Getting off to a quick start

To start using IBM Spectrum® Protect Plus, you must define resources that you want to protect and create service level agreement (SLA) policies, also known as backup policies, for those resources. This getting started section provides these and other steps required to set up and start using IBM Spectrum Protect Plus to back up data. Other tasks such as copying and restoring data are discussed in detail in other areas of the documentation.

Ensure that you followed the instructions in the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Blueprints to determine how to size, build, and place the components in your IBM Spectrum Protect Plus environment and that the tasks listed in the Deployment storyboard for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are complete.

As shown in the following table, the initial installation and configuration tasks are completed by the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus infrastructure administrator. By default, the admin user account is created for use by the infrastructure administrator to start the application for the first time.

Then, resource backup and restore tasks are completed by the application administrator. However, a single administrator might be responsible for all tasks in your environment.

Action	Owner	Description
Start IBM Spectrum Protect Plus	Infrastructure administrator and application administrator	The infrastructure administrator starts the application for the first time by using the default `admin` user account with the password `password`. The administrator is prompted to reset the username and password for this account. The administrator cannot reset the user name to `admin`, `root`, or `test`. After the initial startup, the application administrator can start the application by using this user account, which is referred to as the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus superuser account, or another account that the infrastructure administrator creates.
Manage sites	Infrastructure administrator	A site is used to group vSnap servers based on a physical or logical location to help quickly identify and interact with backup data. A site is assigned to a vSnap server when the server is added to IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. The default sites are named Primary and Secondary, but a custom site can also be created.
Create backup policies	Infrastructure administrator	Backup policies define the parameters that are applied to backup jobs. These parameters include the frequency and retention of backups and the options to replicate data from one vSnap server to another and to copy backup data to secondary backup storage for longer-term protection. Backup policies also define the target site to for backing up data. A site can contain one or more vSnap servers. Backup policies are called SLA policies in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.
Create a user account for the application administrator	Infrastructure administrator	User accounts determine the resources and functions that are available to the user.
Add resources to protect	Application administrator	Resources are entities that you want to protect. After a resource is registered, an inventory of the resource is captured and added to the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus inventory.
Add resources to a job definition	Application administrator	Job definitions associate the resources that you want to protect with one or more SLA policies. The options and schedules that are defined in the SLA policies are used for backup jobs for the resources.
Back up the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus catalog	Application administrator	The catalog consists of data such as application configuration settings, SLA policies, backup storage settings, and information about registered resources, restore points, and jobs.
Start a backup job	Application administrator	Backup jobs are started as defined in the SLA policy that is associated with the job definition. You can also manually start a job.
Run a report	Application administrator	IBM Spectrum Protect Plus provides predefined reports that you can run with default parameters or modify to create custom reports.