Design related

[emachabert]

Hi,

First of all, at last I have a backup of my laptop ! So thank you.

Regarding the software:
- nice UI using modern flat design
- no error during first use
- pretty fast (35Mb/s to an USB2 drive)

I see two things that could be great :
1) removing the SQL Server instance and replacing it with something more flat. Do you really need a SQL Engine for desktop backup ? I assume it comes from the software design of Veeam B&R. The persistence layer could be file based for such load (I think, I may be wrong).
2) storing settings and job configuration into the system registry, thus we could deploy configuration and jobs through Windows group Policy (with a Veeam admx file).

That's all, for the moment

Keep up the good work.

[Gostev]

Hi, Eric. Thanks for your feedback and kind words!

1. It's actually not a full blown SQL Server instance (I know some blog posts incorrectly state that). We use LocalDB, which is a special lightweight version of SQL Server specifically designed for use cases like that (it has like 30MB setup file, no service requirement, etc.)

2. We do have plans to enable deploying and configuring the tool via Windows Group Policy right in v1 through setup command line.

Thanks!

[tsightler]

As Gostev notes, LocalDB is quite lightweight and is designed exactly for this use case. I would say it is Microsoft equivalent of SQLite, which is commonly used to store transactional data for things like web browsers or other products, but SQLite is more silently embedded and usually runs in process with the application so people don't notice it. A good writeup is available here and a good comparison with SQLite is here.

[emachabert]

Thank you guys for the details and for the comparison link, always useful

[jFMd]

Agree, configuration via GPO (admx template) would be very welcome.

[Dima P.]

Felix,

Silent install will be available in the GA version, here is a separate thread: Feature Request - Silent Install

[emachabert]

To be clear about the management through GPO, I wasn't thinking about deployement but about backup policy configuration. Sure silent install is a must have but being able to deploy backup policy through standard windows tooling is important too.
I was thinking of an admx allowing you to manage backup type, target (using environment variable in the path, like %username%), schedule and so on.

[Dima P.]

Eric, noted - thank you.

[yasuda]

I saw that the plan is to provide a command line in V1.

If the command line is compatible with Windows Task Scheduler I think that would make a lot of people happy, including everyone who asked for multiple jobs and greater scheduling flexibility, as long as you can set different backup targets and methods in the task scheduler.

[Gostev]

No, multiple "jobs" to different targets are not supported in the product itself.