Changelog

Storware Backup & Recovery 6.2

14.03.2024

We’re starting with enhanced Virtuozzo integration, introducing a disk-attachment backup strategy, replacing the conventional SSH Transfer method. Additionally, our latest update allows you to specify MAC addresses for decommissioned instances in both OpenStack and Virtuozzo, ensuring flexibility in restoration processes (of course you can use the original one). KVM standalone hypervisors also received a file-system freeze option for more consistent backups.

What’s more, we've introduced support for OpenMetal. Now you can protect OpenMetal's workloads across OpenStack On-Demand Cloud and Hosted Private Cloud services.

Enjoy enhanced tape management, highlighted by data encryption and support for the object-lock feature in S3 backup destinations. All backup destinations now support an "infinite number of versions retention" setting in the backup policies. Notably, the Data Protector backup destination has undergone significant optimization, promising enhanced performance in this release.

In the realm of Microsoft 365, brace yourself for two updates: private channel support for Teams and a centralized backup/restore data flow enabling the utilization of all supported backup destinations for M365 workloads. Experience efficiency with optimized data verification and clean-up mechanisms within both the OS Agent and M365 integration module.

Our commitment to user experience shines through in the UI enhancements introduced, offering a refreshed and standardized interface across various views including M365, Storage, RBAC, and beyond.

Security remains paramount, with enhancements catering to Horizon plugin users, Kubernetes/OpenShift certificate handling, and data encryption algorithms compliant with FIPS 140-2 standards. As part of our ongoing commitment to security, RHEV v3 and SSH Transfer for QCOW2 files have been retired in this release.

Changes:

• OpenStack/Virtuozzo - option to specify MAC address (or use original one) during restoration

• OpenMetal support

• S3 - object lock support

• KVM standalone - quiesced snapshot (FS freeze) support

• An infinite number of version retention settings in the backup policies

• Option to disable file system scanning during backup tasks

• Notification rules - "low free space on staging/backup destination" condition

• Tapes - encryption support

• Tapes - read-only/cleaning tapes handling

• Tapes - tape listing for each backup (to see, which tapes are needed for recovery)

• M365 - support for private channels in Teams

• M365 - centralized data transfer workflow to support all backup providers as in other platforms

• M365/OS-Agent - data verification/clean-up improvements

• Data Protector connector performance improvements

• Web UI - updated navigation and views for M365, Storage, SLAs, RBAC, Application Execution Configs, and Node Configs

• Web UI Backup statistics counters improved

• Support for FIPS 140-2 compliant algorithms used in encryption

• Security enhancements for accessing the API from the Horizon plugin

• SSL certificate handling improvements for Kubernetes/OpenShift

• Removed RHEV (v3) and export storage domain backup strategy support

• Removed: OpenStack/Virtuozzo/KVM - removed support for incremental backups for SSH Transfers using QCOW2 files

Storware Backup & Recovery 6.1

25.10.2023

Storware is thrilled to announce the release of Storware Backup & Recovery 6.1. The latest version introduces an array of new features and enhancements that cater to the diverse needs of its user base. OpenStack administrators, VMware enthusiasts, OpenNebula users, and Microsoft 365 subscribers are in for a treat with the following key improvements:

For OpenStack administrators, Storware Backup & Recovery 6.1 introduces the much-requested Instant Restore feature, providing the ability to quickly recover data, minimizing downtime. Additionally, users can now configure more than one Ceph cluster per Availability Zone for enhanced flexibility. The release also includes basic snapshot management for cinder volumes.

For VMware environments, this release brings support for distributed switches, while OpenNebula users receive support for QCOW2-based VM disks.

Microsoft 365 subscribers will appreciate the significant performance boost during backup operations and the convenience of a brand-new restore wizard for easier data recovery.

In this release, Tape Manager gains the capability to support multiple tape drives per backup destination, providing improved performance and greater configuration flexibility.

Robust Server-Side Enhancements: Storware Backup & Recovery Version 6.1 includes substantial server-side changes. The virtualization platforms and backup destinations’ detailed views have been reorganized to include job history and additional charts, offering administrators a more comprehensive view of their backup activities. It is worth emphasizing that all warnings are now displayed in the notification center. Furthermore, this version introduces the ability to log in using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) with Keycloak for enhanced security.

Additional Enhancements for a Seamless Ex

perience: Version 6.1 doesn’t stop there. It introduces certificate management sections for virtualization providers, a dedicated reporting tab for OS Agents, and numerous other smaller improvements aimed at delivering a better user experience.

Changes:

• OpenStack - Instant restore

• OpenStack - support for multiple Ceph Storage Providers per Availability Zone

• OpenStack - snapshot management for storage volumes

• OpenNebula - Support for QCOW2-based disks

• VMware - support for distributed virtual switch

• Notification Center

• M365 - performance improvements

• UX - new restore wizard for M365

• UX - new detailed view for Backup Destination, Virtualization Providers, Virtual Instances

Storware Backup & Recovery 6.0 (Frontier)

04.07.2023

Release notes:

We're pleased to announce that Storware Backup & Recovery 6.0, with several major features! Let's start with the OS agent for Linux and Windows - while in general, we try to stick to the agent-less approach - we know that in many cases agents can be very helpful to protect your systems on the file level. A completely new tab appeared in the menu and you can specify which folders are going to be protected - both full and incremental backups are supported.

Another big one - a technical preview of tape support. Now, you can deploy a new component called Tape Manger which is going to directly handle all of the tape-related operations. Once it is registered in the system, you can define tape pool backup destinations that can be used to protect VMs, Applications, and Storage instances.

OpenShift users also receive a massive enhancement - OpenShift Virtualization support! Now you can protect virtual machines in your OpenShift environment like in any other platform - and even more - incremental backups are also supported! Moreover - for regular container deployments - we now also support Stateful Sets.

6.0 brings also another huge one - OpenNebula support. Disk-attachment backup strategy that is used for this platform also supports incremental backups.

And you know? There are tons of other improvements: additional RBAC objects covered, a new wizard for DD Boost backup destination creation, Keycloak support, automatic clean-up of a VM after an instant restore and... more! So, check out a brand new release by yourself!

