We're excited to introduce MSP360 Managed Backup 6.3, which comes with Forever Forward Incremental Backup and Intelligent Retention. This addition to the New Backup Format helps significantly reduce costs.
What Is Forever Forward Incremental Backup?
The Forever Forward Incremental backup method implies creating the initial full backup, followed by a set of subsequent incremental backups. Unlike the traditional approach, where multiple full backups are required, the Forever Forward Incremental approach creates only one full backup, followed by a chain of incremental backups.
The Benefits of Forever Forward Incremental Backups
Since incremental backups track and copy only those data blocks that have been changed since the last backup job, they accelerate the backup process and significantly reduce storage space. With this approach, you keep only one backup generation in storage. Once the next full backup is renewed by merging the latest increments, the previous full and incremental copies are deleted according to the retention policy in order to optimize storage space usage.
Forever Forward Incremental Backup in MSP360 Managed Backup
In MSP360 Managed Backup, starting from version 6.3, Forever Forward Incremental backups are available only with the New Backup Format and for Amazon S3, Wasabi, Azure, Backblaze B2, and S3-compatible storages.
Please note that the Forever Forward Incremental option is not supported for local storage, S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, S3 Glacier Deep Archive, or Azure Archive. Also, you are required to install the Backup agent 7.8.
Further reading What Is Amazon S3 Glacier and How to Use It
To enable this option, create a new backup plan or edit the existing one, go to the Schedule Options step and select the Forever Forward Incremental option. Please note that the option to create a full backup is disabled by default with Forever Forward Incremental enabled
Save on Your Cloud Storage Bill With Intelligent Retention
With Forever Forward Incremental, we have also introduced the Intelligent Retention option, which helps reduce the storage services costs that come with a minimum storage duration limit and early deletion fees.
This feature automatically checks the cloud storage parameters to ensure that only one full backup is created within a minimum storage duration period. Once Intelligent Retention is enabled, you don't have to worry about your retention settings. The software will adjust your retention settings automatically, so that you don't pay extra for the duplicated data on storage.
Enable Intelligent Retention on the Retention Policy step of the backup plan wizard after selecting Forever Forward Incremental. Please note that the settings of Forever Forward Incremental backups are incompatible with the GFS retention configuration and immutability (object lock). These settings are disabled by default when the Forever Forward Incremental option is selected.
Conclusion
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