Tag Archives: data protection

Random Short Take #90

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Welcome to Random Short Take #90. I remain somewhat preoccupied with the day job and acquisitions. It’s definitely Summer here now. Let’s get random.

  • You do something for long enough, and invariably you assume that everyone else knows how to do that thing too. That’s why this article from Danny on data protection basics is so useful.
  • Speaking of data protection, Preston has a book on recovery for busy people coming soon. Read more about it here.
  • Still using a PDP-11 at home? Here’s a simple stack buffer overflow attack you can try.
  • I hate it when the machines shout at me, and so do a lot of other people it seems. JB has a nice write-up on the failure of self-service in the modern retail environment. The sooner we throw those things in the sea, the better.
  • In press release news, Hammerspace picked up an award at SC2023. One to keep an eye on.
  • In news from the day job, VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC Version 1.24 was just made generally available. You can read more about some of the new features (like Express Storage Architecture support – yay!) here. I hope to cover off some of that in more detail soon.
  • You like newsletters? Sign up for Justin’s weekly newsletter here. He does thinky stuff, and funny stuff too. It’s Justin, why would you not?
  • Speaking of newsletters, Anthony’s looking to get more subscribers to his daily newsletter, The Sizzle. To that end, he’s running a “Sizzlethon”. I know, it’s a pretty cool name. If you sign up using this link you also get a 90-day free trial. And the price of an annual subscription is very reasonable. There’s only a few days left, so get amongst it and let’s help content creators to keep creating content.

Random Short Take #89

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Welcome to Random Short Take #89. I’ve been somewhat preoccupied with the day job and acquisitions. And the start of the NBA season. But Summer is almost here in the Antipodes. Let’s get random.

  • Jon Waite put out this article on how to deploy an automated Cassandra metrics cluster for VCD.
  • Chris Wahl wrote a great article on his thoughts on platform engineering as product design at scale. I’ve always found Chris to be a switched on chap, and his recent articles diving deeper into this topic have done nothing to change my mind.
  • Curtis and I have spoken about this previously, and he talks some more about the truth behind SaaS data recovery over at Gestalt IT. The only criticism I have for Curtis is that he’s just as much Mr Recovery as he is Mr Backup and he should have trademarked that too.
  • Would it be a Random Short Take without something from Chin-Fah? Probably not one worth reading. In this article he’s renovated his lab and documented the process of attaching TrueNAS iSCSI volumes to his Proxmox environment. I’m fortunate enough to not have had to do Linux iSCSI in some time, but it looks mildly easier than it used to be.
  • Press releases? Here’s one for you: Zerto research report finds companies lack a comprehensive ransomware strategy. Unlike the threat of World War 3 via nuclear strike in the eighties, ransomware is not a case of if, but when.
  • Hungry for more press releases? Datadobi is accelerating its channel momentum with StorageMAP.
  • In other PR news, Nyriad has unveiled its storage-as-a-service offering. I had a chance to speak to them recently, and they are doing some very cool stuff – worth checking out.
  • I hate all kinds of gambling, and I really hate sports gambling, and ads about it. And it drives me nuts when I see sports gambling ads in apps like NBA League Pass. So this news over at El Reg about the SBS offering consumers the chance to opt out of those kinds of ads is fantastic news. It doesn’t fix the problem, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Random Short Take #88

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Welcome to Random Short Take #88. This one’s been sitting in my drafts folder for a while. Let’s get random.

Random Short Take #85

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Welcome to Random Short Take #85. Let’s get random.

Random Short Take #82

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Happy New Year (to those who celebrate). Let’s get random.

Random Short Take #81

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Welcome to Random Short Take #81. Last one for the year, because who really wants to read this stuff over the holiday season? Let’s get random.

Take care of yourselves and each other, and I’ll hopefully see you all on the line or in person next year.

Random Short Take #79

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Welcome to Random Short Take #79. Where did October go? Let’s get random.

Random Short Take #76

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Welcome to Random Short Take #76. Summer’s almost here. Let’s get random.

 

Random Short Take #70

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Welcome to Random Short Take #70. Let’s get random.

Retrospect Announces Retrospect Backup 18.5

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Retrospect recently announced an update to its Backup (18.5) product. I had the opportunity to speak to JG Heithcock (GM, Retrospect) about the announcement and thought I’d briefly share some thoughts here.

 

What’s New?

Anomaly Detection

You can now detect anomalies in systems based on customisable filters and thresholds tailored to individual environments. It still relies on someone doing something about it, but it’s definitely a positive step forward. You can also configure the anomaly detection to work with Retrospect’s scripting / orchestration engine, kicking off various processes when something has gone wrong.

Retrospect Management Console Integration

This capability has been integrated wth the Management Console, and you can now view anomalies across a business or partner’s entire client base in a single pane of glass.

[image courtesy of Retrospect]

Improved Microsoft Azure Blob Integration

You can now set individual immutable retention policies for different backup sets within the same Azure Storage Container. This capability was already available with Retrospect’s AWS S3 integration.

Streamlined Immutable Backup User Experience

Automatically create cloud buckets with immutable backups supported by default. There’s also support for StorCentric’s Unity S3 capability out of the box.

LTO-9 Support

Is tape dead? Maybe. But there are still people using it, and this release includes support for LTO-9, with capacities up to 18TB (45TB compressed).

 

Thoughts

Retrospect Backup 18.5 is a free upgrade to Retrospect Backup 18. While it doesn’t set the world on fire in terms of a broad range of features, there’s some stuff in here that should get existing users excited, and give those considering the product a little more to mull over. Retrospect has been chipping away slowly but surely over the years, and I think it provides the traditional SME market with something that’s been difficult to get until recently: a solid data protection solution, with modern capabilities such as ransomware detection and object storage support, for a price that won’t send customers in that segment packing. I think that’s pretty good, and I look forward to see how things progress over the next 6 – 12 months.