Getting Started with EMC Atmos Backup

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emc-logo1EMC Atmos is used in many places now. It is used by well know service providers such as AT&T Synaptic Storage or Peer 1 CloudOne. As we learned from our customers recently, it can also be used by private enterprise to backup data from employee’s local C drive.
The scenario is simple, there are many employees that need to do backup from their desktops. EMC Atmos becomes the center piece where the backup data goes to. Since it is cloud storage software-capable, it can be used from both inside the company and also from over the Internet.
Who doesn’t want an easy backup solution like that, where the IT Admin of the company has full control of the data and all the backup data is contained in one Atmos instance?
This article documents an easy setup of using Gladinet Cloud Desktop as the desktop backup solution connecting into the on-site EMC Atmos Storage.

Step 1 – Identify the Access Point

Every EMC Atmos Storage setup requires an access point. The access point is the API (Application Programming Interface) end point where software programs talk to Atmos.
In production environment, most of the Access Point takes the form of SSL. For example, AT&T Synaptic Storages’ Access Point is https://storage.synaptic.att.com/rest
However, during setup, typically the Atmos admin will start with HTTP and an IP address such as http://123.234.56.78/rest or with a DNS name such as http://atmos.mycompany.com/rest
Since the /rest part is common to all the EMC Atmos setup, we will usually omit that part from the access point. so AT&T’s end point is https://storage.synaptic.att.com/ . If you are using HTTP, usually we will just refer to the end point as 123.234.56.78 (IP address) or atmos.mycompany.com (DNS name)

Step 2 – Understand the Atmos Credentials

Before we introduce the credentials in Atoms, let’s review credentials in Windows. In windows, a user belong to a domain, with his own password. So a user’s full windows id is in the form of domain/user. For example, if the domain is engineering and the username is john, the windows id for john is engineering/john.
Atmos is similar.
In Atmos, subtenant is equivalent to a domain in Windows. A UID in Atmos is similar to a username. So in Atmos, a full token id is in the form of subtenant_id/uid. Sometimes, the uid is referred to as application id. Your Atmos Id could look similar to this:
   23586a8853ed42afb8d84f4f50678ef3f/john
       

Step 3 – Setup Gladinet Cloud Desktop with EMC Atmos Storage

Working with many Atmos customers, it seems that we spent the most time explaining the new concept of access point and the full token id. Once that is over, the rest is pretty straight forward.
First during the mounting wizard, you will need to pick EMC Atmos Storage.
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Second, in the credential page, if your Access Point is HTTPS, you will type the full DNS name with the protocol, such as https://storage.synaptic.att.com/
If your Access Point is HTTP, you will type in just the IP Address or DNS name, for example, you will type atmos.mycompany.com or 123.234.56.78, where you found the DNS name or the IP address for your atmos access point.
You can use curl to test the end point. For example, if curl command like below has good response back, you have the right access point.
curl -i -X GET -H "x-emc-date:`date`" -H "x-emc-signature:<valid-sig>" -H "x-emc-uid:23586a8853ed42afb8d84f4f50678ef3f/john" http://123.234.56.78/rest/objects?listabletags
In the full token id, you will put in the id that your atmos Admin gives you. If you are using the curl command, the Full Token Id is the string after x-emc-uid.
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Step 4 – Different Ways to Backup

In Gladinet Cloud Desktop, there are 4 different ways you can do backup.
4.a – A virtual drive. You will find a drive letter in Windows Explorer. You can use the drive to drag and drop files into your Atmos account. You can backup randomly of your local data, just as if you are using an external drive for backup.
4.b – Mirror Backup. You can setup mirror backup to mirror a local folder into your Atmos account. The specified local folder will be monitored and changes will be mirrored into Atmos.
4.c – PC-2-PC Sync. You will find cloud sync folder useful for backup purpose. Not only does it backup data into Atmos. it backup data in such a way that it allows you to have multiple PCs sync the folder to each other, all over your Atmos account.
4.d – Snapshot Backup. Snapshot backup is a specialized backup in that it works hand-in-hand with the Volume Shadow Copy Service. Not only can it backup folder, it can also backup SQL Server database or any service that leverage the volume shadow copy service.

Step 5 – Need More?

After all, Gladinet Cloud Desktop is a desktop application that bridge the gap between your Windows experience and your Atmos account.
If you need more, Gladinet Cloud Server can provide a local CIFS server interface to Atmos. we will cover that in later posts.
Gladinet Cloud for Teams is another product that works with Cloud Storage. We will cover that in later posts as well.

Related Posts

Backup SQL Server Online to EMC Atmos
Use EMC Atmos for File Synchronization
EMC Atmos Desktop Integration

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