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Retrospect (software)

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For other uses, see Retrospect (disambiguation).

Retrospect is a family of software applications that back up computers running the macOS, Microsoft Windows, and Linux (and until 2019 classic Mac OS) operating systems. It uses the client–server backup model.

The product is used for GUI-scripted backup in "mixed-platform networks", primarily by small and medium-sized businesses.

History

The software was first developed by Dantz Development Corporation in 1989, initially for the Macintosh platform and continuing later for Windows. With sales split evenly between the two variants and the Macintosh variant claiming 90% of its market, Dantz Development Corporation was acquired by EMC Corporation in 2004. In 2006 version 7.5, the refined first release of the Windows variant under EMC, added performance features needed by SMEs. In 2009, EMC was working on adding an updated user interface and separate administration Console similar to that of the newly released Macintosh variant version 8.0, but mandatory Windows security settings starting with Windows Vista/Server 2008 subsequently forbade UI interaction with an application auto-launched by a task.

Meanwhile, the Macintosh variant had "languished" at EMC—with temporary "end-of-lifing", until "development was revived in 2008 when EMC hired back some of its former engineers"—including ex-Dantz ones. This resulted in the "premature" release of a version 8.0 of Retrospect Macintosh that was temporarily missing key operational features, even though it added the performance features of Retrospect Windows 7.5.

In May 2010, the software was sold to Roxio/Sonic Solutions. In 2011, following the purchase of Sonic Solutions by Rovi, development of the software was turned over to a privately held company. Since 2012 Retrospect Inc. has continued to sell two variants of backup server software that, while having nearly identical non-GUI code, operate differently. Retrospect Windows substitutes a view-only Dashboard (which was upgraded in 2019 into a Web-based Management Console—with optional deployment of shared scripts) for Retrospect Macintosh's separate Administration Console, and basically keeps the pre-2009 terminology and GUI .

In June 2019 the holding company StorCentric—which also owns Drobo—announced that it had acquired Retrospect Inc., which it will operate as an independent subsidiary while integrating a version of the software with Drobo hardware.

Small-group features

Backup destinations
Termed Media Sets—allow media spanning and may contain one or more disks (or, in the Windows variant, one or more superfloppies—termed "removable disks"), one or more tapes or WORM tapes—with barcode reading/tracking, one or more CD/DVD discs, or a single AFP/SMB file or Cloud storage account. Except for older major versions of the Desktop Edition, the backup server is multithreaded so that multiple scripts can simultaneously back up to or restore from different Media Sets.
Backups
Do versioning of files; do client-side file-level deduplication; can be incremental, of subvolumes, may specify files to be excluded or included (subject to deduplication),, may Archive data by deleting it from a source drive once it has been backed up. Optional optimizations include data compression, encrypting Media Sets and data transfers between a particular client computer and the server. Moreover, volume-to-volume duplicates of the latest versions of files in appropriate OS format can be made; these—unlike backups—can be onto LTFS tapes.
Data sources beyond the usual filesystems
Email accounts can be backed up—globally deduplicated—and restored, or directly migrated and synced, for major services supporting IMAP. Avid Media Composer devices are supported as sources for backup, copy/duplicate, archive, and restore scripts.
Validation of backups and copies of backups
Comparing byte-by-byte or via MD5 digest; using saved MD5, can be a separate verification script run outside the scheduled "backup window". Volume-to-volume duplicates in OS format of the latest versions of files can—going beyond what can be done via OS—also be verified.
Proactive scripts
Are usually left running at times that are not in the scheduled "backup window", back up computers—frequently but not always mobile—transiently connecting to the network, determining backup priorities by an "AI" algorithm that uses a decision tree supplemented by linear regression. They are an alternative to another application's window-cramming tape-only "multiplexed backup" capability. As of 2019 Proactive scripts can use a Storage Group, which is automatically expanded as necessary with a Media Set for each source machine-volume, as a destination—enhancing opportunities for multithreading sources without manual administrator bookkeeping.
Success validation
With e-mailing of notifications about operations to chosen recipients; for Backup runs these are now customized to include a one-line summary at the top, a subject line that includes the script name and number of errors and warnings, and an e-mail body that consists of the script log—pinpointing the errors and warnings. Monitoring with "Retrospect for iOS" is also available.
Cloud Backup
Cloud Media Set type enables backup/restore/utility operations on data stored with AWS-S3-compatible cloud storage providers including Dropbox, with Google Cloud Storage, and with Backblaze B2. WebDAV is also available.

