G’day folks,

We have recently made BackupAssist v6.3 available to the public!

BackupAssist v6.3 is an important release with many new features and significant improvements.

New features include:

• Support for Hyper-V Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) backup in the BackupAssist imaging engine via a local staging disk. For help configuring CSV backup jobs, please read our CSV quick start guide.
• Backup and restore Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 mailboxes via the Exchange Client Access Server. For help configuring CAS backup jobs, please read our CAS quick start guide.
• Plus we now let you set the maximum number of hard links to use for a single instance store, which should speed things up if you have lots of backups.

BackupAssist v6.3 also has a number of other fixes and improvements in the following areas: Mailbox, Imaging, SBS Integration, SQL add-on, VSS, the UI and Zip-to-Tape. Full release notes are available here.

If you haven’t already updated to the important maintenance release BackupAssist v6.2.8, skip it and go straight to this v6.3 update.

Please don’t forget to download and install your BackupAssist v6.3 update from here.

That’s all for now folks.

If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail us at support@backupassist.com.

A big thanks to the BackupAssist Community for reporting issues and suggesting improvements.

Thanks,

The BackupAssist Team

Zen Software, the UK distributor of BackupAssist, has recently made some excellent blog postings about various aspects of BackupAssist. Please take time to check through them to see if the issues raised and solved will help you:

• Hyper-V Support Host vs Guests — February 10, 2012 — With Hyper-V backups, remember that it could well be the Guest machines that are the root of the problem even though the error is showing on the Host.
• BackupAssist Single Instance Store confusion — February 6, 2012 — Windows Explorer thinks more backup storage space is being used than is in reality being used because it doesn’t allow for the use of a Single Instance Store.
• Exchange mailbox backups with BackupAssist — February 1, 2012 — By utilising the BackupAssist Exchange Mailbox Add-on you can create an additional brick-level backup of all your users’ mailboxes and public folders and store them within standard Microsoft PST files. This makes it easy to recover just a single mailbox, or even specific emails.
• Rsync vs. file replication — which is best for your local backups? — January 27, 2012 — Cost and performance issues to consider which choosing which type of job to use when backing up files across a local network from one server to another.
• BackupAssist’s rsync ‘seed’ function explained — January 18, 2012 — Using the seed function, on a standard office Internet connection, administrators can see the first backup taking just a few hours rather than what could potentially have been a few days.

Microsoft officially ceased support for its various Windows 2000 platforms back in July 2010. (See: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/default.aspx?sort=PN&alpha=Windows+2000&Filter=FilterNO.) It is our intention to cease all technical support for BackupAssist on all Windows 2000 platforms from June 30, 2012.

BackupAssist software solutions have supported Windows 2000 platforms since our very first release in 2002. However, all good things eventually come to an end. We can no longer justify leaving out new software features in order to maintain backwards compatibility with the old Windows 2000 platforms. Hence we are implementing a two phased End of Life approach to ceasing support of this old operating system platform.

Phase One: BackupAssist v6.4 will not support Windows 2000 platforms

We are planning to introduce new features into the upcoming BackupAssist v6.4 release, which will not be backwards compatible with Windows 2000 platforms. Thus the BackupAssist v6.3.x series of releases will become the last versions to work on Windows 2000 platforms.

Current Windows 2000 platform users wanting access to the advanced features in BackupAssist 6.4, and subsequent versions of BackupAssist, should upgrade their operating systems. Naturally, we’ll be here to help you with any issues migrating BackupAssist to a new server platform.

We will still respond to your technical support requests if you are running earlier BackupAssist versions which support the Windows 2000 platforms. However, we may be limited in our ability to resolve any new software issues on Windows 2000 platforms.

Phase Two: End of Life for BackupAssist on Windows 2000 platforms

From June 30, 2012 we will cease providing technical support for any version of BackupAssist running on any Windows 2000 platforms.

If you have any questions about the End of Life for BackupAssist on Windows 2000 platforms, please feel free to contact our technical support team via an e-mail to: support@backupassist.com.

Notes:

1. In the above, “Windows 2000 platforms” covers: Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, Windows 2000 Professional Edition, and Windows 2000 Server, plus any other Microsoft Windows 2000 based platforms we may have missed.
2. End of life (EOL) does not mean that versions prior to BackupAssist v6.4 will no longer function on Windows 2000 platforms. You may continue to run your earlier application. EOL indicates that Cortex I.T. Labs has chosen to focus on supporting widely used platforms and instead suggest an upgrade path.

G’day folks,

We would like to inform you that our Australian technical support office will be closed on Thursday, 26th January 2012 due to the Australia Day Public Holiday.

Technical support services from the Australian office will be unavailable on this day, by both phone and email. For urgent assistance you are welcome to contact our USA office.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused and wish you a happy Australia Day!

Kind regards,
The Team at BackupAssist

S3Rsync domain name expired

G’day folks,

It’s been brought to our attention that the online storage provider S3Rsync.com currently has an expired domain name. At this stage, we are unsure as to what the full impact of this may be to BackupAssist users who are running backups to S3Rsync.com. However, right now we do know that some BackupAssist users are impacted.

