PDI Backups and Restore

Hi,  

How can you validate that a backup of your PDI instance was created?  or how can you force a backup to be created?  

I am having problems because my instance is taken offline (for scheduled maintenance).  This has happened twice in the past week. I wait a day for the maintenance to finish but it never does.  When I release the instance and try and restore an instance from the backup, I am told no backups exist.  It requires me to completely reinstall all applications, which takes a long time.  I understand I can use update sets to capture configuration changes, but I can't use them to install applications, and this still takes time to install each application.

How can I confirm if a backup is created or force a backup?  This article does not provide any solution steps and is very limited in its description of how to utilize this feature.  

Attached an example of the offline maintenance error I am receiving.

Thanks, 

Nash Giacoma