Enterprise client-server features

Retrospect also supports several enterprise client-server backup features. These include:

Performance (especially of the backup server—which is now multithreaded in all Editions)
Disk-to-disk-to-tape capabilities that may incorporate file exclusion, creating synthetic full backups, automated data grooming with GDPR exclusion rules, block-level incremental backup, and "instant" scanning of non-APFS source volumes.
Source file integrity
Backing up interactive applications, pausing/unpausing services via "script hooks". Retrospect Virtual has the capability of backing up interactive applications via coordinated snapshots; that separate product, with totally different code, is not discussed in this article.
User interface
Administration Console, high-level/medium-term reports supplementing Administration Console, e-mailing operations notifications to chosen recipients, integration with monitoring systems via "script hooks,, and user-initiated backups and restores.
LAN/WAN/Cloud
Advanced network client support—which can be extended to "remote" clients anywhere on the Internet for Proactive scripts and user-initiated backups/restores, and facilitating reconfiguration for cloud seeding and large-scale recovery.

Editions and Add-Ons

Retrospect is sold with varying backup server capability levels, called "Editions", at non-expiring license–code prices that cover one major version. The Edition is dictated by the number of "server OS" computers being backed up; it in turn specifies a maximum number of client computers. The Desktop Edition can be used where only desktop or mobile computers (or Linux servers) are being backed up, non-multithreaded in older major versions, to non-tape devices or to one non-autoloader tape drive. The Solo Edition "protects a single non-server computer and its external hard drives".

"Add-Ons", which activate additional backup server features via Edition-linked license codes, may also be purchased:

See also

Notes

  1. The terminology was changed in the 2009 Macintosh variant; this article will use whichever variant's term seems more precise, with the other variant's term as a footnote.
  2. Termed Backup Sets in the Windows variant; could have been referred to as archive files, except that Retrospect has long used the term Archive to refer to a backup operation that deletes data from a source drive once its backup is complete.
  3. Activity threads are termed execution units in the Windows variant.
  4. To be used, a Subvolume must be specifically defined to the Retrospect application as a name for a filesystem folder, and is therefore currently termed a Favorite Folder in the Macintosh variant.
  5. ^ Exclusion and/or inclusion is done with Selectors in the Windows variant; this misleading term has been changed to Rules in the Macintosh variant.
  6. The Duplicate operation is currently termed Copy in the Macintosh variant.