Changes:

• OS-Agent - File-level backup for Microsoft Windows and Linux

• Tape - Support for tape libraries (technical preview)

• Support for OpenShift Virtualization

• Stateful set support for K8s and OpenShift

• Support for Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation (OpenShift Container Storage)

• OpenNebula - support for full and incremental backups

• M365 - Support for contacts photos

• Hyper-V - An automatic clean-up after instant restore

• Security - Support for Keycloak

• Security - RBAC improvements

• Security - SELinux improvements - support enforcing mode

• Security - Source SSL certificates management

• UI - wizard for DD Boost backup destination setup

• UI - Server hostname added to reports and notifications

• Support for additional Linux distros: SLES, Alma, Rocky

Storware Backup & Recovery 5.2 (Fusion)

12.12.2022

Release notes:

Even though it is a bit too early for Santa - we already have prepared a gift for you - a brand new release of Storware Backup & Recovery!

And what's new? Let's start with new platforms that have been introduced - support for Azure Cloud, Azure Stack HCI and Google Cloud Platform to better protect more "cloudy" or "hybrid-cloudy" environments.

VMware users will enjoy instant restore capability on the synthetic file system backup provider, especially that one can use it together with live storage migration capability.

Storage configuration customization during the restore feature has just arrived at KVM, Virtuozzo, and Huawei Fusion Compute station. And while we talk about storage, we can't skip over the incremental backup capability for the OpenStack environments (now it is supported also in the Disk Attachment backup strategy with just cinder being used).

Microsoft 365 users will enjoy improvements such as the option to download contacts and calendars in vCard and iCalc formats. Oh, and BTW - Microsoft also updated their Teams APIs - but don't worry we always catch up, so it is supported in 5.2!

We've also added support for RHEL/CentOS Stream 9 as the supported OS on which you can deploy Storware. And because these release notes are getting long, we now really encourage you just to download and check out other improvements by yourself! Enjoy!

Changes:

• Azure Cloud support

• Azure Stack HCI support

• Google Cloud Platform support

• VMware vCenter - Instant restore support

• VMware vCenter - Storage live migration for VMware

• Storage customization during restore for KVM (stand-alone), Virtuozzo and Huawei FusionCompute

• Support for OpenShift API for Data Protection (OADP)

• OpenStack incremental backup using Disk Attachment (cinder) strategy

• M365 - Download contacts and calendars in vCard and iCalc format

• M365 - Support for Microsoft Teams API

• Support for installation on RHEL/Centos Stream 9

• Web UI - backup/restore transfer rate charts

Storware Backup & Recovery 5.1.1 (Fusion)

• New: Hyper-V - Storage Live migration

• New: Command line interface (CLI) v2 - technical preview

• New: Restore individual disk to datastore - Citrix, Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV

• New: Multi-select filter for virtual machines list

• New: Restore wizard

• New: Option to define schedules and policies with the same name

• New: Support for Virtuozzo hypervisor manager

Storware Backup & Recovery 5.1 (Fusion)

08.07.2022

Release notes:

Storware Backup & Recovery 5.1 expands its capabilities even more! Let's start with Microsoft 365 - now administrators will be able to export emails to PST and also protect M365 Groups.

All VM/Application/Storage sources now also support retention adjustment, so that you will now be able to keep selected backups longer (than policy retention settings) or mark them as expired to remove unwanted backups earlier.

For oVirt-based environments, B&R now supports instant restore capability. What is more - you can also optionally initiate live storage migration once the VM is restored. Individual disk restore (back to the environment's storage) has also been implemented for oVIrt-based environments and OpenStack.

And while we're talking about OpenStack - the 5.1 version introduces several improvements, such as option to select flavor o key-pair during the restore, manage the visibility of AZ in the OpenStack Horizon plugin, and for more complex environments - the option to set credentials for multiple authentication domains in a single Hypervisor Manager.

Hyper-V is another area with multiple enhancements - with cluster awareness you can define a single Hypervisor Manager that is able to use either cluster IP or SCVMM to cover all hypervisors and VMs and detect if VM changed its host between inventory synchronizations. This release also added support for Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) and the agent's restore location browser in the restore modal.

Among the other improvements, it is worth mentioning Swift multi-threading transfer, network mapping in Recovery Plans, push notifications based on defined rules, improved reporting tab, and more!

Changes:

• M365 - Export protected mailbox data to PST

• M365 - Support for Microsoft 365 Groups

• Option to mark individual backups to be kept longer or to expire

• RHV/oVirt/OLVM - Instant restore with live storage migration

• RHV/oVirt/OLVM - Individual VM disk restoration to the specific datastore (per device)

• OpenStack - Individual VM disk restoration with a specific 'Volume Type'

• OpenStack - Restore with selected Flavor

• OpenStack - Support for multiple authentication domains in a single hypervisor manager

• OpenStack - Support for key-pair selection during the restore

• OpenStack - Support for managing the visibility of Availability Zones in the OpenStack Horizon plugin

• Hyper-V - Support for remote restore location file browser in restore modal

• Hyper-V - Hypervisor Manager support based on SCVMM (Cluster Awareness)

• Hyper-V - Hypervisor Manager support based on cluster IP (Cluster Awareness)

• Hyper-V - Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) support

• Swift - Support for multithreading during backup and restore operations

• Support for network selection in Recovery Plans

• Push notifications based on rules

• WebUI - Auto-assignment rules preview (and application) in a policy

• WebUI - Work-flows that aggregate many different tasks in one chain (Task console in WebUI)

• WebUI - Improved last 24h backup reports

• WebUI - Improved reporting tab for transfer and backup size

• WebUI - License usage

• WebUI - lists - select all check-box with the option to select all items on all pages

• Support for using the native repository for Maria-DB in RHEL based environments

Storware Backup & Recovery 5.0 (Fusion)

31.01.2022

Release notes:

This release is like a fusion reactor - pure and unlimited power of data protection! Well, that's not the only reason why its codename is "Fusion"...

Storware Backup & Recovery 5.0 (formerly vProtect) unifies Storware's product portfolio and allows it to cover all backup sources with a single pane of glass. This means that you can now also backup your Microsoft 365 and endpoints with one solution.

