Dell AppAssure V5.4

Dell Software announced the launch of AppAssure 5.4, the latest version of the company’s all-in-one backup, replication and DR software solution.

As organizations are tasked with protecting an ever-growing volume of business-critical data and applications, the need for backup and recovery solutions that eliminate prolonged periods of downtime is more important than ever. The release of AppAssure 5.4 meets this customer demand and enhances Dell Software’s portfolio of data protection solutions, which empower customers to match their backup and recovery implementations to their specific business needs.

AppAssure 5.4 features upgrades designed to improve replication, optimize performance and reporting, and broaden platform support, delivering a simplified user experience that meets the data protection needs of both customers and MSPs.

Key new capabilities include:

• Enhanced replication – A host of replication enhancements give users more control and flexibility when architecting their data protection environment. AppAssure 5.4 features multi-target and multi-hop replication capabilities, allowing users to replicate backup data from a single AppAssure core server to multiple target servers. This is useful for organizations and service providers implementing a multi-tier DR strategy. The new release also includes the ability to set multiple retention policies, which means users can set one policy for onsite data and a longer retention policy for data at an offsite location.
• Other new replication features include scheduled replication that enables users to set customized replication schedules for each target, and replication throttling, which lets users limit the speed of replication in bandwidth-constrained environments.
• Optimized performance and reporting – A series of upgrades provide new and existing users with a more streamlined management experience. AppAssure 5.4 features a new GUI that provides quick access to the most commonly used areas of the product. The new release also offers dynamic deduplication cache sizing, which simplifies the configuration process and guarantees optimal performance by automatically selecting the ideal dedupe cache size based on available memory. Additional upgrades include protection schedule templates, nightly mount checks, and reduced memory consumption.
• Expanded platform support – AppAssure 5.4 delivers support for a range of critical systems including VMware ESX 5.5, Oracle VirtualBox, UEFI, RHEL 6.5, and CentOS 6.5.

Meeting the Needs of MSPs
As a growing number of companies turn to experienced MSPs to meet their DR needs, Dell Software is committed to delivering the capabilities they need to provide DR as a service (DRaaS). The launch of AppAssure 5.4 is the latest example of Dell’s focus on delivering data protection solutions for the MSP community. Already for DRaaS because of its block-level backup and virtual standby capabilities, it further empowers MSPs to manage customers’ backup environments with numerous replication, reporting and management enhancements. In addition, Dell Software now offers sales tools and training materials for the MSP community; and, as the company’s continued momentum in the space, MSPs including Accelerite (formally Persistent System’s rCloud), JMK Solutions, Synesis International and Intelice Solutions recently have become partners.

Srinidhi Vardarajan, GM, data protection, Dell Software, said: “Modern data protection is about ensuring that critical data and applications can be quickly recovered in the event of an outage or corruption. Prolonged downtime simply isn’t acceptable. That means customers and MSPs not only need solutions that are fast, scalable and reliable, they also need the flexibility to build a program based on the specific recovery needs of their businesses and clients. The release of AppAssure 5.4 is the latest example of how Dell Software’s robust portfolio of data protection solutions gives them just that. With AppAssure, users can protect data continuously, move data anywhere, and, when the time comes, recover everything and recover it quickly.”

AppAssure 5.4 is available both direct from Dell and through the channel.