Create and manage policies

A policy configures the behavior of the end-user client, for example a policy determines which content to back up, the backup frequency, bandwidth management, and so on. OpenText Core Endpoint Backup supports two main types of policies:

• Centrally-managed policy—With a centrally-managed policy, the OpenText Core Endpoint Backup administrator configures the policy definitions.
• Self-managed policy—With a self-managed policy, end-users configure the policy definitions.

You can implement multiple policy types to meet the needs of different users or groups of users in your organization. A starter policy is included (with common default settings) for you to use or customize as needed.

As a partner, it is your responsibility to configure the base policy that your companies will use as their starter policy. If desired, you can hide some of the options so that the company administrator cannot modify them.

You can add additional policies at the partner level, however, company administrators will not be able to add policies based on your additional, non-base policies on their own. They can only add policies based on the base, starter policy. If you want to add a company level policy based on a non-base partner level policy, you must add the policy for the company administrator.

 

The company administrator will be reviewing the following key questions and situations to help determine the type of policy to use. You should keep these items in mind when configuring the base policy that your companies will use as their starter policy.

• What is the size of your user-base? If you have a smaller number of end-users, you may want to use self-managed policies. If you have many end-users, you may be better off using centrally-managed policies.
• Where are your users located? If your users are geographically dispersed, each with their own bandwidth, you may not have bandwidth concerns for backing up files. If your users are all in the same location, you may need to have bandwidth policies in place to protect the available bandwidth.
• Who needs to define what should be backed up? If you are comfortable with users deciding what files to back up, you can use self-managed policies. If you must retain control over the files that are backed up, you will need to use centrally-managed policies.
• Does it matter if users know the software is there? If you want to hide the software, you must use centrally-managed policies (and remote deployment).
• Do you have separate groups that have different backup needs? For example, if one office location or department needs to have different protected files than another office location or department, you may want to have different centrally-managed policies for the groups or a combination of centrally-managed and self-managed policies. You should also consider if you have different groups of employees, such as executives, that have different legal needs. In that case, you may need different centrally-managed policies or a combination of centrally-managed and self-managed policies.
• Do you have a dedicated IT staff to administer the centrally-managed policies? If not, you may want to use self-managed policies.

For more information about working with partner policies, see:

• View available policies
• Create a policy
• Edit an existing policy
• Delete a policy

For more information about:

• Policy settings, see General policy settings, Protected Files policy settings, Device Settings, Retention and Storage policy settings and Bandwidth Management settings.

• Files, folders, and files without an extension that are excluded from the backup, see Default exclusions.

• Company policies, see the Administrator Guide. The Administrator Guide can be found at https://support.carbonite.com/guides/Endpoint/Admin/EndpointAdminGuide.htm.