PowerProtect Data Manager version 19.21, and 19.22 are out. 19.21 came out in September, but I confess I’ve been spectacularly busy for months now, and the vast majority of my out-of-work time that I’m not sleeping is consumed with the day-to-day mundanity of work-life balance. So, with the release of Data Manager 19.22 in November, I figured I’d put together a combined view of what’s new in these updates.

What’s New

Linux Deployment

The Linux deployment option for Data Manager has had several updates, including:

• 19.21:
  • Support added for RedHat Enterprise Linux 9.6
  • Storage Direct (SDNG) protection engine can now be deployed on bare metal servers.
• 19.22:
  • Support added for SUSE Linux 15 SP7
  • Support for in-guest deployment in Hyper-V, AHV, KVM for Core/Search/Reporting, Dynamic NAS (DNAS) and Archive to Object protection engines.
  • Support for deployment on Japanese-language Linux operating systems.
  • You can choose to not include the reporting engine in the deployment.
  • You can choose to not include the search engine in the deployment.

(Be sure to check out the eLab Navigator.)

Archive to Object

Archive to object continues to grow functionality for longer-term retention without using PowerProtect DD Cloud Tier. In addition to the protection engine updates mentioned in the Linux Deployment section above, we’ve also seen updates as follows:

• 19.21: Added support for Wasabi cloud storage.
• 19.22: Added support for Microsoft Azure storage.

Virtual Workload Support

Across 19.21 and 19.22 there have been a number of significant enhancements for workload support across virtualisation environments. These include:

• 19.21:
  • Hyper-V:
    • Support for protection of Japanese-language Hyper-V servers
    • Support added for WDAC
  • VMware:
    • vSphere 9.0 does not support Transparent Snapshots Data Mover (TSDM). For vSphere 9.0, Data Manager will automatically switch to VADP backups if vSphere 9.0 is in use.
• 19.22:
  • Hyper-V:
    • Support for protection of German-language Hyper-V servers.
  • VMware:
    • TSDM won’t support vSphere environments earlier than 8.x.
  • Nutanix AHV:
    • Support has been added for Nutanix AHV virtual machine protection.

Other Workloads

• 19.21:
  • Timeouts removed on File Level Restore operations; now, for FLR, the operation will continue so long as data is being transferred.
• 19.22:
  • Added support for Dell NativeEdge virtual machine workloads.
  • Added support for AIX File System assets.
  • Added instant access restore support for PowerMax storage groups.
  • Generic application agent adds support for database protection via NFS with a data mover using DD Boost.

Security

• 19.21:
  • The backup administrator role has been adjusted: This is a limited-privilege role that sits under the more comprehensive admin role. A backup administrator can manage protection policies, but doesn’t have administrative access over the rest of the system.
  • Introduction of backup operator and restore operator roles. These roles allow users assigned to perform backup, and restore operations respectively, without having administrative privileges.
• 19.22
  • Anomaly detection has seen several enhancements, including:
    • The ability to update anomaly detection definitions directly (rather than being updated with Data Manager updates).
    • New Anomaly Detection dashboard and control centre that consolidates all these functions together.

Here’s a quick view of the new consolidated dashboard and control centre:

From the Control Centre, you’ve got easy access to both the Analysis status and the Settings – shown above you can see we’re in the Analysis area, where you can switch between analysis for assets, and copies, within your environment.

Getting Started

As always, you can download the update packages, fresh installers and all the documentation for PowerProtect Data Manager from the PowerProtect Data Manager landing page on Dell’s support site, here.