The HPE Adaptive Backup and Recovery suite is composed of three products released last year as a unified package, and this release is designed to further that unified vision.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Software has announced a new version of their Adaptive Backup and Recovery (ABR) Suite. HPE Data Protector, the oldest of the three products in the suite, sees a major facelift. It gets a new modern interface, and some significant new security features. HPE Backup Navigator, receives a new capability to automatically make recommendations for action, and now has integrated monitoring and reporting for VM Explorer, the mid-market virtual backup product HPE acquired with Trilead last year. Finally, the third solution, Storage Optimizer, has updated connector support for Windows Server and Sharepoint, and new support for NetApp.

The genesis of this suite began in 2014, when Backup Navigator, a long time HP enterprise offering, was paired with the newly launched Backup Navigator as part of a joint initiative to improve SLAs. Storage Optimizer was added in 2015, and the formal ABR Suite of the three products were released in October 2016.

“HPE Data Protector is the core, with its large enterprise install base, which has nearly half the Fortune 2000,” said Stephen Spellicy, VP product management, Information Management & Governance, HPE Software. HPE Backup Navigator adds intelligence, providing a dashboard and reports, and creating a feedback loop that reports on how things are behaving. HPE Storage Optimizer looks at the data itself, both unstructured and structured content and creates policies to move it around. Together, they provide more intelligent data protection that responds to how customers today are deploying backup. That’s the big update here – how we have advanced the suite to deliver on the vision of ABR.”

The HPE Data Protector 10.00 release significantly upgrades its security capabilities.

“We are doubling down on introducing a new security model that triangulates security with our management interface,” Spellicy said. “It is driven by a couple things – looking to improve security, clearly, but also looking at new customer and partner models for deployment, especially against ransomware.”

Spellicy said that the new Web-based UI is significant.

“Data Protector had a more traditional data interface before,” he said. “This one is much more flexible and easier to use. There is also a new dashboard and a new scheduler, which consolidates the previous ones. As well, it has a new telemetry model to better protect customers and give a better support experience.”

This version of Data Protector adds REST-based APIs to facilitate much easier integration with other solutions.

“The APIs are another way we have brought a modern architecture to a legacy style application,” Spellicy said.

The HPE Backup Navigator 9.60 now uses automation and built-in intelligence to provide administrators with detailed problem descriptions and recommended actions on the data it assesses.

“This automatic recommendation capability, which provides recommendations for improvement, is new,” Spellicy indicated. “Previously the administrator would have interpreted the data through the reports. This creates a much more active dialogue.”

It’s also something partners are likely to be interested in, Spellicy added.

“Partners who want to host backup would be likely to see this aspect of the Backup Navigator update as very important,” he said.

Backup Navigator now also provides monitoring and reporting for HPE VM Explorer environments, allowing reporting on both from the same reporting solution.

“VM Explorer comes from our 2016 acquisition of Trilead,” Spellicy said. “It’s more of a mid-market virtualized backup product. But many enterprise customers of ABR also have these mid-market deployments as well, so this can be a valuable proposition to them.”

Finally, the new Storage Optimizer 5.5 release updates support for core Microsoft products SharePoint 2016 and Windows Server 2016. It also provides NetApp support for the first time.

“The extension of these supports is increasingly important as we reach and touch more environments,” Spellicy said.

The new HPE Adaptive Backup and Recovery suite is available now.