Amanda Enterprise Edition 3.1 Release Notes

Compatibility with previous versions of Amanda Enterprise

• Amanda Enterprise 3.1 Rapid Installer detects the existing installation of Amanda Enterprise 3.0.x. Amanda Enterprise 3.0.x should be uninstalled saving Amanda configuration files and data before upgrading to Amanda Enterprise 3.1. Users can upgrade only from Amanda Enterprise 3.0.x. Uninstalling the old release while saving the configuration files is the only way to preserve the backup sets you created in the old release; Amanda Enterprise 3.1 cannot directly process backup sets created in older versions of the product. This upgrade procedure only converts backup set configurations created with the Zmanda Management Console. If you have manually created disk list entries that need to be preserved, please contact the Zmanda Support Team for assistance.

• Amanda Enterprise 3.1 can report on and restore from backup images created using older versions of Amanda Enterprise.

• Amanda Enterprise 3.1 reads amanda.conf and disklist configuration files from older versions of Amanda converts them to be compatible with version 3.1.  The status of migration is displayed in ZMC Admin Backup Sets page. The configurations that could not be migrated to 3.1 will not seen in the BackupSet switcher.  Migration can be performed for each backup set independently. A migrate action is available to retry migration of a backup set. If there is difficulty in migration of 3.0.x configuration files, please contact Zmanda Support. 
• All Amanda clients can be upgraded to 3.1 independently. All Amanda 3.0.x clients (with latest patches) are supported with Amanda 3.1 server.
• When upgrading from 3.0.x version of Windows Client to 3.1 version, it is recommended to preserve data (answer "YES") during upgrade. If preservation of data is not required, recommendation is to uninstall 3.0.x using Add/Remove programs and then install Zmanda Windows Client 3.1
• Zmanda Windows Client 3.1 no longer uses Zmanda key container for storing backup encryption certificates. To recover encrypted backup archives created using Zmanda Windows Client 3.0.x to another machine, it is still necessary to import Zmanda key container and required encryption certificates on the target machine for restoration.

Compatability with Zmanda Recovery Manager for MySQL

The Amanda backup server may reside on the same machine as an existing ZRM server, as long as you restart the ZRM processes after you install Amanda Enterprise. This procedure is described here.

New Features

• Support for Note that support for Fedora Core 3 has been dropped.
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• New application module to run full and incremental backups of Microsoft Office Sharepoint 2007 servers, including compressed shares (application module license required).
• New application module (license required) to run full and incremental backups of PostgreSQL 8.0.19, 8.1.15, 8.2.11 and 8.3.5 servers on both Linux and Solaris. Compression and Encryption are supported. Online backup using Write Ahead Logs (WAL) is supported; logical backup using pg_dump is not.
• Amanda Enterprise's Oracle module can now leverages the RMAN media management interface to send Oracle data directly to backup media, thus giving better control of the backup process, and eliminating the need for disk space to store the backup on the Oracle server. Requires no additional licensing beyond the Amanda/Oracle license.
• Support for ZFS file system backup using any of a number of mechanisms:
  • amgtar (Amanda tar; the default) works with sparse files
  • amstar (Amanda schilly tar) backs up POSIX ACLs (which are a subset of ZFS ACLs)
  • Solaris tar backup backs up ZFS ACLs (extended attributes in ZMC)?
  • ZFS send/recv, which is ZFS equivalent of the standard dump command. This is the fastest backup method.
  • ZFS snapshot
• Numerous S3 improvements, including support for selecting a location for storage to take advantage of pricing, and the ability to add a mnemonic prefix to your S3 bucket names.
• Support for D2D2T and D2D2Cloud data vaulting. Support for recovery from the disk, or from the Tape/Cloud (i.e. tertiary) layer.
• Support for Data Domain Restorer using NFS and CIFS protocols. This allows you to target backups to any NAS appliance that supports NFS and CIFS protocols.
• Support for FalconStor VTL using iSCSI protocol,  This allows you to target backups to any disk storage device accessable to the backup server via iSCSI.
• The user interfaces for media management and device management have been simplified and made easier to use.

Customer-reported bugs fixed in Amanda Enterprise Release 3.1

• All 3.0.x patches are included in Amanda Enterprise 3.1

Known Issues and Workarounds

• If you are upgrading from Amanda Enterprise 2.6.4, configuration files will need to be migrated manually.  The Admin|Backup Sets in Zmanda Management Console will show the configuration files as "2.6.4" and the 2.6.4 backup sets will not appear in Backup Set switcher.
  Please contact Zmanda Support & Services for help with migration.
• Backup set names in Zmanda Management Console cannot be more than 30 characters.
• Zmanda Windows Client backs up data under the Junction Point directory if the source of Junction point is not included in the backup set. If Junction Point is recursive (i.e, source of Junction Point is point to Junction Point itself), Zmanda Windows Client might hang during backup run. If the Junction Point source is in another volume (different from Junction Point), the backup will fail. 
• Zmanda Windows Client backs up data under the Junction Point directory if the source of Junction point is not included in the same DLE (disk list entry) in the backup set.  However, if the source of the Junction Point is included in the same DLE, following issues can occur:
  
  • If Junction Point is recursive (i.e, source of Junction Point is point to Junction Point itself), Zmanda Windows Client will hang during backup run.
  •  If the Junction Point source is in another volume (different from Junction Point), backup of open files (residing in the source) will fail.

So, please avoid including the source of Junction Point in the same DLE in the backup set.

Documentation

For a full list of supported platforms please review the compatibility guide here.

Amanda Enterprise 3.1 documentation provides detailed information on how to install and configure Amanda server and client on these platforms.