How to set volume exclusion for the Windows replication agent

Excluding volumes from replication on the Windows agent

Task

Set a volume exclusion for the Windows replication agent.

Solution

In case there are disks on the machines that are not needed for replication, they can be excluded by setting certain parameters in the cbt.conf configuration file:

1. Stop the hwragent service in the Control Panel. 

2. Open the cbt.conf file. The cbt.conf file is located at C:\ProgramData\Hystax\acura\cbt.xml.

3. Add the following parameters indicating the required drives.

cbt.conf - example

<ExcludedVolumes> 

      <Volume>\\?\Volume{181cb6de-2fd8-4bf5-ab4f-c6cd7f5b231c}\</Volume>

</ExcludedVolumes>

Volume ID can be found by typing the vssadmin list volumes command in the windows command line.

4. Start the hwragent service in the Control Panel.

 

Behavior:

  1. In case the volume is a whole hard disk - after volume's exclusion it will be skipped during backup: snapshot of this volume won't be taken, the cloud volume of the disk isn't created.
  2. In case the volume is only a part of a hard disk - after volume's exclusion it will be skipped during backup: snapshot of this volume hasn't been taken, cloud volume of the disk is created in full size (source hard disk size = destination cloud volume size).