In May 2019 Nakivo Released Backup & Replication v8.5.2 with vSphere 6.7 U2 Support and now they have released NAKIVO BR v9.0 Beta with new features and support. We know many organizations are using Physical servers with Windows Operating System for running some workloads. With this new release, NAKIVO Backup & Replication v9.0 Beta supports Windows Server Backup and a few new features.
Let’s have a look at the new features and support contained in this release.
Physical Windows Server Backup
Nakivo has come with a great option for protecting physical Windows servers in this release. This is not limited only to physical server backup, it has the capability to perform backup Windows servers running applications such as Microsoft Exchange, SQL, Active Directory, SharePoint, etc.
Hardware Requirements
NAKIVO Backup & Replication allows to backup physical machines with the following minimum hardware characteristics:
- CPU: x86_64
- RAM: 1GB
- Firmware: BIOS or UEFI
- Partition table: MBR or GPT
- Disk size: up to 64 TB
Operating Systems
NAKIVO Backup & Replication can backup physical machines with the following operating systems:
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008R2, 64-bit
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012, 64-bit
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012R2, 64-bit
- Microsoft Windows Server 2016, 64-bit
- Microsoft Windows Server 2019, 64-bit
Supported Windows File Systems:
- NTFS
- FAT 32
- ReFS
Key Features
- Application-aware backup
- Change Block Tracking (CBT)
- Instant recovery of files and application objects
- Data deduplication and compression
- Backup copy offsite and to public clouds
- Secure backups with AES 256-bit encryption
Application Aware Backups
NAKIVO BR allows backup your applications using consistent application-aware backups by interacting with the Volume Shadow Copy Service by Microsoft. VSS is present in the Windows operating system and allows properly flushing application data to disk with each backup run. This ensures there is no data missed in memory and pending I/O transactions that could potentially lead to a restore point being corrupted from an application data standpoint. This will help you to backup and restore applications such as Exchange, SharePoint, Active Directory, SQL, etc
Change Block Tracking (CBT)
NAKIVO has its own proprietary CBT mechanism for Windows Server to keep track of the changed blocks with each backup iteration.CBT allows backup solutions to mark only those blocks that have changed form the last backup and it provides great backup efficiency. In this way, they know only the data that has changed.
Secure Windows Server Backups
Have you think about securing your backup data, example if an attacker got access to your backup data and he has access to your production data. NAKIVO has implemented their standard security encryption algorithms to cover your physical Windows Server backups. NAKIVO Backup and Replication v9.0 beta use AES 256-bit encryption to protect physical Windows Server Backups.This feature allows you set a encryption key to secure your backup and without the appropriate encryption key, this data is unreadable.
Additional Windows Server Backup Features
NAKIVO has extended its acceleration technologies to cover the Windows Server backups. This includes network acceleration technology which helps to accelerate data backup traffic over LAN and WAN connections.
Additionally, you get all the scheduling features that you would for a virtual machine when you run schedule a physical Windows Server backup. This includes multiple schedules and time slots.
Hyper-V 2019 Support
Another great feature included in the NAKIVO Backup and Replication v9.0 Beta release is support for Hyper-V 2019. With this beta release, NAKIVO is now fully compatible with Hyper-V 2019 and features that are available with Hyper-V 2019.
Physical Windows Server 2019 Backups with NAKIVO BR 9.0
Configuring physical Windows Server Backup with NAKIVO BR is quite easy, we have tested the new support in windows server 2019 installed in a physical server.
Steps to Configure the Backup
- Add the physical Windows Server to NAKIVO inventory, this will automatically install the transporter component on the Windows Server
- Create backups job as per your required schedule
Navigate to settings > Inventory -> Add new -> Physical server(s), and you will be able to add the physical Windows Server backup configuration
From the Add New Physical Server(s) dialog box enter the Display Name Hostname / IP and credentials and the transporter will be installed on the server automatically unless there is a transporter already installed.
The transporter will begin to install on the physical Windows Server and you will be able to monitor the progress of the installation
Once installation completed the physical Windows Server is added to your inventory and it will list there
Navigate to home screen, click Create > Physical server backup job.
From New Backup Job Wizard for Physical server wizard, Select the physical Windows Server you want to create the backup job for and Click Next
Under the Destination tab, select the backup repository where you want to store your backups for the physical Windows Server and Click Next
Schedule the backup of the physical Windows Server as you required or select run on demand, Click Next
Choose the Retention for the job and Click Next
Then configure the job with required Options including app-aware mode, change tracking, network acceleration, and other pre and post script options etc.
Click Finish / Finish & Run
Note:-We are doing the initial test and going with default options here
From home page, you can see the new windows physical Server Backup job created with NAKIVO Backup and Replication v9.0 beta
And since we have chosen Finish & Run you can monitor the backup job status
Conclusion
NAKIVO is bringing new functionality with their every release NAKIVO BR 8.5.2 released earlier this year with vSphere 6.7 U2 and Nutanix Support. And now with NAKIVO BR 9.0 beta physical Windows Server Backup functionality. We have tested the functionality and it works perfectly, and we were able to backup physical Windows Server and it really helps for their customers to use this feature.
Download the NAKIVO Backup and Replication v9.0 Beta and Test and get a $20 Amazon eGift Card!
