GFI Backup Business Edition-GFI delivers another win

As a follow up to our earlier review of GFI Backup Home Edition, we decided to take the Business Edition out for a test drive. Available for download from GFI’s website, the business edition is marketed for the professional IT organization, and once installed on a server, can backup both other servers and workstations. This is a business solution, where the typical deployment will have you install the full GFI Backup Business Edition application on a server, and then install backup agents on your other servers and workstations.

Getting started

GFI Backup Business Edition is compatible with all server versions of Windows from NT through 2008 R2, and yes it supports both 32bit and 64bit platforms. At just under 45MB, it is a more substantial download than its little brother, but still nothing like the DVD based install some of the other backup solutions out there. Like the home edition, it is also an easy install process. The Business Edition uses a web based console, and the install offers you the choice of using default ports, or you can set your own. You can specify an account other than your own to install under, but make sure if you choose a service account that it is a local admin. Again, a reboot is not required, and finishing the install reminds you of the ports chosen and to ensure Windows Firewall is not blocking them. It then launches the browser on the local machine and connects to the administration console.

The console

The console first wants you to create a user account for accessing the console.

I would have preferred to see them use a domain account, but I can live with this for now. I understand that this is a feature request that is in the works, but I don’ know when to expect it. As long as your purchase maintenance, you should be able to get that feature in an update. It does require a domain account for the actual backup operations, which you must specify in the next screen.

This account should be a domain account that is a member of the Backup Operators group so that it can back up all files regardless of security acls. Adding that user, and then clicking Finish, brings you to the backup console.

This console relies upon Flash, so if you have not installed Flash on your server (and who does?) you probably are going to want to switch to a browser on your workstation at this point. Just remember you need to use that account you created during the initial setup, not your domain account, and if you connect with https, you will have to click passed the certificate warning. The console is built on Apache, so you can generate a CSR and issue a certificate from your trusted CA with a little OpenSSL magic, and then edit your Apache.conf file.

Home

The initial console brings up several wizard based options, links to instructions for other administrative tasks, and an overview of recent activity and destination disk space. You can also set defaults including timezone, email settings for notifications, and other settings.

Overall it is visually attractive, uncluttered, and easy to maneuver around with a minimum of effort.

Backup

Setting up a backup is an easy seven step process. Pick your type of destination; name the job, pick your source computer(s) and data and set your file filters; pick your destination, set your compression, encryption, and backup type; choose your manual run or set your schedule; and set any notifications or pre/post scripts or actions you want to run. Here’s a screenshot of the file filter, which is a nice feature for including or excluding certain file types if you don’t want them backed up.

Restore

Restores are also wizard driven, letting you quickly choose the backup source, and whether to restore the full set or just individual files/directories.

Manage Backup Agents

The console is really more for approving newly installed agents than for actually deploying those agents. There are two ways to deploy agents; through Group Policy, or manually. There are easy to follow instructions linked off this console, but the heavy lifting is either going to be in the group policy management console, or on the individual machines as a download and install from the server.

Reporting

Reporting is about what you would expect. You can check individual backups, specific machines, and dump out what worked or what did not. The reports are strictly visual though, so be prepared to copy and paste into something else, or print to PDF if you want to distribute them to others.

Wrap up

What I liked:

Easy to use, intuitive console that was easy to install and set up. Like the home edition, backups again use standard zip compression and encryption algorithms supported by other software, which means your backups are not locked into a proprietary format.

-Backups can go to disk, tape, optical, network share, or FTP (think those NAS devices.)
-Uses Volume Shadow Copy Service for easy backup of in use/locked files.
-Can be configured to use a central store that all backups can write to.
-Supports MS SQL database backups.
-Easy to use.
-Reasonably priced.

What could be better:

The fonts in some of the screens were ugly and small. Even on my 23” monitor, I had to squint to see a couple of the example text strings.

The use of Flash does mean either adding something else that needs patching to your server, or running the console from a workstation. For daily use, I would probably only use my workstation anyway, but being presented with the need to load Flash on my server immediately after install was a small buzz kill.

Logging onto the console did not use a domain account. As mentioned, that is coming though.

Deploying agents through Group Policy is great. Manually deploying agents is a pull, not a push. It would be nice to see that as a feature, or some documentation on how to script the install with cmd-line switches.

Reporting that can export to PDF, HTML, or even RTF would be nice. Sure, you can work around that, but I’d prefer to spend my time doing things other than making data pretty.

Again, GFI’s engineers seem to have redefined Differential backups as meaning to delete files that do not exist anymore. No! I want my A bits to mean what they have always meant.

Overall impression:

This is a solid backup product, with great performance that uses standard zip and encryption. The CPU and memory load on the server is light, and the price is right. That is more than enough to get me to look past needing a local application account to access the console, but I will be nagging my sales contact to get AD authentication onto the road map if it is not already. As long as I stick to Incremental and Full backups (defining two different jobs, and avoiding Differential like the plague) then I see this being a great addition to the network