Virtual Environments now have one more source available - Scale Computing HC3 Hypervisor Manager with Storware supporting 2 backup strategies! One with incremental backups (CBT) and one using standard VM export using SMB Share (full backups only).

Backups can also now be stored in a new enterprise-grade MicroFocus DataProtector backup provider. Swift backup provider has received encryption support. This update also allows administrators to specify the secondary backup destination in the policies to keep backup data in more than one location!

Here you can find another big change - retention settings have now been moved from backup destination to the policy, so now you don't have to define multiple backup destinations just to have different retention for different entities.

Hyper-V is the first platform for which we introduced instant restore (using Mounted Backups feature) to allow users to quickly instantiate VM from backup without the need to import data back to the hypervisor. What is more - if Dell EMC Data Domain is used as the backup provider - there is a new option available that allows uploading backup data to the DD directly from the Hyper-V agent.

If you're using an XFS-based backup destination - the 5.0 release also introduces an Immutable Backup feature (like the retention lock in DD), which also allows protecting your backup data from being encrypted by some ransomware.

This release also introduces multiple smaller improvements such as support for projects in Nutanix Prism, snapshot history view, option to automatically unmount mounted backups, manage SSH/WinRM credentials used in UI from the dedicated module, and many, many more!

• New: Cloud providers - Microsoft Office 365 support:

  • Incremental forever

  • Granular restore for all supported features

  • Exchange Online: mailboxes, contacts, calendars, archives

  • Microsoft Teams

  • OneDrive for Business

  • Sharepoint Online - sites and subsites

• New: Storware Endpoints integration - possibility to manage endpoint backup directly from Storware B&R Web UI

• New: HC3 Scale Computing Hypervisor Manager - 2 strategies: Disk Attachment with CBT incremental backup and SMB Share (only for full backups)

• New: MicroFocus DataProtector backup provider

• New: Backup Copy - option to replicate backup data to the second backup destination

• New: Hyper-V - instant restore (new Mounted Backup mode)

• New: Hyper-V - direct transfer to DataDomain (when backup destination is set as Synthetic DataDomain)

• New: Hyper-V - Cluster Shared Volumes Support

• New: Swift Backup Provider - encryption support

• New: Nutanix - projects support

• New: Nutanix & VMware - improved error handling in Disk Attachment Strategies

• New: Option to automatically unmount backup after the specified time

• New: WinRM support for pre/post snapshot action

• New: Immutable Backup Destination

• New: Destination network selection for restored VM

• New: Retention settings are now attached to the backup policy

• New: Slack notifications

• New: Snapshot clean up task is now extracted from Store task and triggered separately

• New: Old backup removal task is now extracted from Export task and triggered separately

• New: Restore files from Mounted Backup to remote host over SSH/WinRM

• New: Web UI - snapshot history view

• New: Web UI - storage description field

• New: Web UI - dedicated section to manage SSH/WinRM credentials

• New: Web UI - restore to the file system with the option to restore only selected metadata/volume files

• New: Web UI - inventory synchronization now collects Hypervisor/Hypervisor Manager/Storage Provider version

• New: Web UI - SSH key upload

vProtect 4.3 (Nova)

28.07.2021

vProtect 4.3 brings a Nutanix Volume Groups storage provider and a technical preview of Huawei FusionCompute support, which means that now you can protect 20 different virtualization platforms and storage providers! Woo-hoo!

The synthetic backup provider now can also use Data Domain as the backend to provide both forever incremental and highly effective deduplication. Additionally, the S3 backup provider now also supports Cloudian S3 and Alibaba Cloud OSS.

This release has RBAC has also been extended to support instance-level permissions in the roles, so that administrators can control access even more granularly.

We also included additional UI enhancements such as configuration wizard changes, task duration in the task console, option to export reports in HTML or PDF format, or option to disable all schedules at the policy level.

Changes:

• New: Huawei FusionCompute technical preview support

• New: Storage Provider - Nutanix Volume Groups support

• New: Synthetic backup with DD Boost FS

• New: S3 backup provider - support for Cloudian S3

• New: S3 backup provider - support for Alibaba Cloud OSS

• New: RBAC - VM/Application/Storage instance-level permissions

• New: Backup quotas for projects

• New: Notification rules

• New: VMware - support for node installation on CentOS 8/Stream

• New: option to disable scheduled backups per policy

• New: Web UI - backup/restore report export in PDF and HTML formats

• New: Web UI - configuration wizard with added support for Storage Providers and additional policy types

• New: Web UI - task duration in console

vProtect 4.2 (Nova)

22.04.2021

A brand new vProtect release - v4.2 adds synthetic backup provider based on XFS which allows forever-incremental backups and significantly faster restores.

This release also introduces RBAC system-level roles to give administrators more control over vProtect security. User groups and roles enable administrators to specify which actions and views are accessible to which users, either by using build-in roles or define their own.

Version 4.2 adds snapshot-management for Ceph RBD Storage Provider and SMB support for Nutanix Files. Snapshot management has also been enabled for OpenStack with disk-attachment strategy.

Management interface have also been enhanced with additional notifications related to VDO space occupancy, transfer rate charts, inventory synchronization statuses and for oVirt/RHV/OLVM - option to easily configure metadata DB backups directly from hypervisor manager's section.

For oVirt/RHV/OLVM distributions we also added 2 transfer optimizations - BZIP2 compression when using SSH Transfer and direct transfers to/from hypervisors in Disk Image Transfer strategy - both should result in even faster backups.

Changes:

• New: Synthetic file-system backup provider using XFS

• New: RBAC - system-level roles and user groups

• New: Storage Providers - Ceph RBD - snapshot management

• New: Storage Providers - Nutanix Files - SMB shares support

• New: OpenStack - snapshot management for disk-attachment strategy

• New: RHV/oVirt/OLVM - metadata DB backup setup from Hypervisor Manager details pane

• New: RHV/oVirt/OLVM 4.3+ - Disk Image Transfer now supports direct transfers to/from hypervisors

• New: RHV/oVirt/OLVM - data compression during transfer with BZIP2 for SSH Transfer

• New: Connectivity test action for Backup Destinations

• New: Connectivity test action for Virtualization Platforms

• New: Hyper-V multithreaded import during restore

• New: RHV/oVirt UI plugin update - now reflecting vProtect Main menu and views and with additional reporting

• New: Web UI - transfer rate charts

• New: e-mail notifications - when VDO runs out of space

• New: inventory synchronization status for Virtualization Platforms

• New: inventory synchronization status for Storage Providers

vProtect 4.1 (Nova)

28.01.2021

vProtect 4.1 introduces a new type of backup source - storage provider. Now you can protect Ceph RBD volumes, plain file systems and - Nutanix Files (AFS) as technical preview. You can execute full and incremental backups, recover individual files using mounted backups or share them over iSCSI.

