We are proud to announce that ApexSQL Backup has entered the technical Alpha phase. Our developers have been working hard on developing numerous features and will continue to do so in accordance with ApexSQL Backup Roadmap. The application will now go through a substantial testing, and our QA team will help developers to polish the existing features and finish those that still haven’t been finalized prior to entering the Beta phase, somewhere in Q1 2015.
Here is a glimpse of the fully developed ApexSQL Backup core features:
Under the hood
ApexSQL Backup core has been fully developed. The backup engine, central repository database, and alert agents perform at full functionality.
Installer
The installer for the ApexSQL Backup UI, central dispatcher, central repository database, as well as the installer for the server side components are all completed and fully operational. As always, the installation wizards are simple and straight-forward as in all ApexSQL products.
All backups supported
All backup types as well as all backup options (including compression and encryption) supported in SQL Server Management Studio are fully supported. Additionally, backup checks and verifications are also available for all scheduled backups.
Scheduling system
The fully operational scheduling system with the simple customization wizard enables scheduling of backups, restores, and log shipping jobs.
In addition, an overview of all scheduled jobs and their status is presented in the schedules overview pane.
Remote server backup
Server side components which need to be installed on the remote server to enable ApexSQL Backup to schedule and create backups away from local system are ready and remote server jobs are fully operational. In addition, alerting system catches everything that happens on the remote server and shows it through simple GUI.
What’s next
Aside from a substantial testing and tweaking, both from our QA team and developers, the focus is going to be on development of:
- The finalization of the Log shipping and Restore job wizards – both functionalities are fully supported by alpha, we still need to decide on the appropriate wizards
- Email alerting – send/receive an email on alert, or summary emails
- Policies – predefined templates for the backup plans, which can be used or edited by the user. Utilizing these plans saves significant amount of time by limiting repetition and utilizing the quick, one-step wizard
- Timeline – track all scheduled and performed jobs on a timeline for better overview
About ApexSQL Backup: ApexSQL Backup is a tool that enables you to manage and automate backup jobs while preserving the backup chain for easy point-in-time restoration (database rollback). In addition, it offers automation of restore and log shipping jobs, stores details of all backup activities and enables cross server backup management. ApexSQL Backup offers instant backup creation, as well as instant backup restoration, and backup security is enhanced by automatically performing backup verification. All captured metric values and backup activities are automatically stored in a central database repository – a single SQL Server database which provides easy maintenance. In addition to backup jobs, ApexSQL Backup can perform Index manipulations by analyzing fragmentations and identifying problematic areas, rebuild identified problematic indexes to reduce fragmentation and hence increase the system performance.
For more information, visit the ApexSQL Backup product page
December 19, 2014
