Hot off the back off version 5.2 of their BDRsuite, BDRSuite v5.3 has just been released into the wild! The speed at which Vembu are enhancing their BDRSuite is astonishing, While this release has some major enhancements focusing on the on-premises world – it also introduces further tweaks and features to the world of Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Because as we know – Microsoft is not a backup company! Why is this relevant?
Well having a solid backup and recovery plan and capability allows you to recover quickly when outages happen in the cloud (and they do). Learn why you should backup Office 365 here from a great post by Xander Oortgiesen
With that in mind, let’s draw down the major enhancements that BDRSuite has added into v5.3, specifically Endpoint Backup, AD integration and Backup validation\integrity check
File Server & Endpoints backup
The ability to manage Endpoint backup Is now integrated into the Backup Server UI, whilst this isn’t necessarily a new feature (I think it came out in v5.0) this is a much easier way of implementing and rolling out endpoint backup to those user endpoints.
Like many Endpoint backup solutions, an agent is required to be installed into the Windows or Linux virtual machines, being that there are typically hundreds of endpoint virtual machines in most backup environments.
The immediate value I see from this is bringing those endpoints all under the one management umbrella allowing consistent policies, backup strategies etc to be applied across the whole environment. And yes, the agents can automatically be deployed using the backup server (no manual installation!
Active Directory Integration
Rolling out user authentication through Microsoft Active Directory allows the Admin to import and add users already existent in their AD environments to the Vembu BDRSuite Backup Server. This makes RBAC management like granting certain privileges to backup admins MUCH easier resulting in a more secure environment (with a lesser chance of human error).
It also allows you to remain consistent with these privileges, and allow future AD changes\modifications to users to be propagated down to the BDR backup server user accounts.
Integrity Check on VMware ESXi Server
Backups aren’t any good if they don’t work, regular validation and testing should be mandatory when you are backing any data up.
Lucky most organisations I have worked with in the past have realised this and regularly carry out BCDR testing to ensure when the time comes – they are able to recover to meet their RTO. This new feature allows you to perform an automated boot test of virtual machines onto an ESXi server to ensure virtual machines will work after being restored!
Lastly, as a side note but well worth a mention, Vembu has added Azure Blob Storage as a means to store your primary backup data. Further enabling the 3-2-1 Backup and data retention rule which many of us know so well – Keeping (3) copies of your data, on (2) different storage mediums of which (1) is off-site – So Azure Blob storage is a perfect (1)
In Closing
The above new features just make the backup admin’s job easier – the ability to verify backups of the virtual machines, one management plane to manage your endpoints as well as your VMs in a hybrid cloud. And lastly, securing and aligning your user ecosystem with your existing Active Directory environment user base.
I am looking forward to their next release!
For more information on this release check out the
Release notes, Update Guide or even better download the software yourself!
