Hot-fix Update –  On the morning on Tuesday, January 13, the MAX Backup team posted version 14.2.2 of MAX Backup to the auto update service.  Details fixes can found in the revised release notes located here.

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The MAX Backup team is happy to announce that version 14.2 of MAX Backup is nearing completion and is expected to be posted to the MAXfocus download section in the evening hours on Tuesday, November 18th.  Version 14.2 is the final maintenance release for 2014 and incorporates several usability enhancements requested by our partners as well as a sneak peak at new (BETA) backup and recovery features that will be introduced in Q1 2015.

Version 14.2 includes the following enhancements:

• Improved Hyper-V backup granularity – Users can now choose to select the entire Hyper-V virtual machine or individual virtual disks to backup and restore.
• More flexible bandwidth settings – Users now have the ability to disable bandwidth throttling on specific days of the week and they can choose the unit of measurement for setting upload and download speeds in Mbit/s or Kbit/s.
• Helpful hints for important settings – Users will notice question mark icons next to important settings thought out the Backup Manager and Cloud Management Console.  When mousing over these hints the user will be provide with additional insight and examples for using or configuring that particular product feature.
• Reintroduction of performance charts – Users familiar with version 13 and prior of the Backup Manager will recognize the reintroduced performance charts available while backups are running.
• Real-time synchronization statistics – The “Overview” tab in the Backup Manager has become even more informative. It displays current synchronization statuses for the Cloud and for the LocalSpeedVault (if configured for the current device).
• Virtual Drive enhancements – The data source list found in the optional Virtual Drive tool now displays only those data sources that are available for recovery. If a data source hasn’t been backed up on the current device, its name will be absent from the list. Also users will find the overall performance and stability of the tool improved.
• Custom branding experience – Brand able elements configured in the Cloud Management Console are now more descriptive and offer a true to life preview.  Custom branding of the Backup Manager now has less visible clues that can be traced back to us as the manufacturer.
• Export improvements – All Cloud Management Console export formats can now be configured to create individual documents for each partner/ end-customer. Additionally, all exports can be ran for the current day or for a prior end of month.  New options include the ability standardize reporting of all data sizes in bytes and  to export only the visible columns.

Many of the features planned for our Q1 release of MAX Backup 15 are available as beta features that can be unlocked in 14.2.

NOTE:  While you are invited to test drive the new BETA features we suggest that you not use them in production environments as we cannot guarantee that all features will work correctly or reliably so please use them at your own risk.

Any feedback to improve the usability and acceptance of our solutions is highly appreciated.

Please speak with your account manager if you would like to gain access to and provide feedback for the following beta features.

• New cloud recovery targets (beta) – We are developing the ability to recover data to Microsoft Azure and Amazon EC2 clouds. Users can access the features from within the Backup Manager and Service providers and system administrators are welcome to try out the enhanced multi-instance Recovery Console (former Virtual Disaster Recovery Tool). The Recovery Console can handle multiple data sources and backup devices, provides detailed activity statistics, and supports the continuous restore mode when the replica is updated automatically as soon as a new backup session is detected. (32-bit download) (64-bit download)
• New local standby image (beta) – We are developing the ability to perform backups directly to an offline .VHD that could reside on the local system or a network share.  The .VHD would be consistent with the last completed backup and could be mounted or booted to provide rapid recovery without having to perform a restore.
• New backup accelerator (beta) – We are developing ways to track the changes made within large files so that we can significantly reduce the processing time encountered when starting a backup.  We anticipate upward of a 6x to 10x reduction in pre-processing time for large Microsoft SQL databases, Hyper-V virtual machines, Exchange information stores and SharePoint deployments.

Software updates and installation.

All software will be generally available for download and manual installation at the time of the release.  The following update services are scheduled post GA to assist with easy upgrades and deployments for existing partners.

The Cloud Management Console update notification will take effect on November 25, after which time you will be prompted with the option to update your CMC to the latest version each time the CMC is launched.

The Backup Manager auto-update service will take effect on December 2nd in early December, at which time prior versions of the Backup Manager clients for Windows and MAC OS X will begin updating themselves automatically.

To ensure your Windows and Mac OS clients are always updated with the latest Backup Manager client version please ensure that you have specified ‘Always latest version’ for the ‘Max version:’ setting in the ‘Partner information view’ section of the Cloud Management Console.  You can consult the support knowledge base for more details on how to set the Client Max Version.