We’re excited to talk about all the innovative updates in the 25.6 Release for Cove Data Protection!

This release focuses on improving Ease of Use, Recovery Reliability, Microsoft 365 Backup and Recovery, and Linux System State Support – enhancing your peace of mind and cyber resilience.

Before we get into the exciting updates with this release, please note the following EOL announcement:

(Important) ESXi / vCenter 6.0 – 6.5 Support End of Life:

Starting August 31, 2025:

• Cove is adopting VDDK 8.0 meaning all new backups and restores from ESXi / vCenter 6.0 – 6.5 will fail.
• Ensure your protection continues by upgrading both hypervisor and vCenter to 6.7 U3+ to stay protected – existing restore points remain usable.
• If you have any questions or need further support – please reach out to your dedicated PSE to assist you.

With that out of the way, let’s dive in!

What’s New in the Cove?

Platform Enhancements:

• Backup Dashboard:
  • New “Physicality” column in the maximum value report showing if a device is physical, virtual or undefined.
• Retention Policies:
  • Improved UI for Retention Policies, providing a better user experience.
• Bug Fixes:
  • Fixed a bug with total columns formatting where “Total” is now exported as numeric values instead of text.  

(Improved Retention Policy Dashboard UI)

(Improved Retention Policy Configuration UI)

(Improved Retention Policy Configuration UI)

Recovery Reliability: 

We fixed several issues to improve the reliability of One-time restores, Standby Image, and Recovery Testing:

• “Failed to boot” Error
  • Issue: Corrupted systeminfo.json occurred before the boot check, leading to a failed boot process.
  • Fix: Added additional safety guards around this part of the code to prevent such corruption from impacting startup.
• “Failed to lock volume” Restore Error
  • Issue: During disk dismounting, disks were forcefully dismounted while still locked by other operations, resulting in disk corruption and causing subsequent restore failures.
  • Fix: Retry logic and timeout mechanisms before dismounting disks.
• “Failed to map virtual path” Restore Error
  • Issue: Restoring MSSQL databases containing (\) in the names caused a restore error.
  • Fix: Logic change to ensure names with (\) were handled properly.

Microsoft 365 Backup and Recovery: 

Several improvements were made for M365 Support that make Microsoft 365 backup and recovery more efficient, secure, and better prepared for evolving cybersecurity needs.

• Smarter SharePoint Permissions Handling:
  • Improved SharePoint permissions processing during backup reduces unnecessary data handling and makes backups more efficient for new tenants.
• Security & Performance Enhancements:
  • Upgraded encryption engine to the latest OpenSSL 3.5.0 enabling encryption tasks to complete up to 36× faster for more efficient backups and restores.
• Enhanced Restore for Litigation Hold Mailboxes:
  • Restoring mailboxes under Litigation Hold is now smoother and more reliable:
    • Attachments are fully restored, even in complex compliance scenarios.

Backup Manager 25.4 Upgrade – Improved Linux System State Support:

We released several improvements and fixes for the External Preview of Linux System State backup and recovery that enhance reliability and performance:

• Ubuntu 24.04 DNS Fix:
  • In the rescue system, /etc/resolv.conf was missing DNS servers, causing Backup Manager installation to fail during recovery.
  • Started to capture DNS servers in the config, resolving this issue.
• Missing Dependencies Fix:
  • System State backups were failing due to missing ReaR dependencies.
  • Required parted and bc tools are now automatically installed during the Backup Manager installation.
  • Devices previously affected by this issue have been fixed via Backup Manager auto-update.
• Improved Error Messaging:
  • Error messages from the System State plugin have been enhanced to provide clearer and more actionable information.
• Profile Application Fix:
  • Profiles were not applied correctly to Linux devices with the System State data source.
  • Re-saving the Profile served as a workaround but it is no longer necessary as the issue is resolved.
• Feature Flag Enforcement:
  • System State backups were incorrectly starting on devices without the necessary feature flag.
• Red Hat Compatibility Fix:
  • System State backups were failing on Red Hat 8 and 9 if dhclient was not present on the device.

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