Vembu Backup for Endpoints [sponsored]

03. September 2022 Partners 0
Vembu Backup for Endpoints [sponsored]

In a previous blogpost, I shared the news of the GA of the new v5.3 release of Vembu BDRSuite. In the coming weeks, I will share some additional blog posts where I cover some of the new features available in this release. In this blog post we’ll take a closer look at Vembu Backup for Endpoints. To make this super accessible to everyone, I will use the free version of BDRSuite. That’s right, Vembu offers a 100% free version of the solution. 

Vembu Backup for Endpoints ensures data protection measures for free up to 10 endpoints of Windows and Mac against disaster, and system failures. Let’s first summarize the key features before we take a closer look at the configuration of Vembu Backup for Endpoints and how it works. 

Vembu Backup for Endpoints – Key Features

  • Files/Folders Backup – Backup individual files and folders from your Windows or Mac endpoints to the Vembu BDR Backup Server for free.
  • Flexible Scheduling options – Vembu provides Continuous Data Protection for backing up files and folders on a minute-by-minute, hourly, daily, or weekly basis.
  • Interruption-free Backup – After an interruption, Vembu will intelligently resume the backup from where it left off.
  • Deleted File Retention – Retain any number of deleted files/folders based on its version count or the number of versions created within a time frame.
  • In-built Compression & Encryption – All backups are compressed by the VembuHIVE file system & encrypted using the AES-256 bit algorithm both in flight and at rest.
  • Restore anywhere – Instantly restore the entire backup files/folders to the original location or an alternate location.
  • Bandwidth Throttling – This feature allows you to throttle the speed of the backup data transfer for a selected time, and helps in reducing the network traffic.
  • Email Notification – Enable email notifications to receive notifications about the current status of the configured backups (like success, failure, missed, etc.)

Vembu Backup for Endpoints –Prerequisites

Vembu Backup for Endpoints is a client/server based solution. The BDR Suite Client needs to be installed on the endpoints you want to backup. The BDR Suite Client is supported on the following platforms:

  • Windows Server 2012 & above, Windows 8.1 & above
  • Debian Linux 10.0 & above, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS & above
  • CentOS 7.0 & above, CloudLinux 7.10 & above, Fedora 32 & above, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0 & above, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5 & above
  • MacOS Mojave 10.14 & above

The BDR Suite Client can be pushed to your endpoints using the software distribution solution of your choosing. For this blogpost, I will do a manual install on a Windows Server 2022 VM.

Vembu Backup for Endpoints – Installation & Configuration & Backup

Open the management console of BDRSuite and go to Endpoints in the top menu bar. There, select Data Sources, Manage BDRSuite Clients, Download BDRSuite Client. There you can download the Windows (64-bit) Client:

I copied over the installer to the VM and did a manual installation. This is straightforward like any Windows app.

Each client needs a unique ID:

Once installed, the wizard will ask if you want to open the Client UI:

Here, we configure the connection with the BDRSuite Backup Server:

Next, we configure the backup job and provide details on which files and folders you want to include, the schedule, and retention.

At the end of the Backup Job wizard, conform all details all correct and Save Backup.

If we now check the management console of the BDR Suite Backup Server, our Windows VM is now listed as a new BDRSuite Client. 

Vembu Backup for Endpoints – Restore

To validate our setup, let’s try a simple file level restore.

Our test backup job made a backup of the Downloads folder. In there is a small textfile containing some logging information of the client installation. Let’s delete the text in the file:

Let’s restore the file from our latest backup:

With this file level restore, the restore will we done on the server where BDRSuite is running. The Destination is a local folder, not a folder on the client. 

Of course, after the restore, the original file is restored and we can copy it back to the Windows VM.

Vembu Backup for Endpoints9 – Closing remarks

We see a significant shift in the End-User Computing industry where companies are moving away from the more stateless VDI environments (where no data is stored on the VDI instance itself) to a more Modern Management approach where users work locally on their endpoints which are managed using a Unified Endpoint Management solution, like VMware WorkspaceONE or Microsoft Intune. This means that having reliable backups of endpoints is becoming increasingly important. Vembu BDRSuite provides a solid solution for providing companies with these capabilities.

With the free version, where you can protect ten endpoints, there is no excuse not to have backups in place for your endpoints. Give it a try! 

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