References

  1. ^ Kissell, Joe (2007). Take Control of Mac OS X Backups (PDF) (Version 2.0 ed.). Ithaca, NY: TidBITS Electronic Publishing. pp. 18-20 ("The Archive", meaning information repository, including versioning), 24 (client-server), 82-83 (archive file), 126-141 (old Retrospect terminology and GUI—still used in Windows variant), 127 (Archiving operation in Retrospect), 128 (subvolume—later renamed Favorite Folder in Macintosh variant), 130-132 (Duplicate—later renamed Copy in Macintosh variant), 146(versioning), 165 (client-server). ISBN 978-0-9759503-0-2. Retrieved 4 May 2019.
  2. ^ Gripman, Stuart (27 March 2012). "Retrospect 9.0: powerful backup for professionals, organizations". MacWorld. Setting it up(WebDAV), Scheduling scripts(GUI scripting), Restoring(file-level deduplication, Proactive priorities). Retrieved 3 November 2017.
  3. ^ Engst, Adam (6 November 2012). "Retrospect 10 Reduces Backup Time with Instant Scan Technology". TidBITS. TidBITS Publishing Inc. Retrieved 25 October 2016.
  4. ^ Engst, Adam (18 June 2010). "Retrospect Backup Software Acquired by Sonic". TidBITS. TidBITS Publishing Inc. Retrieved 12 September 2017.
  5. ^ Flynn, Laurie (25 September 1989). "Apple Bundles Tape Backup With Retrospect Software". InfoWorld. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. p. 33. Retrieved 17 February 2019. ...will bundle Dantz Development Corp.s Retrospect backup and archiving software with the Apple Tape Backup 40SC... {{cite web}}: |archive-date= requires |archive-url= (help)
  6. Engst, Adam (1 July 1991). "Retrospect Conclusion". TidBITS. TidBITS Publishing Inc. Retrieved 25 August 2019. I've worked with Retrospect for some time now, through versions 1.1, 1.2, and now 1.3, and I have nothing but respect for the program.... The only situation in which I don't recommend Retrospect is for extremely non-technical novice users ....
  7. ^ Mitchell, Dave (24 July 2019). "Retrospect Backup 16 review: Virtually useless for virtual machines". ITPro. Dennis Publishing. Retrieved 28 August 2019. Application support requires optional add-ons with Retrospect offering ones for Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server and IMAP email accounts . You can also add features included in the Multi-Server Premium version such as open file backup and Windows bare metal recovery to dissimilar hardware.... The main console hasn't seen any design changes for over a decade but we found it still works well enough. Your first task is to create backup sets which define destinations and can be anything from a tape or DVD to a local disk vault, removable drive, NAS share or cloud storage with Retrospect's support including Dropbox, Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage. ....No need to worry about choosing backup types as all jobs start with a full one followed by progressive backups that only copy new and changed files .... Storage groups function as containers where you add multiple disk vaults as folders and point your backups at the group allowing jobs to run in parallel. Agent-less backup for VMware and Hyper-V hosts is not supported so you'll have to load the client inside each VM and treat them as physical systems. An alternative is to use the Retrospect Virtual solution but this is a completely separate product that has no integration with the Backup software. You'll also need it if you want GRT (granular recovery technology) restores for Exchange 2016 and 2019 hosts as Retrospect Backup only supports this for mail servers up to Exchange 2013. For the latter, we had no problems securing our mail host over the network as Retrospect discovered its client and allowed us to back up the system, database and mailboxes. Management facilities see big improvements as along with the backup host's dashboard utility, Retrospect has an iOS app for monitoring selected backup servers plus a cloud portal service for keeping an eye on multiple, distributed hosts. Real-time host monitoring is free while support for multiple organisations and facilities to remotely deploy backup job scripts requires an add-on ....
  8. ^ DeLong, Derik (27 March 2012). "Retrospect's long and twisted road". MacWorld. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
  9. Mitchell, Dave (20 April 2006). "EMC Retrospect 7.5 review". Alphr. Dennis Publishing. Retrieved 4 October 2017. Along with removable media, Retrospect has always had the ability to back up to hard disk.... It takes a full backup only once and then compares this with the source on subsequent runs and copies only changed or newly created files.
  10. ^ Cox, Mark (25 June 2019). "StorCentric acquires Retrospect, which will become a separate subsidiary like Drobo and Nexsan". channelbuzz.ca. Retrieved 26 June 2019. Like the other companies in the portfolio, Retrospect will continue to operate as an independent, wholly-owned subsidiary of StorCentric. However, a version of it will be integrated with Drobo .... After we came on board, there were internal business reorganizations that put us in a different business unit. Things kind of went downhill from there, and EMC wound up end-of-lifing the product.... Heithcock said. 'They said that 'the Mac is coming back, so let's go into Mac. Our task was to come out with a Mac-centric product, and we did that, with a new UI that was separate from the engine, something they were still working on for Windows at the time.'
  11. ^ Engst, Adam (23 March 2009). "EMC Ships Modernized Retrospect 8". TidBITS. TidBITS Publishing Inc. Architecture and interface(Engine/Console/Client split, custom report, better email notifications), Performance(simultaneous operations), New Backup Capabilities(disk grooming, disk-to-disk-to-tape, staged synthetic full), Editions and Upgrades. Retrieved 3 November 2018.
  12. "Retrospect ® 12 Windows User's Guide" (PDF). Retrospect. Retrospect Inc. 2017. pp. 30-31(deduplication via "Snapshots"—a Retrospect term which predates and is distinct from Snapshot_(computer_storage)), 31-32(Dashboard), 41-43(removable disk drives), 216-218(selector as subset filter for synthetic full backups), 230-233(Scripted Verification), 280(Multiple Executions), 369(Duplicate Execution Options), 420(Startup Preferences—Launcher for auto-launch), 426-427(E-mail), 433-434(Open File Backup Tips—VSS snapshot at natural pause), 530-544(SQL Server Agent—coordinating VSS snapshot), 545-566(Exchange Server Agent—coordinating VSS snapshot). Retrieved 2 September 2018.
