.

Selection pane

The Selection pane is where you select items to work with, such as files to back up or restore.

Results pane

The Results pane is the large pane on the right side of the screen that usually contains a list or tree view of items that correspond to items that are selected in the Selection pane. For example, if you select a Backup-to-Disk folder in the Selection pane, the Backup-to-Disk files that are contained in the folder display in the Results pane. This pane can be divided to display a preview pane.

Preview pane

The preview pane displays on the bottom right of the Administration Console. It displays information about the item selected in the list or tree view. This pane can be hidden by selecting View, and then selecting Preview Pane.

Status bar

The status bar appears on the bottom of the Administration Console and provides information about the media server, jobs running or scheduled to run on the server, alerts, and services running.

Columns

You can change the location of columns by dragging and dropping them. In addition, you can right-click a column to select the columns you would like to make visible, configure column settings, or sort the columns. You can also change the order of the entries in a column by clicking the column heading. For example, names of reports display in alphabetical order by default. To display report names in reverse alphabetical order, click the Name column heading on the Reports view.