INFO: Paragon Hard Disk Manager 14 Hyper-V Preview

For all of you business owners (and virtual machine users), I got an email earlier from a friend at Paragon, announcing the release of a free (until August 31st) Hyper-V hard disk manager;

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 14 Hyper-V Preview protects entire virtual machines (online or offline) registered on a local Hyper-V host, where the product is installed. Hyper-V guest machines can be backed up directly to pVHD (Paragon Virtual Hard Drive), VMDK, VHD, or VHDX virtual containers. If using VHD or VHDX as the target backup format, the user can attach the resulting backup image to an existing virtual machine of Hyper-V and the operating system will be launched successfully. If using pVHD, there will be available additional options, like high-level compression, encryption, or image splitting. Resulting virtual containers can be stored on a local disk (mounted/unmounted), a mapped network share, or by UNC path.

In case of a disaster recovery, HDM 14 Hyper-V Preview enables businesses to restore a previously backed up virtual machine to a new location according to a certain time stamp (if several are available). Users also are presented with the option to retrieve certain files from virtual containers through Connect VD and File Transfer Wizard.

To support external hosts with their guest machines, users are required to upgrade to Paragon Protect & Restore.

Key Features:

• Operates at the virtualization layer, employing MS VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service) to agentlessly protect Hyper-V guests
• Backs up entire virtual machines (online/offline) hosted by Hyper-V (Windows, Linux, etc.)
• Backs up directly to virtual containers (pVHD, VMDK, VHD, VHDX)
• Provides wide backup destination: a local disk (mounted/unmounted), a mapped network share, or a UNC path
• If using pVHD, additional options are available, like high-level compression, encryption, or image splitting
• Restores a previously backed up virtual machine to a new location according to a certain time stamp
• Allows granular file-level recovery through File Transfer Wizard
• Hyper-V Incremental Backup wizard

System requirements:

• Windows 8.1 with Hyper-V role
• Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V role
• Windows Server 2012 R1/R2 with Hyper-V role

Availability:

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 14 Hyper-V is a preview of a full-fledged commercial product and it is available to all SMBs for free download till August 31st, 2014 at: http://www.paragon-software.com/small-business/hdm-hyper-v/

Will be checking it out myself, but am interested in what others think, so feel free to drop me an email. You can grab a copy of it at;

http://www.paragon-software.com/small-business/hdm-hyper-v/