  13. ^ "Support: Knowledge Base". Retrospect. Retrospect Inc. 24 April 2019. #Resources (Auto Launching Guide ..., ... difference between "Backup" and "Duplicate", Avid Support ..., Instant Scan FAQ, Can't use Open File Backup ...), #Email Backup, #Top Articles (BackupBot – Deep Dive into ProactiveAI, How to Set Up Remote Backup, GDPR – Deep Dive into Data Retention Policies, Deep Dive - Components of a Retrospect Backup, How to Set Up the Management Console, Management Console - How to Use Shared Scripts, How to Use Storage Groups, Support End-of-Life Announcement for Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5, Retrospect Compatibility with Apple File System (APFS)), #Hooks (Script Hooks: External Scripting with Event Handlers, Script Hooks: How to Protect MongoDB with Retrospect, Script Hooks: How to Protect MySQL with Retrospect, Script Hooks: How to Protect PostgreSQL with Retrospect). Retrieved 4 May 2019.
  14. Friedman, Lex (29 July 2010). "Retrospect 8.2". TidBITS. TidBITS Publishing Inc. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  15. Mellor, Chris (2 August 2019). "StorCentric CEO: 'My mission is to build the next world-class storage company'". Blocks & Files. Situation Publishing. Lead, Storage products for the entire bit cycle, The history boys, Technology development. Retrieved 25 August 2019. ... bought Retrospect, a backup software vendor with half a million customers but skinny revenues....The big vendors focus on $30m-per-year customers and 'forget about everyone else,' according to Shah.... a Drobo+Retrospect backup appliance is being considered.
  16. ^ "Retrospect for Windows Release Notes". Retrospect. Retrospect Inc. 17 May 2018. 10.0.0.213 (Engine: Grooming "Months to keep" setting), 12.5.0.177 (Engine: Dashboard improvements), 15.0.0.269 (Client: server distrib. of Linux will be treated as server in future update), 15.1.0.151 (Engine: Desktop can now reduce its maximum execution units ). Retrieved 31 October 2018. Improved: Retrospect Dashboard has a new icon to differentiate it from the Retrospect application. Improved: Retrospect Dashboard launches when Retrospect is already running in Session 0 and includes explanatory message. Improved: Retrospect Dashboard's "Relaunch Retrospect" button displays an alert message when there is an execution running. Improved: Retrospect Dashboard includes improved media request text. Note: In a future update, Linux clients running on server-level Linux distributions will be treated as server clients.
  17. Kranz, Garry (25 June 2019). "Storage startup StorCentric takes flier on Retrospect backup". TechTarget. Retrieved 26 June 2019. Retrospect's 20 full-time employees will join StorCentric, including CEO JG Heithcock. NAS vendor Drobo and HDD array maker Nexsan merged in 2018 to create StorCentric.
  18. Charles Edge; William Barker; Beau Hunter; Gene Sullivan (2010). Enterprise Mac Security: Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Apress. pp. 521–522. ISBN 978-1-4302-2730-4. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
  19. ^ Kissell, Joe (22 January 2019). "Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac: The Online Appendixes: Backup Software tab". JoeOnTech. alt concepts inc. Software for Versioned Backups or Bootable Duplicates table(columns in Retrospect Desktop row), Notes below table, Feature Explanations for This Tab. Retrieved 7 September 2019.
  20. ^ Vlajin, Branko (6 December 2018). "Best Offline Backup Software 2019: Old School Rules". Cloudwards. Cloudwards.net. Using Retrospect. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  21. Engst, Adam (1 July 1991). "Retrospect Comments". TidBITS. TidBITS Publishing Inc. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
  22. ^ "Latest Version of Retrospect Now Includes Scalable Data Protection". ChannelPro Network. ChannelPro Network. 2017. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  23. Schmitz, Agen (7 September 2018). "Retrospect 15.5". TitBITS. TidBITS Publishing Inc. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  24. ^ Schmitz, Agen (19 March 2018). "Retrospect 15.0". TitBITS. TidBITS Publishing Inc. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
  25. ^ Schmitz, Agen (28 May 2018). "Retrospect 15.1.1". TitBITS. TidBITS Publishing Inc. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  26. ^ Dorian J. Cougias; E. L. Heiberger; Karsten Koop (2003). The Backup Book: Disaster Recovery from Desktop to Data Center. Lecanto FL: SV Books. pp. 322–323, 360. ISBN 0-9729039-0-9. Retrieved 12 September 2019. It's nice to be able to say "Please exclude files ...." Of course Retrospect has this ability becaus of their selector process .... Retrospect Open File Backup Agent ....waits and looks for a period of inactivity on each of the volumes.
  27. ^ Charles Edge; Chris Barker; Ehren Schwiebert; Ken Barker (2010). Beginning Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server: From Solo Install to Enterprise. Apress. pp. 551-552(grooming), 553(synthetic full backup via Copy Media Set). ISBN 978-1-4302-2772-4. Retrieved 7 September 2019.
  28. Schmitz, Agen (5 March 2016). "Retrospect 13". TitBITS. TidBITS Publishing Inc. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  29. Schmitz, Agen (6 March 2014). "Retrospect 11". TitBITS. TidBITS Publishing Inc. Retrieved 27 April 2017.
  30. ^ "Retrospect ® 14.0 Mac User's Guide" (PDF). Retrospect. Retrospect Inc. March 2017. pp. 8(Backblaze B2), 8-9(Script Hooks—backing up interactive applications with pausing and integration with monitoring system), 18-26(Overview of the Retrospect Console), 27-28(High-level Dashboard—high-level/medium-term reports), 29(How Retrospect Works—Smart Incremental), 31-33(Media Sets), 73(Adding network shares), 74-75(User-initiated backups and restores), 124-126(Archiving), 168-169(Email Preferences), 170-172(Rules), 217(Retrospect for iOS). Retrieved 27 April 2019.
  31. "Retrospect Announces Hybrid Data Protection with New Cloud Storage Support". ChannelPro Network. ChannelPro Network. March 2016. Retrieved 6 September 2019. Retrospect supports seeding options for the initial backup and large scale recovery for large restore scenarios.

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