With only two months since the last release of Micro Focus Data Protector, the development team has been busy and is very pleased to be able to deliver the first support by Data Protector of Microsoft 365 Online applications. While the team wanted to make this capability available as soon as possible, they also managed to squeeze in some additional functionality that delivers performance enhancements, resource utilization improvements, and simplifies some operations. Data Protector 2021.02 is a release that advances the capabilities of Data Protector into the application and infrastructure usage desired by many of today’s leading companies. More highlights are outlined below while full details can be found in the release notes.

Features and Benefits:

Data Protector has consistently evolved over its long history and this release continues that evolution. While some functionality is enhanced with additional performance, newer application usage is now protected and continues the journey to the cloud and remote operations. Virtualization improvements and enhanced Block Based Backup are the other main areas to be added in this release, along with several certifications, stability improvements, and security upgrades.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online Backup and Restore

Microsoft online services is an attractive offering for many companies and as its roll-out builds, it is important to ensure its use is protected and backed up just as other applications and data across the company are. Microsoft works to ensure the availability of its Microsoft 365 services, but each company is responsible for the backup and protection of its data. Data Protector now offers this for Exchange Online giving:

• Full backup and restore of all mailboxes or select mailboxes.
• Configuration through web UI using restricted, secure permissions.
• Restores to a pre-configured temporary folder for easier user recovery.
• Implemented on latest tech stack for scalability and simpler support additional online applications backup and restore in the future.

Microsoft Hyper-V Resilient Change Tracking (RCT) Support

RCT, introduced by Microsoft in 2016 offers greater performance, resource utilization, and simplicity compared to the VSS processes which came before. Data Protector provided the first level of support for RCT in an earlier release, offering full backup capabilities. Now that capability is improved by offering incremental backup.

• Optimizes backup of Hyper V VM’s eliminating requirements like snapshots.
• Improves performance, resource utilization, and simplicity.
• Enhances previous full backup capability by adding incremental backup.

Windows Block Based Backup True Incremental Support

Another capability to get a similar treatment to RCT is the Windows Block Based Backup functionality.  Earlier releases delivered full and differential backups.  We now provide true incremental backup for further performance and resource improvements.

• Adds true incremental backup for Windows Server 2016/2019
• Reduces storage footprint compared to differential backups since last full backup

Security Enhancements for continued protection 

A Data Protector release would not be complete without a security enhancement or upgrade and this release provides an upgrade of libcurl to version v7.74.0. This easy-to-use client-side URL transfer library supports many protocols as well as SSL certificates, authentication, and many other functions. See our release notes for the full details.

More Info

For more information on how to take advantage of these new and enhanced capabilities see the Data Protector product resources information:

• Data Protector documentation on the Practitioner Portal here
• Upgrade information to get to the latest release of Data Protector here
• Have technical questions about Data Protector? Visit the Data Protector User Discussion Forum
• Keep up with the latest Tips & Info about Data Protector!
• Do you have an Idea or Product Enhancement Request about Data Protector? Submit it in the  Idea Exchange.

Micro Focus Universe 2021

Have you registered to attend the Micro Focus Universe event on March 23-25, 2021? This is the premiere Micro Focus event to hear from the product experts the latest news and developments for all Micro Focus products. Go here for more information and to register.

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