All-Inclusive Support for Hybrid Backup

In release 5.7 we’ve decided to cover the remaining types of backup that hadn’t yet supported Hybrid Backup. Among them are: Image-based backup,Microsoft Exchange backup, Hyper-V and ESXi backup, and finally Microsoft SQL Server backup.

The case of SQL Server Backup is particularly interesting, since it eliminates a few issues that emerge when utilizing SQL Server’s proprietary backup mechanism. As you may recall, we’ve recently published an article that cautions against using multiple backup plans to back up a single database, as that may lead to unintentional data corruption. Thankfully, that has changed now, and you can perform simultaneous back up of your SQL Server to first local and then cloud storage. Do read our article that demonstrates how you can take advantage of Hybrid Backup in CloudBerry Backup 5.7.

Restoring image-based backups to Google Cloud Platform

CloudBerry Backup 5.7 comes with the option to restore image-based backups to Google Cloud Platform. The list of cloud computing services we heretofore supported featured only Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Azure VM. Now it has been expanded to include Google Cloud Platform as well. That means you can essentially deploy any of your current computers in the cloud with just a few clicks using CloudBerry backup 5.7. In this tutorial we explain how to perform the process of restoring your image-based backups as Google Cloud VM instances.

Restoring image-based backups as VMware virtual machines

CloudBerry Backup 5.7 enables you to restore your image-based backups as VMware virtual machines in just a few clicks. The process is as simple as any other restoration procedure. If you’re performing regular backups of your Hyper-V virtual machines, it’d be easy to restore them with CloudBerry Backup 5.7 in case you experience any software or hardware malfunction. Our tutorial will guide you through the process and explain the ins and outs of the Restore Wizard.

Fast NTFS scan

In CloudBerry Backup 5.7 we’ve added an option to use our own proprietary file scanning & search mechanism. In essence, our method — as opposed to Windows’s NTFS file scanning method — generates a file tree. Navigating through the said file tree is considerably faster, resulting in overall faster backups. Needless to say, performance varies depending on the type of storage device you’re using and the number of files targeted for backup.

We’ve run a series of tests to examine the performance of the new feature and collected the data in a separate post that also explains how you can enable our file scanning mechanism in the Restore Wizard.

Transaction logs backup during full backup

Previous versions of CloudBerry Backup had a critical disadvantage — inability to simultaneously perform full and transaction logs backup. In other words, if a full backup starts, all scheduled transaction logs backups are automatically put on hold. Let’s consider the following case: you schedule daily full backups and quarter-hourly transaction logs backups. Suppose one of those full backup takes an hour to complete; in that case no transaction logs backup will occur during that hour. This is unacceptable for organizations that handle sensitive data and conduct numerous transactions every minute. With that in mind, in CloudBerry Backup 5.7 we’ve implemented simultaneous full & transaction logs backup. From now on full backups will not impede transaction logs backup and will be performed side-by-side. Feel free to take a look at our tutorial that explains how to schedule transaction logs backup.

Support for Backup Operators API

Members of Backup Operators group can back up and restore files on a computer, regardless of any permissions that protect those files. This is because the right to perform a backup takes precedence over all file permissions. Members of this group, however, cannot change security settings.

By default CloudBerry Backup service is running under the Local System account, which not only sometimes forbids reading of NTFS permissions, but also has an excessive number of various other permissions — that could be a concern for some administrators. Taking that into consideration, it makes sense to consider starting the service under a user that is part of the Backup Operators group. It takes a while to perform this procedure, that’s why we’ve written a lengthy tutorial that demonstrates just how to do that.