Creating an image in 4 steps

1. Creating components

Start the UserClient.
Create a component of the Image Service component type in the PC Images folder and check it in without a base version.

2. Configuring Image Service jobs

Create a job with the Image service upload type.
Go to the Upload and compare section.
In the Number of backups retained (rollover) field, enter the number of images that are retained. Once the number ob backed up images is reached, the new image overwrites the oldest one.
From the Compare policy dropdown menu, select Previous backup <-> Backup. This option compares the device information with that of the previous job execution.
Go to the Image Service settings section.
In the Device field, enter the computer name or IP address of the device to be backed up. To create an image of the computer running the job, enter localhost.
In the Username and Password fields, enter the credentials for the device. You can format the user name as {domain}\{user name} or {computer name}\{user name}. Administrative rights are required to access the device.
Optional: Enter a value in the Device alias field. This value will be added as a prefix to the device name of the saved image. The Device alias value is useful when images are created automatically on multiple computers using Upload and Compare agents installed directly on each target system. Without a Device alias value, all images will be saved under localhost, making them hard to distinguish.
From the Operating system dropdown menu, select whether the device is a Windows workstation or a server.
From the What to save dropdown menu, select which drives to back up. Clicking into the Selected drives field triggers remote installation of the Image Service to detect the actual hard disks and partitions. This option tests whether the remote installation works. If a new version of the Image Service is available and remote installation is possible, it will be updated automatically during job execution.
Alternatively, the update can also be performed manually using the web installer.
To enable image versioning, select Server archive from the Data transfer route dropdown menu. If you select the default value Device -> Storage, the image is saved to a configured storage location, which does not support versioning in octoplant.
Go to the Storage section.
From the Storage type dropdown menu, select whether to use a network directory (UNC path) or an SFTP server.
Specify the Storage location according to the selected storage type.
1. For UNC, enter the UNC path to the directory. Format: \\server name\share name\path
2. For SFTP, enter the IP address and the corresponding directory in the format sftp://server:port/path/....
Enter the Username and Password for the selected storage location. The specified user must have read and write permissions. Format the username as {domain}\{user name} or {computer name}\{user name}.
Go to the Additional information section.
1. In the Excluded files field, enter the paths of any files to exclude them from the image creation.
  
  Rules:
  - Files and directories are specified comma-separated.
  - The specifications \temp and \temp\* are equivalent.
  - Spaces in the file name must be enclosed by " apostrophe.
  - Subdirectories are always included.
  Files smaller than 4 kb are saved directly in the directory structure and cannot be excluded.
  
  After a restoration, the backed up files will still exits, but contain random data. It is advisable to run the SnapshotDeleteAfterRestore.BAT file after restoring the image to delete all the existing files.
2. An admin share is required for remote installation to access drives on the target device. The default is the C$ share. For devices without a C$, such as KUKA KRC, enter the desired share name in the Admin share field.
3. In the Limit IO rate field, specify the maximum data transfer rate in MB/s, to avoid overloading the network. The default value is 0, meaning no limit.
4. If you enter a password in the Image password field, the image file (SNA file) will be encrypted. The password is not visible in the log.

3. Executing jobs

Execute the job in the AdminClient or UserClient as desired.
The generated image is stored in the configured directory in the following directory structure: {StorageLocation}\{device name}\{jjjj-mm-tt_hh-MM-ss}. A new directory {jjjj-mm-tt_hh-MM-ss} is created in the directory {device name} for each job run and image. If a device alias is used, this is written before the device name in the directory name. The image directory contains the following files:
- HSH file: changes to the previous image
- SNA file: the actual image that can be restored
- snapshot.log: job log from Drive Snapshot

Info

In the job results, the comparison is done with the current device data and the previous backup, and not using the images created.

4. Accessing the image

To be able to access all elements of the created image and to be able to perform a restore with it, you must copy the job result in the UserClient as a backup into a directory.

Start the UserClient.
In the Project tree, select the component that you used to create the image.
In the Component details area, activate the Jobs tab.
Right-click on the job result of the job that you want to restore.
In the context menu, select the Copy backup to directory entry.
In the Copy backup to directory dialog, select the destination directory to copy the image.
Select Next. The image is copied to the selected directory.

During this process, the following elements are also made available in the target directory:

snapshot.exe: application for restoring the image
imagename.txt: name of the directory created
software_info: a list of the software installed on the backed up computer

The directory contains everything you need for a recovery.

You can also access the data directly using the Explorer, but in this case the additional elements will not be created.

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