What's new in BackupAssist 10

BackupAssist 10 introduces 3 new features that will make your backups more versatile, secure and easy to manage.

Cloud Backup add-on

Cloud Backup is a BackupAssist add-on that allows you to back up data to Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, Amazon S3, S3 Compatible cloud storage or WebDAV enabled cloud storage. Cloud Backup is a best practice cyber-resilience solution and is our recommended backup type for all servers.

How to perform a cloud backup to Microsoft Azure

How to perform a cloud backup to Amazon AWS

Cloud backups provide convenient backup destinations with the following advantages:

  • Scalability – your storage will scale with your needs and the total storage available can be increased by updating your subscription package.
  • Affordability – you do not need to purchase or maintain storage devices or storage servers.
  • Security – your data is encrypted to prevent unauthorized access to your backups.
  • Availability – cloud computing uses data centers that have a better level of availability than could be achieved with your own local servers.
  • Efficiency – Cloud Backup uses deduplication and compression to reduce the amount of data that needs to be transferred to the cloud each time a backup runs.

Ransomware Protection

CryptoSafeGuard is a new BackupAssist tool that protects backups from ransomware attack and prevents ransomware-encrypted files from being backed up. CryptoSafeGuard is available for BackupAssist 10.1 (or newer) users with valid BackupCare.

To learn more, see BackupAssist CryptoSafeGuard

Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V support

BackupAssist 10 introduces support for two new Windows Server Hyper-V 2016 features: Nested Virtualization and Shielded VMs. It also includes support for Hyper-V Cluster Shared Volumes on Windows Server 2016.

Nested Virtualization

Allows you to run a Hyper-V Server on a virtual machine that is itself running on a Hyper-V Server. BackupAssist can back up, restore and recover a nested VM as long as BackupAssist is installed on that VMs Hyper-V Server.

If BackupAssist is installed on a Hyper-V Server with nested VMs, it can perform the following functions for those VMs:

  • Create backups of data and VSS applications, including application-consistent backups
  • Perform restores, including Exchange Granular Restores and Hyper-V Granular Restores
  • Perform recoveries, including Full VM Recoveries and Rapid VM Recoveries of VMs belonging to the Hyper-V Server that BackupAssist is installed on.

Note: BackupAssist cannot see VMs running on the VMs of the host it is installed on, and therefore cannot perform backups, restores and recoveries of those VMs. BackupAssist needs to be installed onto each Hyper-V Server that has the nested VMs that you want BackupAssist to protect.

Shielded VMs

Allows you to restrict access to Hyper-V guests so that they cannot be accessed by Hyper-V administrators. This means administrators cannot access a Shielded VMs contents, change its settings or copy or move it, unless the administrator has explicit permission to do so, and does so by authenticating through the Shielded VM.

BackupAssist can make backups of Shielded VMs, including application-consistent backups of Hyper-V servers, Exchange servers and SQL servers running on the Shielded VM.

Considerations:

  • BackupAssist can perform a Full VM Recovery of a Shielded VM.
  • BackupAssist can NOT perform a Rapid VM Recovery of a Shielded VM.
  • Shielded VMs must be recovered to their original host or host cluster.
  • Due to the nature of Shielded VM protection, BackupAssist can NOT perform granular restores of data from a VM, including granular Hyper-V and Exchange restores. You can only recover the entire VM.
  • When you recover a Shielded VM, it will be recovered with its shielded protection and configurations intact.
  • BackupAssist's Hyper-V tab will show a Shielded VM's icon as a VM with a shield symbol.

New online documentation portal

BackupAssist 10 introduces a brand new documentation portal that integrates BackupAssist's documentation, resources, knowledge base and in-product help into an HTML 5 website.

The BackupAssist 10 documentation introduces the following features:

  • Responsive layout so you can view the documentation on your phone or mobile device
  • A new search function that searches all types of documentation and allows you to filter the types of content shown
  • A new browsing menu with a simpler and more intuitive layout
  • New context-sensitive help topics linked from BackupAssist's Manage screen
  • A space-saving layout with pop-up screen shots and drop-down lists that make it easy to navigate each page.

To learn more about the new documentation, see Using BackupAssist help