Inheritance of policies

Policy inheritance can be easily understood if we assume that a machine can be a member of only one group besides the All machines group. Let’s start from this simplified approach.

In the diagram below, the container stands for a group; the two-color circle stands for a machine with two applied policies; the three-color circle stands for a machine with three applied policies and so on.

Acronis Backup & Recovery 2790 Inheritance of policies

Besides the All machines group, we have the custom G1 group in the root and the custom G2 group, which is G1′s child.

The “green” policy, applied to the All machines group, is inherited by all machines.

The “orange” policy, applied to G1, is inherited by the G1 members and all its child groups, both immediate and indirect.

The “blue” policy, applied to G2, is inherited only by the G2 members since G2 does not have child groups.

The “violet” policy is applied straight to machine #4. It will exist on machine #4 irrespectively of this machine’s membership in any group.

Let’s assume we create the G3 group in the root. If no policies are applied to the group, all its members are supposed to be “green”. But if we add, say, the #1 machine to G3, the machine will bear both “orange” and “green” policies, in spite of the fact that G3 has nothing to do with the “orange” policy.

That’s why it is difficult to track the policies’ inheritance from the top of the hierarchy if the same machine is included in multiple groups.

In real life, it’s much easier to view the inheritance from the machine’s side. To do so, navigate to any group that contains the machine, select the machine and then select the Backup policies tab on the Information pane. The Inheritance column shows whether a policy is inherited or applied directly to the machine. Click Explore inheritance to view the inheritance order of the policy. In our example, the policy names, the Inheritance column and the inheritance order will be as follows:

For machine

Name of the policy

Inheritance

Inheritance order

#1 or #2 or #3

“green”

“orange”

Inherited

Inherited

All machines -> #1 or #2 or #3

G1 -> #1 or #2 or #3

#4

“green”

“orange”

“blue”

“violet”

Inherited

Inherited

Inherited

Applied directly

All machines -> #4

G1 -> G2 -> #4

G2 -> #4

 

#5 or #6

“green”

“orange”

“blue”

Inherited

Inherited

Inherited

All machines -> #5 or #6

G1 -> G2 -> #5 or #6

G2 -> #5 or #6

Inheritance of policies