This release introduces also and important enhancement for multi-AZ OpenStack environments with separate Ceph clusters in each AZ. Now you can assign individual storage providers to each AZ ("hypervisor cluster"). For OpenStack and OpenShift environments, vProtect also adds Projects to its inventory during synchronization.

When using Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) as a backup provider, you can now enable retention lock feature to protect your backups. This release adds also backup size report which may be essential for chargeback reporting. Starting from 4.1 release Java 11 will be used.

Changes:

• New: Storage Provider - Ceph RBD - support for backup/restore/mount of RBD volumes

• New: Storage Provider - File system - support for backup/restore/mount of plain file systems mounted on the nodes

• New: Storage Provider - Nutanix Files (AFS) - technical preview of support for backup/restore/mount of Nutanix Files

• New: multi-AZ OpenStack environments support

• New: OpenStack/OpenShift - project scanning

• New: Backup size reporting for chargeback

• New: PowerProtect DD (DataDomain) retention lock

• New: Hyper-V multi-threated disk export

• New: Java update to v11

• New: Task API performance optimizations

vProtect 4.0 (Nova)

30.09.2020

vProtect 4.0 is a brand new major release that optimizes web interface for even more intuitive user experience.

Two new backup strategies for RHV/oVirt and Proxmox significantly widen range of backup strategies available for administrators with focus on incremental backup enhancements.

Restore process also now allows to automatically power on VMs or automatically customize names of restored VMs in Recovery Plans. This opens additional test scenarios, in which administrators can validate if VMs restore successfully and do a test power on. This release also simplifies Nutanix setup - administrators now also can add Prism Central directly instead of individual Prism Elements. This allows administrators to use categories (corresponding to "tags" in vProtect) and assign policies automatically based them in policies. Last, but not least - S3/S3-compatible backup provider can optionally be connected via proxy. This provider now also supprots Nutanix Objects.

Changes:

• New: Proxmox VE - new backup strategy for Proxmox VE (includes incremental backups, FS freeze, and option to share backups over iSCSI)

• New: RHV/oVirt - new backup strategy using CBT (using new RHV/oVirt backup APIs, currently in Technical Preview)

• New: Nutanix AHV – option to connect via Prism Central instead of individual Prism Elements

• New: Nutanix AHV – option to automatically assign VMs to the policies based on Nutanix categories (vProtect tags) when using Prism Central as hypervisor manager

• New: Option to automatically power on VM after restore

• New: Option to automatically generate VM name with prefix/suffix in Recovery Plans

• New: Major Web UI update and reorganization - better arrangment of views related to the artifacts in the same domain, such as Virtual Environment-related schedules, policies etc.

• New: S3/S3-compatitble backup provider - Nutanix Objects support

• New: S3/S3-compatible backup provider - proxy support

• New: Kubernetes/OpenShift - token-based authentication

• New: Task APIs optimizations

• New: Support for Chrome SameSite cookie security flag

• Fix: oVirt/RHV UI plugin minor enhancements and fixes

• Fix: Hyper-V delta snapshot files merge issue

vProtect 3.9.2 (Quasar)

01.06.2020

vProtect 3.9 Update 2 is a provides multiple - mostly periodic, security-related - updates of internal database, API and web UI.

This update also introduced CentOS/RHEL 8 support for vProtect deployments. OpenStack and OpenShift environments using Ceph storage can also be now protected - incremental backups as well.

OpenShift backups allow also to perform pre/post export remote command execution on the deployment (which are useful to trigger i.e. DB quiesce/resume operations).

One also can notice restore history visible in UI (both on a single VM/app level as well as in Recovery Plan details view).

All restore jobs are also now reported in e-mail and you can browse them from the dashboard. Installation playbooks now also allow administrators to specify alternative MariaDB repository location and version.

Changes:

• New: restore history in reporting (dashboard and report mail)

• New: restore history in Recovery Plans

• New: OpenStack - disk attachment with Ceph-based deployments - incremental backups (technical preview)

• New: OpenShift - Ceph-backed PVs support - full and incremental backups with RBD-NBD (technical preview)

• New: OpenShift - pre/post export remote command execution

• New: CentOS/RHEL 8 support

• New: Ansible-based installation with option to customize MariaDB source, version and distribution

• Update: vProtect server security updates in API and UI layers

• Update: MariaDB 10.4 in new deployments

vProtect 3.9.1 (Quasar)

10.02.2020

vProtect 3.9 Update 1 introduces several enhancements for OpenStack and KVM stand-alone environments. This release introduces new strategy for OpenStack, which uses Cinder-based disk-attachment to perform backups.

For KVM stand-alone vProtect now supports LVM thin-pools and mixed configurations (i.e. QCOW2+LVM). This update also introduces Ceph RBD support for stand-alone KVM hypervisors.

With 3.9 Update 1 we also provide oVirt integration, so that you can now invoke backup & restore operations directly from oVirt/RHV administration interface.

Changes:

• New: OpenStack - disk attachment backup strategy using Cinder

• New: KVM stand-alone - LVM thin-pool support

• New: KVM stand-alone - support for VMs with mixed disk types

• New: KVM stand-alone - Ceph support

• New: oVirt/RHV Backup & Restore UI integration for vProtect

• New: UI - configuration wizard enhancements

vProtect 3.9 (Quasar)

28.10.2019

vProtect 3.9 is a major release adding officially support for VMware and Hyper-V virtualization platforms. Both full and incremental backups are supported and it also allows you to restore individual files. Second huge improvement, for all supported platforms we introduce Recovery Plans. Now, you'll be able to define rules, how and where multiple VMs should be restored when you need DR. You also are able to schedule them and restore set of VMs periodically to your test locations, to be sure that you're able to restore them if you need to.