BackupAssist is not affiliated with S3Rsync in any way. We are unable to provide a resolution the issue. The problem is with the online storage provider S3Rsync.com – not your BackupAssist software. We highly recommend that you contact your online storage service provider to find out exactly what is happening, and the best way to move forward in this scenario.

Workarounds:
If your backups are being impacted by this in any way, you could configure a temporary backup job to run to an alternative online storage provider, if you’ve got access to one. Alternatively, you can start doing temporary backups to a local drive, which can then be taken offsite manually, while you wait for your S3Rsync.com service to become available again.

We’re sorry that we’re unable to provide any further information at this time. If you require any help configuring an alternative way to backup your data during this period, please contact support@backupassist.com.

Kind Regards,
The BackupAssist Team

G’day folks,

We have recently made BackupAssist v6.2.8 available to the public!

BackupAssist v6.2.8 is a maintenance release fixing some minor issues as reported by our user and reseller communities, plus our testers and developers. The most significant changes with this update are:

• Zip-to-Tape: We’ve fixed an issue where a Zip-to-Tape restore job would not cancel properly. BackupAssist would say it had cancelled the restore, but in fact the tape job would still keep going! Then you might try to do another restore and the system would throw a hissy fit because the tape drive was actually still in use. Now Zip-to-Tape restore jobs are properly terminated.
• TrueCrypt: We’ve fixed doing a single instance store for destinations with TrueCrypt-compatible encryption. Previously, because of issues checking for previous backups, a full backup might happen instead of a faster incremental backup.
• Zip: We’ve updated the Zip compression library to fix some of errors that people had seen during restores. (Though we suspect most of these errors were related to the Zip-to-Tape issue above.) We’ve also limited the number of skipped files allowed in a Zip backup to 100. Now, if that limit is reached we terminate the backup and report the problem as an error. Previously the backup would run to the end and then the problem would be reported as a warning. Now you get to know about this issue sooner so that you can take appropriate action.

Of course, BackupAssist v6.2.8 also has a number of other fixes and improvements in the following areas: CMC/Web, Installer, User Interface, plus Zip and NTBackup. Full release notes are available here.

If you haven’t already updated to the important maintenance release BackupAssist v6.2.7, skip it and go straight to this update.

Please don’t forget to download and install your BackupAssist v6.2.8 update from here.

That’s all for now folks.

If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail us at support@backupassist.com.

A big thanks to the BackupAssist Community for reporting issues and suggesting improvements.

Thanks,
The BackupAssist Team

We’ve just released version 5.4.4 of BackupAssist.

This is a maintenance release that includes a number of fixes.

This release is especially important for users running the Hyper-V Granular restore console and Rsync Engine.

Minor fixes have also been made to the BackupAssist Restore Console, the Calendar options,  Media usage report and Exchange selection screens. Full release notes are available on our release history page.

To download the upgrade to v5.4.4 visit http://www.backupassist.com/BackupAssist/download.php#upgrade

If you experience any difficulties when upgrading please contact us at support@backupassist.com

Due to some unfortunate networking issues, the UK and US Support teams are experiencing difficulties with their Email servers, and it has created a delay in response times for emails.

We are attempting to resolve this issue as swiftly as possible, and you should receive a response to your emails before Start of Business on Tuesday February 16th.

In the meantime, our support staff are still available via phone for any critical issues that need to be addressed, they can be reached on + 1 (812) 206-4265

With the advent of the Windows 7 release, we were recently made aware that the recommended Rsync server we listed on our downloads page does not support Windows 7.
After working with one of our customers, Mike Hoyle , he let us know that he has discovered an update to the cwRsync solution which functions in the Windows 7 environment.
I have included his correspondence below:

I may have found a solution to my problem as follows: -

I removed the original installation including services which was installed from the download on your website.

(cwRsyncServer_3.0.1_Installer.exe)

I went to the following site http://www.itefix.no/i2/download

Downloaded the latest cwRsync – cwRsyncServer_4.0.3_Installer.zip

and downloaded the latest Copssh – Copssh_3.0.3_Installer.zip

Installed cwRsync and then Copssh

Activated a new Copssh user – running the command ‘ssh localhost’ in the Unix shell now works.

I have managed 4 successful backups now to the Win 7 RSync Host. from backup assist v5.4.2

We would like to take the time to thank Mike for providing us with this information, and allowing us to share it so that this issue can be addressed.

Please note v5.3 was released on September 23, 2009.

Hello everyone,

Register now to download and test the new BackupAssist Beta 5.3.

It contains the much awaited Zip Engine which is VSS aware, supports tape drives (even on Server 2008) , is ZIP64 compliant, allows compression & AES-256 encryption and more! It also contains the latest Exchange Mailbox Backup Engine that supports local and remote backup of Exchange 2007 server, lets you make Public Folder backups and more!

Get involved now so that you can contribute your ideas to the final stages of our development process.

We would love to hear your feedback about our new engines and to show you our appreciation, we’ll be rewarding our top five contributors with a free BackupAssist license and their choice of an Exchange Mail-box or Zip to tape add-on!

To learn more about the beta, and the Zip and Exchange Mailbox Backup Engines, please visit: http://www.backupassist.com/BackupAssistV5/beta/Beta_Announcement.php