Backups are changing.  As the volume of data grows, we need to find smarter ways to cope.  All this data is straining the speed and capacity of event the latest tape drives.   The new trend that we'vce been talking about for some time now is backing up to disk, then copying off to tape.  The tape still gives you the security of a complete offsite of your valuable business data, while the disk gives you quick access to restore indiivdual files.  In many cases, users can 'self-service' their own file restores reducing support costs, while the backups themselves are often able to run incremental updates throughout the day, reducing the risk of losing a day's processing.  There are significant revolutionary changes for SME business IT, giving greater power and flexibility to make business smarter and more productive.

So in the face of all this change, Kinetics sent Team Leader Rhys Kerrigan along to the recent Symantec product launch to check it out.

Symantec have recently launched new versions of two of their backup products - Backup Exec 12.5 and Backup Exec System Recovery (BESR) 8.5.

Like most backup vendors (including Microsoft) Symantec are saying that tape backups, although still necessary, are no longer enough on their own. Data is growing by on average 50 percent per year and the prevalence of virtualisation is increasing the complexity and size of backups. To reduce the time to recover from a system failure and to allow easier recovery of individual files and messages, Symantec recommend a combination of disk and tape backups. To this end they are recommending two products; Backup Exec for daily backups of all your servers and applications to tape and disk, and Backup Exec System Recovery (BESR) if you want quick “bare metal recovery” from a failure.

Backup Exec 12.5

Backup Exec 12.5's new features are predominantly around support for new products and enhancements on existing features. The following new products are now supported:

·         Microsoft SBS 2008

·         Microsoft EBS 2008

·         Microsoft SQL 2008

·         Microsoft Hyper-V

·         Oracle 11g

·         Lotus Domino 8 64-bit

The main enhancement in Backup Exec 12.5 is around virtualisation. Whereas previously we had to purchase and install backup agents on all guest virtual machines, we can now purchase one Backup Exec VM Agent per host (both VMWare and Microsoft VS 2005 and Hyper-V are supported). This allows both full and granular backups and restores of all the guests on that host without needing to install an OS agent on them. This will not only reduce software costs but also reduce the backup window.

Backup Exec System Recovery (BESR) 8.5

Backup Exec System Recovery gives you the ability to maintain multiple recovery points of servers and desktops onto disk. The images it creates are hardware independent meaning you can restore a BESR image onto a new server with new hardware with no problems. The new version (8.5) again now supports the new Windows Server 2008 products and adds two main new features. The first allows you to schedule the conversion of a BESR image to a virtual disk - this means you can easily turn your backups into a virtal machine that can be ready to switch on in the event of a server failure. The second new feature allows you to back up a server that won't boot by using the BESR recovery CD. This feature will allow you to recover data off a non-bootable system before reinstalling it. No use if you have a hardware failure however!

Licensing

Summary

So some new features in the new versions, mostly around virtualisation and support for the new Microsoft products. If you have a current Backup Exec maintenance you should be receiving your free upgrade by email or snail mail in the next two weeks. We recommend registering the new license and documenting the new product keys even if the new features do not apply to your environment at the moment.