Team Connect, 

On March 6, 2012, we released Backup Exec 2012. This release featured major changes to the user experience that we tested in a three-month beta with 2,300 SYMC partners and end-users. Most of our customers liked the new release because it addressed changes they had been asking for around disk and virtual machine controls for VMware backup and Hyper-V backup in the main parts of the UI.

However, others were not such big fans of the new UI, which isn’t all that uncommon. Change in the early days of a new design can be difficult. For example, when Microsoft changed the ribbon, or whenever Facebook makes a change to their UI, there tends to be a level of frustration at the onset before we all adjust. But if it is a good change, we eventually...

Did you know that Backup Exec 2012 has filtering capabilities that allow you to customize your views?

Sorting and filtering is not a new concept to Backup Exec, but in Backup Exec 2012 you can customize server and storage views and save them to use whenever you like.  Here’s how it works: in many of the tabs, your data is represented in a table with columns and rows. You have the ability to add, remove and change the order of the columns, and you can sort and filter your data to see what you want in the order that you want. You can save that view so that each time you switch tabs or reopen Backup Exec, your view remains the same. Backup Exec comes preconfigured with several views, and it’s easy to switch from the default view to a preconfigured view, or to one of your customized views.

I’ll walk you through how you can save your customized filter configuration and how to turn off the filters after they are applied. In this example, I’ll...

Backup Exec 2012 ships with a new PowerShell module called BEMCLI.  I lead the development of BEMCLI, and am very excited about its role in making your Backup Exec tasks more automated and easier to manage.

30,000 foot view of PowerShell and BEMCLI in 30 seconds

PowerShell is an automation technology.  PowerShell contains a language.  The interface you'll start using PowerShell from is a command window, but it can also be scripted.

PowerShell commands are called "cmdlets".

Developers can write and package custom cmdlets that plug into PowerShell.  Such packages of cmdlets are called "Modules" and that's what BEMCLI is: a PowerShell module.

There are three main categories of PowerShell cmdlets:

1. Get objects.  The topic of today's blog post.

2. Do work -- create, change, delete objects.

3. Filter or format...

I've seen some comments out on the Interwebs, particularly from Government users that certain security scanners such as eEye's Retina are flagging self-signed certificates in Backup Exec installations.   Note that while these certificates are used for SSL (actually TLS 1.0) by Backup Exec, these certificates are not exposing a vulnerability.  Here are some reasons why we feel this way. 

First, the flagged certificates are used as signing certificates by the private CAs residing on Backup Exec media server's to sign SSL/TLS certificates for use by the media server and clients so that an NDMP over TLS connection can be established between them.   As Backup Exec's protocol is a closed system, trust is defined by the administrator when they install BE on a computer.  It is assumed that because the administrator knows which computer they are installing the copy of BE they possess, they trust the...