NetWorker 8.0 was publicly announced on July 10, 2012 and was a major release that offers new levels of performance and scale to enterprise and mid-market customers. It included architectural enhancements, deeper integration with Data Domain through inclusion of Data Domain Boost with the NetWorker Client, as well as DD Boost support with NetWorker Client Direct, a unique feature between NetWorker and Data Domain.
Client Direct enables backup data to be sent directly to the backup target, bypassing the Storage Node, thus decentralizing and increasing the speed of the backup process. Also included were enhancements to business application support, including Microsoft applications and new features for enterprise management.
The announcement for NetWorker 8.0 Service Pack 1 includes the NetWorker Module for Microsoft Applications 2.4 Service Pack 1 and extends the features in NetWorker 8.0 with localization, support for new applications recently released by Microsoft, as well as enhancements for usability and compliance.
NetWorker 8.0 SP1 and NetWorker Module for Microsoft Applications 2.4 SP1 provide a number of new features:
- Localization for French, Korean, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese (both binaries and documentation)
- Support for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013, and Hyper-V 2012, including Cluster Shared Volumes
- Support for Microsoft applications running on Windows Server 2012:
o SharePoint Server 2013
o Hyper-V 2012
o SQL Server 2012
o SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 or later
o SQL Server 2008 SP3 or later
o Active Directory - SQL Server VDI multi-streaming support with DD Boost and NetWorker Client Direct enabling up to 3X greater performance for SQL VDI backups to Data Domain.
- VMware vSphere 5.1 support.
- FIPS 140-2 compliance.
- Bare Metal Recovery support for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), meant as the replacement for the BIOS firmware interface.
- Auto configuration of NDMP backups simplifies complex configuration tasks.
- Support for LTO6 tape devices and increased default block sizes for LTO2-6 tape devices to 256KB, thus providing up to 30% better write performance for remote connections and up to 15% better deduplication performance.
- New Operating Systems supported.
- Windows Server 2012 (NetWorker server, storage node, client, and NetWorker Management Console).
- Windows 8 (NetWorker client and NetWorker Management Console).
- Apple MAC OS X 10.8 “Mountain Lion”:
o Linux distributions: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS & Fedora 17, 18.
EMC has transitioned to a phased product release lifecycle where a production-ready product is first released through this registration process, called Registered Availability (RA).
The NetWorker software and documentation are available through this registration process so the product team can track adoption and ensure the initial release meets customer expectations. The eventual transition to full General Availability (GA) will be based on customer adoption and time-in-use.
After demonstrating that NetWorker 8.0 meets end user expectations the software and documentation will be declared Generally Available (GA) and moved in total to EMC Powerlink.
NetWorker Registered Availability Program
To register and download the NetWorker 8.0 code and documentation, complete the following steps:
- Sign-up for the NetWorker v8.0SP1 Directed Availability Program on EMC Feedback Central using this
link:https://feedbackcentral.emc.com/callout/?callid=37A6ACBBBBF0434AA2A3230D67FAE2C2
or
http://bit.ly/nw80sp1a. Create an account at feedbackcentral.emc.com (if you don’t have one)
- Complete the online NetWorker v8.0SP1 Directed Availability Site Survey.
- After you have completed the registration process, log into the NetWorker 8.0SP1 DA Program on
Feedback Central and download the code located on the left pane, under ‘Resources’. - Documentation will be available on EMC PowerLink and Support Zone.
- The support process for this DA release is the same as with any GA product.