Yosemite Technologies' Yosemite Backup Advanced 8.0

Virtually Tape

Backup Advanced 8.0 is the first software backup product I've tested that supports VTL out of the box. VTL lets you set aside a portion of hard-disk drive to emulate tape, so you can back up data using fast disk-to-disk backups and later copy from the VTL to tape. The VTL supports virtual tape arrays up to 1 million GB and grows as you need it.To test this, I allocated 100 GB to an array and then resized the array down to 2 GB after a backup. The system had no problem handling the resize, as long as I didn't shrink the VTL to the size of the data already on it. In a workgroup environment, however, limitations in Windows shares made moving a VTL to the network difficult. Windows kept marking shares as "read only," and though I could save files to them, Backup Advanced would not place storage on them. This problem doesn't occur in an ADS environment because access control is handled differently. On the bright side, you can add several locations to the same VTL and the system will spread tapes across all locations.

Granular Security

Backup Advanced user configs can limit permissible actions on certain machines. I tested this by creating a user who could restore files from his machine, but could not create any other jobs. Considering that jobs such as "erase tape" and "initialize device" are in the system, this level of security functionality is necessary for most organizations.

To verify files after restore tests, I validated size, then verified that a subset of those files opened. I tested selective, bare-metal and whole disk restores, and though I ran into a problem with a disabled device, all my restores worked correctly.

In my server-based testing, I would have liked being able to point Backup Advanced at ADS or LDAP and say, "Configure users and groups from there," but as with most applications this is not supported, so I added users manually--time-consuming but not too painful with the Backup Advanced Wizard. Unfortunately, this isn't just a configuration issue--you must do this every time you change rights or add or delete users.

Backup Advanced supports a broad range of targets, including a no-name tape library we keep in the lab for just such testing, CD/DVD and even an Iomega REV drive.

Don MacVittie is a senior technology editor at Network Computing. Write to him at dmacvittie.com.