Several improvements are related to Application backup. Quasar release introduced several build-in application backup templates for common use cases ready to be used. You also are now able to parametrize you command execution configurations to force set of parameters that are required for you command or script. Application restore will also provide several option how to cope with automatic archive extraction or overwrite existing files.

For Amazon users we also have good news - now S3 backup provider allows to enable extended retention for stored backups and change storage class for oldest objects to Glacier giving you option to reduce your storage costs significantly.

RHV/oVirt/OLVM users can also boost their backups with netcat transfer and for SSH transfer mode, restore operations now use direct connection instead of Disk Image Transfer API. This release also improves Web UI especially in configuration related activities, adds restore history and improves task console and many more.

Changes:

• New: VMware - official release - significant changes in integration layer

• New: VMware - restore - target disk format selection

• New: VMware - added Hot-Add transfer option if available

• New: VMware - support for tag-based policy auto-assignment

• New: Hyper-V - full/incremental backup

• New: Hyper-V - snapshot management

• New: Hyper-V - file-level restore with mountable backups

• New: Hyper-V - option to share drives over iSCSI

• New: Recovery Plans - batch VM restore for DR

• New: Recovery Plans - periodic VM restore for DR tests

• New: Mountable backups - option to mount QCOW2 with NTFS file systems

• New: Restore operation - option to delete VM (if one already exists with the same name)

• New: Application backup - command execution configuration parameters

• New: Application backup - templates and ready scripts for several common use cases

• New: Application backup - option to clone applications and command execution configurations

• New: Application backup - automatic archive extraction and option to overwrite

• New: Application backup - option to ignore error codes or standard error output for user-provided scripts

• New: OpenStack - Ceph-based storage support

• New: RHV/oVirt/OLVM - netcat transfer option

• New: RHV/oVirt/OLVM - SSH transfer - restore operation now also over SSH

• New: Swift - compression support

• New: Dell-EMC Avamar support

• New: AWS Glacier support

• New: Storware Insight - detailed backup status to reporting option

• New: Ansible playbooks for installation

• New: UI - configuration wizard

• New: UI - task console improvements

• New: UI - global search for quick access to any item

• New: UI - restore jobs history

vProtect 3.8 Update 1 (Nebula)

19.06.2019

vProtect 3.8 Update 1 introduces 3rd backup strategy for RHV/oVirt 4.2+ environments. Using direct SSH transfer from hypervisors vProtect will be able to perform backups significantly faster. All of the features that currently vProtect supports for oVirt 4.2 are now also available for Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager. Another big update is OpenStack support. Currently for environments with KVM VMs using QCOW2 disks. We also provided Horizon integration to allow more seamless integration. For Oracle VM we introduced option to exclude drives. This version also updates our encryption mechanism for Azure and File System backup destinations to support large VM backups. Update 1 also provides minor UI improvements and fix for "snapshot ID not found in the DB" if full backup has not been done yet.

Changes:

• New: RHV/oVirt - new "SSH transfer" export/import mode

• New: Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager support - same feature set as for oVirt 4.2

• New: OpenStack - full/incremental backup support

• New: OpenStack - file-level restore support

• New: OpenStack - Horizon integration

• New: Oracle VM - disk exclusion support

• New: Kubernetes - support for containerd

• New: Web UI - improvements in batch hypervisor operations like node/password modification

• New: Web UI - improved backup status reporting

• Update: updated Azure/file system encryption mechanism to support 64+ GB backups

• Fix: automatic full backup if snapshot ID for incremental backup has not been recorded yet

vProtect 3.8 (Nebula)

11.04.2019

vProtect 3.8 (Nebula) is a massive update. It introduces Amazon EC2 backup support with snapshot-management and file-level restore capabilities. Proxmox users will have multiple additional features including automatic backup import to the Proxmox hypervisor, disk-exclusion, Snapshot-management and pre/post snapshot remote command execution. You also will be able to store your backups in Google Cloud Storage.

In Nebula release we enhanced mounted backup capabilities. Now you can browse and restore backup files directly in Web UI, or share RAW-based backups over iSCSI and mount them directly in your target system (especially useful when you want to preserve Windows file permissions). RAW-based backups with NTFS file systems can now be mounted automatically as well (previously it was only manual mount).

Web UI has been improved with new list views with improved paging and filtering. Logs from remote logs can now are automatically shared with the server so that you can browse them in Web UI or download all of them with a single click. New languages - German and Spanish - are also available.

Version 3.8 also improved restore options. Citrix XVA-based backups are now restored as a VM automatically, RHV backups can have allocation type specified and for OpenShift/Kubernetes we added fix for „restore to the specific project” option.

Last, but not least, we updated our application server and data access layer and added option to automatically send vProtect logs to Storware Insight service.

Changes:

• New: Amazon EC2 - full backup with disk-exclusion support - for EC2-based VMs

• New: Amazon EC2 - file-level restore with mountable backups

• New: Amazon EC2 - snapshot/management

• New: Proxmox - automatic backup import to the Proxmox hypervisor

• New: Proxmox - file-level restore with mountable backups

• New: Proxmox - snapshot management

• New: Proxmox - disk exclusion for backups

• New: Proxmox - pre/post snapshot remote command execution (post-export for VMs, post-snapshot for containers)

• New: Google Cloud Storage support

• New: Mounted backups - option to share RAW disks over iSCSI (for platforms that use RAW format in backups)

• New: Mounted backups - file-level restore directly from Web UI

• New: download-all logs feature in Web UI

• New: option to browse logs from remote nodes in Web UI - now mounted automatically

• New: Citrix - XVA restored as a VM

• New: NTFS auto-mount (for RAW-based backups)

• New: RHV - sparse/preallocated format option for restore

• New: German and Spanish language support in Web UI

• New: Storware Insight - automatic logs upload

• Update: Payara 5 pplication Server and data access layer

• Fix: Kubernetes/OpenShift - fixed restore to the specific project option

vProtect 3.7 Update 2 (Multiverse)

28.02.2019

vProtect 3.7 Update 2 adds support for OpenShift. Now you'll be able to use the same backup methodology as for Kubernetes to protect your persistent volumes on OpenShift platform.

