EMC announces new Retrospect 8.1 for Mac now available

Version 8.1 offers increased performance on Intel-based Macs, improvements to the new user interface introduced earlier this year in version 8.0, and now runs on PowerPC Macs, fully supporting individuals and organizations that use older Mac computers for their backups.

Peter Wharton, vice president of marketing, EMC Consumer and Small Business Products Division, said:

"Adding support for PowerPC Macs was a critical step towards providing small and mid-sized businesses the best backup and recovery product for their needs. Many existing Retrospect sites, as well as small businesses that have either outgrown Time Machine or that wish to centralize their backups, might only have a PowerPC-based Mac to utilize as a Retrospect backup server. EMC Retrospect 8.1 now seamlessly addresses that need."

EMC Retrospect 8.1 improves performance over version 8.0 in a number of key areas, including backup, data verification, and restore activities. On average, users of Retrospect 8.1 on Intel-based Macs can expect to see local backup performance increase 10 to 15% over version 8.0 and 30 to 35% over version 6.1. Performance on PowerPC systems varies more with the power and speed of the processor, with faster, multiple G5 processor systems performing 10 to 15% better than they did with version 6.1.

Improvements to the user interface of EMC Retrospect 8.0 are also present in the 8.1 release, as well as several other enhancements that benefit the overall user experience.

"When such a respected and widely-used application as EMC Retrospect gets its first UI overhaul in more than ten years, we recognize that changes will be required after the public spends some time with the initial release," said Eric Ullman, director of product management for Retrospect. "With version 8.1, we've taken the best feedback from our knowledgeable customers and made numerous enhancements to the UI—including updating icons, improving workflow, and providing better responses to the user's actions—to please both new and existing users alike."

Tech Superpowers, Inc., a professional services consultancy and Retrospect reseller with offices in Boston and London, is already working with EMC Retrospect 8.1.

"The new architecture and interface for Retrospect 8 enables us to monitor multiple backups simultaneously, and we can now create backup scripts in half the time," said Michael Oh, president of Tech Superpowers, Inc. "For a professional services company like ours, which maintains 20 different backup environments for our clients, these changes make a big difference."

EMC Retrospect 8.1 is currently available in English only; localized language editions are expected to be available later this year in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.

EMC Retrospect 8:

EMC Retrospect 8 has been redesigned from the ground up with a state-of-the-art user interface, a powerful new engine that runs in the background, and a host of new and improved capabilities. Positioned as a comprehensive backup and recovery software program between Time Machine and enterprise-level backup applications, Retrospect 8 provides the features, ease of use, flexibility, and reliability that professional users and small to medium-sized businesses demand.

Retrospect 8 offers many new features, as well as a multitude of improvements to existing features. Among the most exciting changes that Retrospect brings to Mac users:

• An all-new, customizable user interface with remote management capabilities.

• A powerful new engine capable of multiple, simultaneous backup, restore, and copy operations.

• Disk-to-disk-to-disk (D2D2D) and disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) backups with point-in-time backup transfers between similar or different media types and disk grooming that removes out-of-date backup data to free up space.

• Simultaneous streaming of data to multiple disk or tape storage systems.

• Certified AES-256 encryption of backup data.

• Advanced network client support with support for multiple network interfaces and a wake-on-LAN feature to wake sleeping computers for backup, reducing overall energy expenditure.

• Complete backup of physical and virtual Windows Server 2003/2008 and Windows XP/Vista clients, including those running within VMware Fusion and Parallels, with system state preservation and backup of open files.

Product Availability, Editions, and Pricing:

EMC Retrospect 8.1 for Mac is available immediately as a free upgrade for owners of version 8.0. Individuals and organizations that purchased a Retrospect 6.1 license on or after January 14, 2008 also qualify for a free upgrade to Retrospect 8.1; upgrade prices from purchases before January 14, 2008 are listed below with each edition.

EMC Retrospect 8.1 is available in several editions:

- Retrospect 8 Desktop 3-User
- new or upgrade from 5.x-6.x Desktop edition
- Protects a single, non-server Mac and up to two additional networked Mac, Linux, or Windows desktops and laptops; additional desktop/laptop client licenses and support and maintenance are available separately.

- Retrospect 8 Single Server 20 Clients
- new or upgrade from 5.x-6.x Workgroup edition
- Protects a single Mac OS X Server and an unlimited number of networked Mac, Linux, and Windows desktops and laptops; additional server client licenses and support and maintenance are available separately.

- Retrospect 8 Single Server 20 Clients with ASM
- new or upgrade from 5.x-6.x Workgroup edition
- Protects a single Mac OS X Server and an unlimited number of networked Mac, Linux, and Windows desktops and laptops; includes 1 year support and maintenance; additional server client licenses are available separately.

- Retrospect 8 Single Server Unlimited Clients with ASM
- new or upgrade from 5.x-6.x Workgroup edition
- Protects a single Mac OS X Server and an unlimited number of networked Mac, Linux, and Windows desktops and laptops; includes 1 year support and maintenance; additional server client licenses are available separately.

- Retrospect 8 Multi Server Unlimited Clients
- new or upgrade from 5.x-6.x Server edition
- Protects an unlimited number of networked Mac, Linux, and Windows servers, desktops, and laptops; includes 1 year support and maintenance.

Add-ons are available for Advanced Tape Support (supports simultaneous streaming to multiple tape drives) and Open File Backup for Windows clients (included with the Desktop edition).