One aspect of the Check Point SecurePlatform OS that I struggle to get my head around is backups. There are a few different options, and during the course of researching an upgrade I came across the best explanation I’ve seen yet. I’ve decided to grab a copy of the relevant text and post it in my blog for future reference here.
Oversimplified Executive Summary
- upgrade_export contains just Check Point configuration
- A backup is an upgrade_export plus SPLAT OS configuration
- A snapshot is a backup plus binary files, both Check Point and SPLAT OS
- As a general rule of thumb, if your restoring on the same hardware a snapshot would be the easiest to use since it contains the most info and an upgrade_export would be the worst, since you’d have to manually restore the most stuff.