We also updated our sample CloudForms integration to match current vProtect API level.

Changes:

• New: OpenShift - support for full backup of persistent volumes and deployment configuration

• Update: CloudForms integration matching 3.7.x API.

vProtect 3.7 Update 1 (Multiverse)

21.12.2018

vProtect 3.7 Update 1 extends Multiverse release with additional snapshot management capabilities, such as option to revert snapshots directly from UI and adds support for Nutanix VMs. Moreover, application backup now allows you to define environment variables for each application. This gives more flexibility when reusing same scripts for multiple instances of the same application.

This update also introduces Chinese language support in UI, as well provides further CLI and backup destination improvements. These include ability to restore backup chains residing on multiple backup destinations and gives additional option for file systems where random access may cause issues when reading data randomly when using mounted backups.

Changes:

• New: Snapshot management - Nutanix AHV

• New: Revert snapshots from vProtect console - RHV/oVirt, Citrix XenServer, Nutanix AHV

• New: Application backup - environment variables support

• New: UI - Chinese language supported

• New: updated RedHat CloudForms integration to match 3.7 APIs

• New: option to disable random access for FS backup destinations (which may be essential for file systems such as LTFS)

• New: CLI - backup time details

• New: option to restore backup chains residing on multiple backup destinations

• Fix: arguments in pre/post snapshot command, pre/post BD access command were forced to be unique

vProtect 3.7 (Multiverse)

30.10.2018

vProtect 3.7 (Multiverse) introduces many significant changes. First of them, and the reason why we given such code name was snapshot management. Now you can have state of your environments being periodically saved without exporting backup itself. This comes together with new interval-based schedules that allow you to snapshot VM i.e. every hour.

"Multiverse" also relates to multiple platforms that we support and new possible sources of backup. That is basic backup/restore capabilities for Kubernetes as well as generic approach to backup any application that you can provide us script for. This means that you should be able to cover use cases such as database or hypervisor backup directly using vProtect. A good example is that vProtect DB now can be setup as an "application" that is being backed up using the settings directly from UI.

What is more we have provided way to deploy vProtect using Dockerfiles, introduced support for Oracle VM tags in auto-assignment of VMs, and made significant changes in UI - especially related to the concept of Policies.

Changes:

• New: Snapshot Management - for RHV/Citrix/KVM

• New: KVM - incremental backup support

• New: KVM - RAW file (.img) VM disk support

• New: Kubernetes support - backup and restore of Persistent Volumes used in Kubernetes Deployments

• New: Application backup - generic mechanism to backup any application using custom commands

• New: automatic vProtect database backup

• New: Oracle VM - support for tags (VM auto-assignment)

• New: vProtect deployment using Dockerfiles

• New: VM Backup Policies replaced VM groups

• New: Interval-based schedules

• New: UI - non-present VMs cleanup button

• Fix: Schedule/VM group checkboxes race-condition - now working also in Firefox

vProtect 3.6 (Stardust)

26.07.2018

Stardust release enhances file system backup destination with VDO deduplication. One can say that VDO literally "turns data into dust" and can be enabled directly from UI. KVM-standalone users will also benefit with pre/post snapshot command execution and ability to import VM back to the hypervisor. As the GDPR is already effective, we implemented encryption option for S3, Azure and file system backup destinations.

vProtect 3.6 also introduces also many smaller (resembling stardust again), but long-awaited features such as LDAP authentication, detailed time statistics for backups, improved dashboard, or VM auto-assignment based on hypervisor clusters.

Changes:

• New: File system backup destination – deduplication with VDO

• New: FS/S3/Azure backup destinations – data encryption

• New: LDAP authentication

• New: RHV/oVirt/KVM/Xen/XenServer - option to set restored VM name

• New: RHV/oVirt optimized snapshot for selected disks only

• New: KVM/Xen – LVM VG scanning (Hypervisor Storage)

• New: VM auto-assignment based on cluster

• New: Web UI – improved dashboard

• New: Web UI – additional backup statistics: size and time in VM details

• New: other UI improvements

• Fix: Server-Node communication optimizations

vProtect 3.5 (Parsec)

30.05.2018

vProtect 3.5 introduces support for incremental backups of RHV/oVirt environments. With the new Disk Image Transfer mode, administrators will be able to protect their environments without the need to use export storage domain or Proxy VM.

New vProtect also does additional storage space checking (with configurable thresholds), to protect virtualization platform storage to be filled up.

With pre/post snapshot mechanism administrators will be able to quiesce services before snapshot backup with their own custom scripts to make backups application-level consistent.

Similarly, it is also possible now to customize mounting volumes before it is accessed dynamically with backup destination pre/post access command execution. A good example of its usage is Catalogic vStor Server support, including backups being replicated to the remote location.

Version 3.5 also introduces support for Microsoft Azure as another cloud-based option for storing backups.

Changes:

• New: RHV/oVirt 4.2+ - Disk Image Transfer backup mode (incremental backup support)

• New: RHV/oVirt/Citrix/Nutanix - pre/post snapshot remote command execution

• New: RHV/oVirt/Citrix/Nutanix - available storage check before snapshot creation

• New: pre/post backup destination access custom command execution

• New: Microsoft Azure backup destination

• New: Catalogic vStor Server support (with replication)

• New: logging improvements for backup destinations

• Fix: UI node reassignment failed for HV/HVM after original has been removed

vProtect 3.4 (Mars)

06.04.2018

vProtect 3.4 introduces API v4 support for oVirt/RHV environments, which comes together with a new backup strategy available. This means that vProtect Node can now act as a proxy VM, without the need of using export storage domain and a cloning step.

This release also introduces cluster and storage scanning to allow administrators to easily select destination storage from the list in restore dialog box. Moreover, new vProtect version also extends scheduling options to allow administrators to configure backups to be done on monthly or even annually basis.

Last but not least, vProtect now can fail remaining backup tasks in the queue if it detects that certain percent of backup tasks have already failed. This helps administrator to address cases when unavailability of backup provider or VM infrastructure causes multiple backups to constantly fail during scheduled backup process.

