May 2017 update for Microsoft Azure Backup Server v2

This article describes the features and fixes that are included in the update for Microsoft Azure Backup Server (MABS) v2 with the support for Windows Server 2016. It also contains installation instructions for this update.

The following features are included in this update for Azure Backup Server v2.

Disk storage improvements

After you install this update, you can store backups by using the Modern Backup Storage technology. When you use the Resilient File System (ReFS) block-cloning technology to store incremental backups, MABS v2 significantly improves storage usage and performance. This process provides the following benefits:

• A 30–40 percent savings in storage
• Backup jobs that are 70 percent faster
• The ability to configure workloads for storage on certain volumes
• Backup storage that is inline with the production data source
• Resilient Change Tracking (RCT)-based Hyper-V VM backups

Announcing RCT based Hyper-V VM backups

Microsoft Azure Backup Server v2 uses RCT-based change tracking by using Windows Server 2016. This makes backups more reliable and scalable, and it improves backup performance. MABS v2 also enables you to do the following:

• Meet backup SLAs during cluster operating system rolling upgrades
• Seamlessly protect and recover shielded VMs
• Protect VMs that are stored on Storage Spaces Direct
• Protect VMs that are stored on ReFS-based SOFS clusters

VMware VM protection improvements

VMware VM backup is in Preview mode in Windows Server 2016 that has MABS v2 installed. In MABS v2, the following improvements are provided for VMware VM protection:

• MABS v2 includes support for vCenter and ESXi 6.5 together with support for 5.5 and 6.0.
• MABS v2 includes auto-protection of VMware VMs to cloud. If VMware VMs are added to a folder, they are automatically protected to disk and cloud.
• Recovery efficiency improvements are made for VMware alternative location recovery.

Cloud protection improvements

In MABS v2, you can now automatically protect your Microsoft SQL Server workloads and VMware VMs to disk and to cloud.

2016 workload support

After you install this update, you can seamlessly back up your Microsoft SQL Server 2016, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2016, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 workloads. You can also back up Windows 10 client workloads by using MABS v2.

This update fixes the following issues:

• MABS online recoveries fail and return error ID 3111 because of issues in the file catalog.
• The MABS Client icon appears as a red "X" in the notification area in clients that have the Windows 10 Anniversary Update installed.
• Client crashes if the client has the Windows 10 Anniversary Update installed.
• Agent backups fail on 32-bit servers after Update Rollup 11 is installed.
• MABS crashes when you try to enable the VMware protection to a vCenter server that is already being protected by MABS as a Windows server.
• MABS cannot back up VMs that have characters in other languages in the VMWare VM names.
• Azure backups and restores fail when the data source contains files such as the thumbs.db file.
• MABS crashes while recovering from online backups that have a long file-path.
• Item level recovery (ILR) on the latest recovery point that is created by using consistency check fails until it's no longer the latest.
• Files may not back up when you run a sync job after you protect deduplicated volumes.
• Backup Storage bloats when you back up System State/BMR by using MABS.
• You can't change size allocation for data sources in MABS.

Issue 1

When you upgrade a SQL instance from version 2014 to version 2016, SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 2016 can't be started.

Workaround

To work around this issue, install SSMS 2016 on a different server and connect remotely when it's needed.

Issue 2

In the case of using an existing SQL server for MABS, MABS setup only supports using named instances of SQL server.

Microsoft Download Center

Download the update for Microsoft Azure Backup Server v2

After you install this update, the Azure Backup Server will be version number 12.0.332.0. You can verify this by selecting the About button on the Help panel.