Back up your data off-site with RsyncIn this new stand-alone BackupAssist "how-to" video released by developer Cortex, we see how you can check if the Image backup you have taken has everything needed to perform a full Bare Metal recovery.
As with all backups it is imperative that you verify the backups to be sure they contain what you expect so we'd highly recommend you take a look at this video when you get a moment...

Back up your data off-site with RsyncThis is the second series of fantastic of "how-to" videos to be released by developer Cortex, this time aimed at helping users check and resolve common VSS issues.
Whether you've already come across something similar or just want to further your technical understanding of the product, we'd highly recommend a watch when you get a moment...

You may have picked up from our subtle marketing that something new is on the horizon with the next release of BackupAssist, Version 7. Now the public Beta is here I'm excited to be able to finally tell you all about the new features, which include a completely reworked interface design. First off, let me introduce the completely new simplified interface and layout...

We've had a few customers asking about whether our backup software BackupAssist can be used to restore old backups originally created using NTBackup, to a new 2008 server. This isn't such a crazy idea when you consider that at the point that you upgrade to Server 2008 you may well have a large history of old backups from your old 2003 server and still need files from within them on your new server.

SearchServerVirtualisation screenshotBackupAssist's Hyper-V product has been featured in a recent review on the virtualisation pages of the TechTarget group Web site. Acknowledged as one of the smaller players in the Hyper-V backup market, BackupAssist with it's Hyper-V Granular Restore Console received praise as a product that - "offers great value for small and medium-sized businesses"  ...and is "a good place to start if you're an SMB".

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.

As part of ongoing improvements to our own network, I recently revised the way we approach backing up the SQL database that underpins our main company Web site. We currently host the web and SQL server in a local data centre and were taking off-site daily backups using a combination of BackupAssist and the Rsync add-on. This was adequate for restoring a snapshot of the website or database to the previous day, but I wanted to improve the frequency of our backups given how often the database is changing as we take orders throughout the day. Luckily BackupAssist was there to help!