Changes:

• New: RHV/oVirt API v4 support - backup without export storage domain

• New: extended scheduling options

• New: Cluster and storage indexing (RHV/oVirt/OVM/Nutanix/XenServer)

• New: automatic stop of scheduled backup if more than X % of backups already failed

• Fix: backup retention settings could result in full backups being kept longer than configured

• Fix: Nutanix - backup of VMs with mounted ISOs resulted in error

vProtect 3.3 (Warp)

01.03.2018

vProtect 3.3 introduces support for Nutanix AHV hypervisors. It is also able to create incremental backups using Nutanix CRT (CBT) feature, and provides selective disk backup for this platform.

For Citrix hypervisors vProtect now allows to set transfer NIC used to transfer backups. Backups of VMs running on KVM/Xen (stand-alone) hypervisors can be performed with exclusion of certain drives.

This release also provides updated application server, including multiple security fixes and code optimizations. Moreover initial configuration of the node has been scripted to make the process easier.

Changes:

• New: Nutanix AHV support including CBT for incremental backups

• New: Nutanix AHV - file-level restore

• New: Nutanix AHV - disk exclusion

• New: KVM (stand-alone) and legacy Xen - disk exclusion

• New: Citrix - option to specify transfer NIC for hypervisor

• New: NetBackup - option to access the same NB server from multiple nodes

• New: e-mail reports with VM grouping

• New: updated application server

• New: scripted OS preparation for node

• Fix: Networker - empty versions list caused exception

• Fix: additional code optimizations and fixes

vProtect 3.2.3 (Gravity)

16.02.2018

vProtect 3.2.3 release fixes incremental backup related issues, which are mostly related to Citrix CBT backup implementation. It also adds S3 DNS based round-robin support for local object storage installations and provides minor UI fixes and improvements.

Changes:

• Fix: Citrix - CBT - retention handling for incremental backups

• Fix: Citrix - CBT backups had wrong relationship recorded

• Fix: Citrix - session management problem during incremental backup import

• Fix: UI - selecting incremental backup in backup window resulted in error being shown

• Fix: prevent schedules to be executed if they have just been created and time passed

  (tasks would be expired)

• New: UI - add Node Config selection in Backup Destination create/edit forms

• New: Citrix - restart CBT on all VHDs during full backup

• New: S3 backup destination - if DNS name is used in endpoint URL, try to resolve and

  reconnect, so that DNS Round-Robin can be effective (third party S3 API)

vProtect 3.2.2 (Gravity)

22.01.2018

vProtect 3.2.2 release adds new settings for third party S3 API implementations (i.e. Scality) It also fixes minor bugs in UI and CLI.

Changes:

• Fix: UI - filtering - select all option was not using filter settings

• Fix: CLI - incorrect name used while creating backup destination

• New: S3 backup destination option - record backup time after storing object (third party S3 API)

• New: S3 backup destination mode - single bucket with disabled versioning (third party S3 API)

vProtect 3.2.1 (Gravity)

15.01.2018

vProtect 3.2.1 release is focused on UI fixes and enhancements. Administrators will now be able to backup whole VM group with just one click. A new chart in the VM details makes also easier to keep track of backup size.

Changes:

• Fix: UI - missing tooltips

• Fix: UI - drop-down lists arrows handling

• Fix: logo in e-mail reports was not rendered properly in Outlook

• Fix: empty backup log download handling

• New: CLI - node registration in batch mode

• New: VM backup size chart

• New: VM group backup

• New: Task console full screen mode and task counters

• New: other UI improvements (additional info in forms, filtering)

vProtect 3.2 (Gravity)

22.12.2017

vProtect 3.2 adds new backup capabilities for Citrix environments.

Now you will be able to use XenServer 7.3 Changed Block Tracking feature to boost your incremental backups. vProtect is now also able to mount Citrix backups on the vProtect Nodes without the need to restore it to the XenServer. One can also exclude selected VM disks from backup (Citrix).

Proxmox users will now also be able to configure compression of their backups. For RHV/oVirt environments. This release also adds option to freeze filesystems before snapshot creation.

This release also optimizes integration related functions used by backup providers, adds instant notifications for failed backups and provides multiple enhancements in the web UI.

Changes:

• New: Changed Block Tracking support for XenServer 7.3+

• New: option to exclude selected VM disks from backup (Citrix)

• New: file-level restore for Citrix XenServer

• New: file-level restore for KVM (stand-alone) and Xen (legacy)

• New: quiesced-snapshot (Citrix)/file system freeze before snapshot (RHV/oVirt) option on VM level

• New: instant notification about recently failed backups

• New: UI enhancements and optimizations

• New: compression options for Proxmox

• New: backup provider integration optimizations

vProtect 3.1.5 (New Horizons)

15.11.2017

vProtect 3.1.5 fixes several task handling issues, including timeout settings not being used properly used. Node removal also removes mounted backups and HV/HVM type fields are kept even when VM is removed.

Changes:

• New: node stacktraces logging enhancements

• Fix: timeouts in settings were not used when creating a task (default 1h always assigned)

• Fix: store task now cleans up files on expiration

• Fix: node removal should remove mounted backups

• Fix: HV/HVM type field should not be cleared when VM no longer exists

vProtect 3.1.4 (New Horizons)

06.11.2017

vProtect 3.1.4 introduces enhanced auto-assign feature. Now users can add/remove automatically VMs based on set of tags and regular expression using both include and exclude rules. There are also few UI related bug fixes.

Changes:

• New: RHV/oVirt/Citrix - include/exclude VMs automatically to/from groups

  using set of regular expressions or tags

• Fix: backup priority is always 50 in web UI

• Fix: S3 keys could not be saved in web UI

• Fix: error handling when backup is not found in backup destination during restore

vProtect 3.1 (New Horizons)

10.10.2017

Release 3.1 is a completely new vProtect. Brand new UI, CLI, open API, app server and database. It introduces also support for Proxmox hypervisors. With 3.1 you can now scale horizontally with multi-node centralized management and store backups in different backup destinations.

New Horizons release introduces also RPM based installation and upgrade, XVA compression (Citrix) and several security enhancements.

