Backup Software

One of the major things that we are overhauling for version 4 is the mechanism used for storing backup job information. This includes the backup job name, schedule, and backup file set. Rather than scatter this information across various files, we are streamlining this to allow all backup jobs, and their corresponding information, to be located in one central location. One XML file will contain all of the data needed for backing up your files. The advantages of this approach are quite numerous.

For starters, this will allow an easy way for the new SecureBackup Windows service to detect changes easily. As a matter of fact, as soon as you create or modify a backup job and save it, the XML file is updated. The SecureBackup service “listens” for changes to this file in the background and can then take the appropriate action. The SecureBackup Windows service is responsible for actually running the backup jobs at the scheduled times and backing up the data to the remote server.

Another advantage of this approach is that the service won’t have to stop a backup job that is in progress when a change is made. It also allows changes to be made to a backup job even if it is running.

Converting your existing backup jobs to the new XML format in version 4 will not require any effort on your part. The SecureBackup software is smart enough to determine if updating to the new format is required and will do so automatically.

Backup Software

We have begun working on version 4 of our backup software and this is the first post of a new series I am going to be writing in regards to that. It’s called, “SecureBackup 4.0 - Backup Software Development”. I will not only discuss our goals in terms of the software and how that will benefit you, but also about the technical aspects of the software underneath the hood.

The SecureBackup software currently requires the Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework to be installed on the target system. We are planning on continuing to use this platform for version 4.0. On the surface, the new version will be quite similar to what you are used to. This means that much of the user interface will be the same both in form and function. You also won’t have to worry about transforming your current backup jobs to a new format as this will be taken care of automatically. Underneath the hood, however, several things will change. I will cover a lot of these changes in the coming months but for now, I just wanted to outline some of the major goals we have for version 4.0. These include:

• To allow SecureBackup to run as a service.
• To provide additional options such as bandwidth throttling, backup server access options, and more.
• To allow backing up open files.
• To simplify some of the underlying code and other mechanisms to allow us to maintain the software more easily.
• Possibly a .NET to MONO port so that we can also support MAC OS X.

Probably the biggest change will be the first one mentioned. Allowing SecureBackup to run as a service is important for certain IT departments. Currently, a work-around is to simply log in, start the SecureBackup software, and then lock your computer - this still allows you to leave your workstation on for backup purposes but no-one can access your system without your password.

Bandwidth throttling will allow you to limit your upload connection speed. This means that your computer/network Internet access speed will not be bogged down while SecureBackup backs up your files. Currently, you need to use a third party tool such as NetLimiter to do this.

We get many requests for people who want to back up open files. SecureBackup does not currently support this. As a matter of fact, most backup solutions don’t. However, the new version of SecureBackup will backup open files as long as they are not locked, or in-use by the operating system. These files simply can not be backed up.

Some of the underlying code and backup mechanisms will be completely reconstructed from scratch. This will not only make our life easier in terms of maintaining the code, but you will get less false error messages. For example, the newer version of SecureBackup will simply reconnect to the backup server in the event that it was unreachable for a period of time and automatically resume backing up your files. Right now, it displays an error and your backup needs to be manually restarted unless you wait until the next scheduled backup. With the new version of the backup software, this will no longer be an issue. Most of the current “backup server is offline” error messages in the SecureBackup software are not due to our servers being down but are due a networking error somewhere between the client computer and our data center. Our servers are online virtually 100% of the time.

Lastly, we may port the software over to use C# and MONO to target the MAC OS X operating system exclusively but this is still in discussion. Either way, the latest Windows operating systems will always be supported. For now, the only solution for backing up a MAC OS X computer with SecureBackup is to use mapped network connection for your MAC while still running SecureBackup on Windows.

SecureBackup Backup Software

Installing the SecureBackup online backup software just got a whole lot easier. We have been searching for the best way to install the dependencies that are required by the backup client software for all of the different operating systems we support. The operating systems supported by SecureBackup are Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7. Although Windows XP is quite old, it is still widely in use today and a lot of our customers are still using it. Since SecureBackup is built upon the .NET 2.0 framework, we needed to ensure that the framework would not only be installed if needed, but that it would be installed correctly. The problem with this is that framework may be not installed by default or it may not be fully patched with the latest service pack from Microsoft. We also wanted to ensure that Service Pack 2 SP2 of the .NET 2.0 Framework was installed.

We have been using Inno Setup with some success but decided to switch to InstallAware which  made our lives a lot easier. We know that this is a robust and mature solution for installing our backup software and are confident that there will be no more sporadic failed installs on some of the older PC’s out there. It’s never been easier to get started with backing up your data online than right now with SecureBackup.