BackupAssist beta testingOur Australian friends over at BackupAssist have been working hard to make sure v9 is the best release yet. They could however, really do with your help in testing the Beta version (released this morning) to make sure it's as good as it possible can be come the final release. As the distributor we like to provide as much feedback as we can, but we also rely on the fantastic response we always receive from customers and partners to help make sure we've got the broadest testing base. Please note -  As a beta product, we do not recommend using this version of BackupAssist v9 on live or production machines.

BackupAssist's MultiSite Manager (BAMM) is here, and if you're a registered partner program member, it's completely free for your own use. If you manage more than a handful of BackupAssist customers, I hope this will be music to your ears, particularly if you're spending more time than you'd like checking the many emailed backup reports coming in from your various client sites every day. Please note: BAMM is the replacement for BackupAssist's legacy Centralised Monitoring Console (CMC) which is now no longer supported. I'll explain the key differences between the two in the moment, but if you're a reseller currently using the CMC, we highly recommend you migrate and here's why...

Our Aussie friends over at BackupAssist developers Cortex IT have recently released two excellent short videos showing the best practices for configuring the BackupAssist user identity. I often come across issues relating to rights associated with BackupAssist jobs. The BackupAssist user identity is key to correctly assigning these rights, so if you are using BackupAssist to back up a Windows Server we these are definitely worth a watch.

Creating Backup User Identities with BackupAssist

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gcVOHF6tZY?feature=player_embedded&w=640&h=360]

Hyper-V Youtube screengrabA little over a month ago, I announced our friends 'down under' at BackupAssist developer Cortex IT were hosting a webinar for a limited number of channel partners from around the globe - presented by Jason Schultz, one of the lead programmers. There were a few of you who were busy with the day jobs and weren't able to attend so the guys at Cortex have kindly uploaded the recorded version to YouTube, ready for viewing over a cuppa. Perhaps a few cuppas actually - it's a long one at a just under an hour but it really is worth sitting through if you've got any interest in using BackupAssist in a Hyper-V environment.

Hyper-V webinarOur Aussie friends over at BackupAssist developer Cortex IT, have opened up a great opportunity for our partners to attend the first in what we hope will be a series of online Webinar/ Q&A sessions. They're presented directly by the BackupAssist development team and are a unique chance to hear about BackupAssist's Hyper-V backup capabilities while also providing feedback should you wish.