We receive numerous requests for throwing some light on inSync’s roadmap, so here it is. We have tried to include most of the suggestions we received from the users. At the same time, we did not go for some features as they do not fit in our vision for data protection. We discuss our view point about some of such features towards the end of this blog entry. Our focus, as always, is “Light-weight, Simple, Fast and Trustable” backup solution.
Version 2.2 (Oct 10th, 2008)
- Admin configured backup folders – The admin can choose “must have” folders for backup for each profile. Can also choose if user can configure more folders.
- Browser Restore – Enable user to restore files and folders using just the browser, when he is not at his desk.
- Linux Port (beta) – Initially support Ubuntu 8+, openSuse 10+ and RHEL 5+
- Advanced Reporting – 6 different reporting option for flexible and detailed reporting.
- Dump user data locally (on server) while disabling the user.
- Restore user data on server – We plan to allow a dumping user data locally (on server) in case a user is in disabled state. This could be useful for archiving a user’s data before the deleting the user.
- Publish configuration API – Publish the server configuration API to enable third party software vendors to integrate inSync backup in their management console.
Version 3.0 (Dec 21th, 2009)
- Full PC Backup – Use de-duplication to effectively backup entire PC (operating system, application executables in addition to the application configuration and data)
- Bare-metal Restore – Use restore points created by full PC backup to restore a machine that does not have a working operating system.
- Performance Improvements – for large (1GB+) file incremental backup.
- Search in Restore – Search files in restore.
Excluded Features
The features which we believe should not be implemented even though some key players offer them –
- Disable inSync client’s desktop visibility – Don’t show the inSync client running on the the user’s PC to hide backup. In our opinion, this is not a solution. The right approach is to provide a light weight backup solution that does not hamper the PC performance and hence, the user does not want to disable it.
- Server initiated backup– It is not useful for the PC backup environment, especially for mobile laptops that are not always connected. we may consider this for the server version of inSync.
- Allow USB backup or tape backup on users PC – We believe that media based backup is inherently unusable. With falling disk prices and Druvaa’s data de-duplication technology, the best backup policy is to maintain backups on hard-disks.