By end of June, two new releases Data Protector 23.3 and Data Protector for Cloud Workloads 6.0                                                                       were introduced with new features to support daily work in backup environments. 

With this release, most of you have already seen new version numbers being introduced. New versions that have an unusual numbering for Data  Protection suite. The background is that all software products have adapted the general OpenText version names. The OpenText versioning always consists of the year and the quarter of the release. There is a release every quarter and the last version of a year (xx.4) will automatically become an LTS release with (currently) 3 years of committed support. All other release are STS releases with 1 year committed support.

The status of the versions and support periods can be found here:

https://www.microfocus.com/productlifecycle/

But once we have mentioned new versioning model, why you should consider upgrading your Data Protector environment? Why even consider upgrading if the product is working fine?

Here you can find FOUR reasons why you should consider it:

• Protect your investment adapting your backup solution as your IT environment evolves: Very often the last element that is reviewed within a company's overall IT strategy is its backup and recovery strategy. Especially in moments of constant evolution, updating backup strategies as well as updating the solution itself, are relegated in time. With internal and external risks increasing, every minute you're offline creates more cost and brand impact. Updating to the latest versions can help you implement a centralized and secure solution:
  1. With an integrated security model to address the required RPO and RTO.
  2. With automated backup processes, including recovery of operational data.
  3. With the implementation of immutability and air gap features.
• Get full ROI by facing complex environments and ensuring fast and reliable data recovery: Not installing new versions also means missing out on some if not all the new functionalities, many of which are designed to make our job easier. Sometimes the improvements don't seem very relevant, but when you use them, you find that certain tasks are easier to perform, or a new utility allows you to improve the security of your environment, or simply defining a new backup job is also much faster. By upgrading your environment, you can take advantages of:
  1. The new SAP HANA integration agent.
  2. DP Unified Integration Agent to support NoSQL-type databases.
  3. Role Based Access Control.
• Minimize your Total Cost of Ownership: The exponential growth in data is accompanied by a series of associated costs, and customers are seeking ways to better control such situations. Technologies like online applications and cloud options have come to stay, among some of its advantages we find the possibility of reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO). Using remote cloud-based servers eliminates the need for internal storage equipment and application requirements, as well as additional costs such as standby equipment, software upgrades, administration, and ever-increasing data storage. The ability to integrate your chosen backup solution with online applications and the cloud means the service is tailored to your data protection and recovery needs. By moving to the latest versions you can get:
  1. Software Deduplication (DPD) enhanced capabilities.
  2. DPD cloud Storage enhancements.
  3. MS365 protection enhancements as well as and new virtualization platform coverage.
• Increase Resilience using industry trends: The basic best-in-class data backup solutions/services measure is to implement a well-known "3-2-1-1-0 Rule" configuration, which is an evolution of the classic "3-2-1 rule". Managing different copies is something that many solutions can handle, but the use and management of tape as a data backup solution, which has been around for decades, is something that not everyone can do, and yet it´s still necessary, as it is one of the options used as an optional copy format or for vaulting processes due to its multiple advantages. The industry also considers disk backup as an additional format for the application of this rule, and the associated deduplication technology as one of the key mechanisms to reduce the footprint of backups.

Finally, cloud backup, in its different modalities, will immediately and significantly improve high availability in the event of any disaster or incident that affects data availability as you will have versions of your business-critical data stored in an off-site, meaning that you can access and recover it quickly and easily.

Data Protector and Data Protector for Cloud Workloads can help you to apply the “3-2-1-10 rule” through different applications and environments in many ways, all from a single provider, and the first step to leveraging these capabilities is to get the latest version of both solutions to:

1. Maintain at least three copies of production data.
2. Store data from different applications on at least two different types of storage media.
3. Keep one copy of the backups in an off-site location.
4. Keep one copy of the media offline or air gapped.
5. Ensure all recoverable data has zero errors.

In addition to the above capabilities that can be found when upgrading Data Protector and Data Protector for Cloud Workloads, here are some other new features:

Data Protector 23.3:

• New Session Overview, Filtering and Searching within the Web GUI.
• Updates to DPDutils allowing remote work and maintenance.
• Attaching to OpenLDAP and eDirectory.
• Providing Single-Sign-On (SSO) with DP4CW.
• Lots of fresh certifications done.

Data Protector for Cloud Workloads 6.0:

• Support for additional S3-compatible backup destinations.
• Support for KeyCloak, SELINUX and more Linux distros (SLES, Alma, Rocky).
• Openshift Virtualization, OpenNebula.
• Stateful Set for K8s (Kubernetes) and OpenShift.
• New restore modal wizard for M365.
• SSO integration with DP.

Unfortunately, many times we have heard that an update process is complicated, or that we do not have the necessary time to update the software, but it is something that is not done every day. That is why from OpenText we recommend contacting our professional services, or a certified reseller who can perform the updates and carry out a backup health check at the same time to ensure that not only the software, but also the best practices are applied.

Choosing to work with a well-resourced, recognized specialist is a sensible business decision, made by the accounting practice to prevent data loss, minimize downtime and protect both your reputation and financial well-being at a manageable cost.

Willing to know more about? Access now Data Protector and Data Protector for Cloud Workloads landing page to get more information about these solutions.

Be sure to connect with OpenText on Twitter and LinkedIn.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this blog. Comment below.

The Online Community Team

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