2017.2 Service Update

Autotask File Protection Server 7.2 for Windows, a new offering in the AEB product suite, is designed specifically to run on server operating systems to back up files stored locally or on attached or network drives.

AEB File Protection Server always runs in service mode, which ensures that it's constantly backing data up, even on unattended servers.

So now, when you provision teams, you'll be offering both AEB Desktop and AEB Server licenses, giving your customers a customized backup solution to suit their specific needs.

You'll manage the end user servers with AEB Server installed on the new Servers and Server detail pages of File Protection Online.

End users can monitor and manage their AEB Server experience through a series of screens accessible from the server itself. For more information, refer to File Protection Server: Preferences, File Protection Server: Progress, and File Protection Server: Manage Backups.

For system requirements, refer to File Protection Server requirements.

You can now create profiles that give you granular and flexible control over AEB device settings. You can assign these backup profiles to devices and then manage the backup settings for all devices with that backup profile all at once. This will help you streamline device backup management.

Backup profiles are comprised of the following settings:

• Deployment Configuration, which controls device approval automation and user account default values, as well as team key management.
• Backup Preferences, which allow you to enable or disable end user upgrade notifications, lock or unlock backup preferences for end users, and define the backup paths for Windows and/or Mac users that will always be backed up. This is also where you'll see our new Profile-Based Bandwidth Throttling feature.
• Backup Exclusions, which determine the file types and paths that will be excluded from backups. This will conserve bandwidth consumption and improve performance by omitting files and paths that needn't ever be backed up. To simplify implementation, we've done most of the work for you by predefining a list of file types and paths that should be omitted from backup. You can control which of these you actually use. In addition, you may add your own file type exclusions.
• Finally, any backup profile can be Assigned To as many devices as you like. Any adjustment to the profile is automatically applied to all the devices to which it is assigned.

In order to help you make a seamless transition to using backup profiles, we've converted your current backup settings into a Default Backup Profile, which has been assigned to all team devices.

To learn more about backup profiles and how to manage them, refer to Backup Profiles and Backup Profile Detail.

This new feature allows you to set the maximum upload and download speeds to and from the service for your AEB Desktop end users. End users can, via Network Preferences, reduce transfer speed, but they cannot increase it beyond the limit you've set here.

Throttle control settings apply to AEB Desktop 7.2 and later only. These settings do not affect AEB Server.

This allows you to manage your bandwidth to avoid network saturation.

For more information, refer to Backup Preferences

You may wish to continue allocating specific storage amounts to all your teams (a metered plan), or you may wish to switch to selling unlimited plans, which grant your teams endless backup storage.

Unlimited plan partners will no longer see fields that control storage allocation.

In order to provide the summary information you need to keep your teams running smoothly, we've also updated your AEB Manager Dashboard to clearly display the relevant data for the type of plan you choose to sell.

If you've integrated with Autotask, you'll be prompted to update the integration when you log in to AEB Manager if your Partner account has been converted to an unlimited plan. To complete your update:

1. Click the link in the automatic popup prompt that displays when you log in. This will open the Autotask Integration page.
2. Click the Modify button.
3. Modify the names of any unsynced services (the Status column will say "Not Synced" for these items) to ensure that all services have unique names.
4. Update the Unit Cost and Unit price as desired.
5. Set the Billing Code field as desired.
6. Click the Synchronize with Autotask button.
7. When synchronization is complete, a popup message will appear. Click OK.

NOTE  If you do not run this process when prompted, you can always run it manually from the Autotask Integration page.

NOTE  Please note that when synchronizing these new services, the service effective date for updated teams will be set to {TODAY}. You may wish to manually adjust the service effective date within Autotask.

On the Devices page, the "Fully Backed Up" column has been replaced with a “Backup Status” column. While the Fully Backup Up column provided simple Yes and No states, the Backup Status has four possible values: Complete, In Progress, Failed, and Not Enabled. Additional information is provided on a second line for each record. The same column is available on the new Servers page as well.

In addition, when files fail to back up within a defined time frame, the files names and paths will be displayed in the Device detail view. The files will automatically clear once they back up, or you can right-click and select a menu option to ignore the file in future backups.

These enhancements provides greater insight into the specific state of a device backup.

is a growing product. Because we've added new features, we've also updated our navigation structure. While the AEB Manager interface has not changed, when you manage your teams through the portal, you'll find two major changes:

• Under Teams we've added a Servers page, which gives you access to management functions for all devices with AEB Server installed.
• We've also created a new Configuration tab, under which you'll find Backup Profiles and Deployments.

Windows users may now back up the entire root directory (e.g. C: or D: drive) on their device. This comprehensive backup will ensure complete data backup and recovery when necessary. This feature is available for both Desktop and Server.

When adding a folder to back up via Desktop for Windows, a progress bar will now display, providing a visual indicator of the addition.

If Desktop for Windows has been installed on a device, you may upgrade your installation with new releases. New AEB installations on servers will require File Protection Server.

If you have configured your Windows or Mac instance of AEB Desktop to back up external paths, they will continue to be backed up. If, however, you remove an external path or reinstall AEB Desktop, you will not be able to reinstate an external path or add a new one.

now supports backup of files in AppData folder. For more information concerning what can and cannot be backed up, please refer to How Backups Work.

A new Windows security certificate has been issued for the latest versions of Desktop and Server, and may result in the display of a warning popup from Windows Defender. If the popup displays, please click the Run Anyway button.

AEB Desktop for Mac users can now easily access AEB log files, as well as other AEB Desktop instance information with a simple right-click on the About window.

Previously, a disabled device continued to back up until the device's instance of AEB Desktop disconnected from the service. Now devices will cease backup within 10 minutes of being disabled.

In Manager, we have corrected the Devices export function to improve consistency between the exported file and the screen display.

Improved consistency of device status display, for backup status in particular.