David Connell

11 May 2017

SQL Backup Pro – why we’re going backwards to let our customers go forwards

SQL Backup Pro is one of those tools from Redgate that just works. Everyone needs to back up their SQL Server databases, and SQL Backup Pro lets people do it across different and multiple versions of SQL Server, and compress, verify and encrypt backups at the same time. All from a centralized GUI, and with the option to automate backups, backup verification, restores and log shipping too.

But – and here’s a big but – version 9 has just been released and we’ve done something unusual. We’ve added one major feature … and removed another.

SQL Backup Pro v9 now includes integration with Amazon S3, and we’re stopping the Redgate Hosted Storage service that we originally launched in 2013.

All of which begs the question: why?

Simple. When we launched our Hosted Storage service, there was good reason. Off-the-shelf solutions weren’t robust enough for uploads and the performance of SQL Backup Pro itself was being compromised. The cloud was only just shaking itself into shape and there weren’t any providers out there that we trusted to handle our customers’ data.

So we created our own Hosted Storage service that could be accessed and managed through SQL Backup Pro. Same interface, some useful additional features, and one easy journey for our customers, whether they wanted their data backed up locally or remotely.

Times have changed

Times really have changed. While we’ve been working away on SQL Backup Pro, adding new features and launching new versions to make people’s lives easier, other companies have been concentrating on improving their cloud infrastructures, with more flexibility, scalability, elasticity and usability.

Amazon S3, for example, lets users upload and download files easily, choose the location of backups, access them from anywhere, and only pay for what they use. With one notable exception (when someone at Amazon succeeded in breaking the Internet with a typo – no, honest, they really did), it’s also utterly reliable.

It’s better than our own Hosted Service, it costs less, and it’s now regarded as the standard in cloud storage. If we were buying SQL Backup Pro, we’d use it. Quite simply, while we remain the experts in backup, Amazon has become an expert in the cloud.

The best of both worlds

The end result is that SQL Backup Pro v9 supports copying backups to Amazon S3, and our own Hosted Service will stop accepting new backups at the end of June 2017, and will then retire gracefully at the end of the year.

We’re now actively providing support to customers to make the transition as smooth as possible by, even as I write, working to simplify the way SQL Backup Pro connects to Amazon S3 yet further.

So customers gain all the advantages of Amazon S3, while still enjoying the industry standard encryption and proven compression ratios of SQL Backup Pro.

And even if a problem does arise at the remote location and a backup crashes, SQL Backup Pro will restart from the point at which the backup server crashed, not the beginning. Making it a very elegant solution for large backups.

We’re continuing to develop SQL Backup Pro as well. The latest version also introduces permission management through Active Directory Groups, for example, and allows jobs to be enabled or disabled through the GUI.

As you can see, we may have taken one step back to ensure users still have the best backup experience possible, but we’re still moving forward.

If you’d like to discover how SQL Backup Pro compresses, verifies and encrypts backups, download a 14-day, fully functional free trial.