Changes:

• New: Web UI

• New: open API for 3rd-party integration

• New: multi-node deployments

• New: multiple backup destinations - now they can be used simultaneously

• New: database changed to MariaDB and embedded application server

• New: refreshed CLI

• New: RPM based installations and updates

• New: Proxmox support

• New: Citrix XVA compression

• New: user management

• New: security enhancements

vProtect 2.6.4 (Pulsar)

10.08.2017

Release 2.6.4 fix solves problem with XenServer environments when multiple hypervisors have same SR name (which results in import issues). Now users can pass SR UUID to uniquely identify target SR for import. This release also includes DB optimizations and introduces move operation in file system BP for vProtect environments using same file system for staging and as a storage for stored backups.

Changes:

• Fix: Citrix XenServer - SR UUID can now be passed as SR name for import operation

  (when multiple SRs are with the same name)

• Fix: DB optimizations

• New: File System backup provider moves file if it is on the same FS (store operation)

vProtect 2.6.3 (Pulsar)

11.07.2017

Release 2.6.3 fix solves problem with Oracle VM environments with VMs that use different storage repositories for config and VM disks. It also provides minor enhancement in exception logging and support for SuSE Linux in installer.

Changes:

• Fixed: Oracle VM - failed export when VM uses multiple storage repositories

• Fixed: minor installation script fixes

• New: SUSE Linux support in installer

• New: extended logging for hypervisor related exceptions

vProtect 2.6.2 (Pulsar)

27.06.2017

Release 2.6.2 provides workaround for RHEV 3.5.x API which doesn’t provide all information needed to automatically select appropriate export domain for datacenters. It also fixes NetWorker restore operation (which previously did not bring original paths after files have been restored).

Changes:

• Fixed: optional setting - storage domain to datacenter mapping in settings

• Fixed: NetWorker restored files to wrong location, which resulted in mount failure

vProtect 2.6.1 (Pulsar)

13.06.2017

Release 2.6.1 fixes several issues regarding removal of task and backup objects from the DB and addresses old RHEV API issue related to storage domains. It also fixes S3 timestamp mismatch problem, which may result in failed backups.

Changes:

• Fixed: task removal failure in some situations

• Fixed: RHEV 3.6 - old API did not provide info about export domains

• Fixed: backup removal fixed

• Fixed: S3 wrong timestamp in the DB

vProtect 2.6 (Pulsar)

31.05.2017

With release 2.6 we have introduced file-level restore for RHV/oVirt and Oracle VM environments. Together with possibility to stream backup directly from file system backup provider, now users can almost instantly access specific files in VM backups.

Citrix and RHV/oVirt environments also received tag-based auto-assignment feature to simplify process of grouping VMs and scheduling backups.

In this version we also added Dell-EMC Networker support, which means that currently users have option to store backups in 3 enterprise-grade backup providers.

Amazon S3 backup provider also has been enhanced with secondary mode - one bucket for all data, which is required by some vendors using S3 protocol. This means that vProtect can now also use IBM Cleversafe as the backup provider.

Changes:

• New: Dell-EMC Networker support

• New: IBM Cleversafe support

• New: Amazon S3 - single bucket mode

• New: File-level restore with mountable backups (RHV/oVirt and Oracle VM)

• New: VM auto-assignment based on tags (Citrix XenServer and RHV/oVirt)

• New: Backup size in Virtual Machines view (web UI)

• Updated: Keep last backup locally option - optimizations + support for all hypervisor types

• Updated: Improved installer

vProtect 2.5 (Trappist)

16.03.2017

The key feature of this version is support for incremental backups (Citrix XenServer). vProtect is now also able to restore VMs directly to XenServer hypervisors. With added support for Amazon S3 as a backup provider one can also store backups directly in the cloud. Last but not least, version 2.5 includes several updates and bug fixes in the backup providers’ libraries and multiple optimizations in engine’s code.

Changes:

• New: Incremental backup (Citrix XenServer)

• New: Restore to hypervisor (Citrix XenServer)

• New: Amazon S3 backup provider

• New: Retention settings managed by vProtect

• Updated: TSM API library, which includes multiple fixes and improvements

• Updated: OpenStack Swift API library

• Updated: improved installer

vProtect 2.4.1

30.01.2017

This is a bugfix release focused on DB mapping issues when hypervisors were removed. It also verifies which backup providers are covered by license and fixes minor license-related issues.

Changes:

• Fixed: removal of hypervisors, hypervisor managers and VM groups now is properly reflected in foreign keys in DB

• Fixed: verbose message if license is not valid when starting engine

• Fixed: license verification for backup providers

• Fixed: configuration refresh before starting the engine

vProtect 2.4

11.01.2017

Main improvements compared to 2.3:

1. File System as the backup provider, which means that:

   • you can use any mounted set of file systems (mount points) as the storage space

   • especially those can have deduplication capabilities like DD Boost (Data Domain) or OpenDedup

   • then you can use them as the destination for your backups (retention settings:

     N last versions and keep not older than N days backup - same as for Swift)

   • technically, you can use ANY mountable file system, even remote (or set of file systems)

   • vProtect will balance the usage based on the amount of free space

2. Small but important - auto-assignment of VMs to groups

   • I’ve heard about this requirement several times from the customers

   • Index task will try to match name agains regular expressions and assign to the group

     Just a short reminder, cause I think I haven’t summarize 2.3 (previous) version to you:

   • added OracleVM support

   • added Veritas NetBackup as the backup provider

This means that there is already quite a lot of supported virtualization platforms and possible backup destinations.

vProtect 2.3

19.12.2016

• added OracleVM support

• added Veritas NetBackup as the backup provider

vProtect 2.2

16.05.2016

A brand new release - vProtect 2.2 - extends range of supported platforms.

With vProtect 2.2 you can now easily implement backup of virtual machines running in Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and oVirt environments.

Moreover, you can now store you backups both in IBM Spectrum Protect and in Openstack Swift object storage. With just a few clicks you can connect to your existing Swift environment and set retention policy for your VM backups.

In vProtect 2.2 we also significantly improved engine and enabled dynamic reconfigurations directly from web interface.

vProtect 2.1

18.02.2016

• Added Web UI

• KVM/Xen support (full backup only)

vProtect 1.0

30.06.2015

• Basic CLI

• backup/restore Citrix XenServer (restore to node’s file system only)

• TSM support