Retrospective on Backup

RetroSpeak (or, "What the heck is a Subvolume?")

I've been up to my eyeballs in Retrospect terminology this week, as we're making decisions on what specific terms will be used in the UI and user documentation. Retrospect uses...uncommon terminology for some things, in both the Mac and Windows versions. In fact, Retrospect uses so many unique terms, or different meanings for common terms, we jokingly refer to the use of such as "RetroSpeak".

We keep several goals in mind as we go through the terminology process:

1. Choose explanatory/descriptive terminology whenever possible.
2. If a new term is not significantly better than the current term, we probably shouldn't make the change.
3. Avoid changing terms that will confuse/hinder existing Retrospect customers.
4. Use generic terms that will work across Windows, Mac, etc.
5. Call out Retrospect's technology, but don't overdo it.

These are good guidelines, and they definitely help us with most decisions, but some aren't as clear as others, and external input is just the thing we need right now.

Script/Job/Task
Today, in both the Mac and Windows versions of Retrospect, a saved backup/duplicate/restore/whatever operation is called a "script". A script includes one or more sources, destinations, options, and usually at least one schedule. While Retrospect is designed for use primarily at small and medium businesses, it is often used by individuals who aren't IT pros, and the term script can be intimidating (i.e., some people relate that to a scripting language like AppleScript or VB). Most other backup software calls these saved operations "jobs", but I personally have some sort of allergy to that term, and just try to come up with an icon for it.

The term that seems to make the most sense is "task", but I don't think it passes Rule #2 above. Your thoughts?

Proactive Backup/Backup Server/Policy Backup
One of Retrospect's cool technologies that has been around for a long time is its ability to go down a list of sources and back them up to available media based on priority, with the least-recently backed up sources having the highest priority. Version 6.1 on the Mac calls these "Backup Server" scripts, while they're called "Proactive Backup" scripts in version 7.6 on Windows.

We've put some time and effort into branding/marketing Proactive Backup, and it's certainly more descriptive than Backup Server, but "Policy Backup" or "Policy-based Backup" might be even more descriptive. Still, we're leaning towards using Proactive Backup. Your opinion?

Thanks for the feedback, and please keep it coming!

Happy Halloween, all.

-Eric

Testing a fix for Mac clients turning themselves off

Just a quick note to let folks know that we've been testing a fix for our #1 bug, where Mac Retrospect Clients turn themselves off for no apparent reason, and we hope to make new client and app builds available in the next few days.

-Eric

Thank you, commenters!

To those of you who have commented on the blog: Thank you. Thank you VERY much. Although we haven't had much time to reply to comments, we read (and discuss) every one. We thrive on your feedback and the critical influence it has in Retrospect's development.

Please keep the comments coming, and thanks again for sharing your opinions and ideas.

-Eric

Scheduling backups in Retrospect

Retrospect uses the term "script" to refer to a saved set of rules that apply to a backup (or a duplicate, transfer, restore, etc.) operation. A script tells Retrospect what, where, how, and when to execute the operation. Right. That's all very straightforward.

Where Retrospect is different from pretty much all other backup software, though, is in the area of scheduling. Unlike in most other products, a single Retrospect script can have multiple schedules that each specify the type of action to take and the action's destination. For example, a single nightly backup script might contain all of the following "schedulers" (a term that makes me, and quite possibly some of you, cringe):

• Every other Fri at 10:00 PM, Recycle Backup, Tape Set A
  
• Every other Mon-Thu at 10:00 PM, Normal Backup, Tape Set A
  
• Every other Fri at 10:00 PM (offset +1 week), Recycle Backup, Tape Set B
  
• Every other Mon-Thu at 10:00 PM (offset +1 week), Normal Backup, Tape Set B
  
• Every 12 weeks on Fri at 10:00 PM, New Media Backup, Tape Set A
  
• Every 12 weeks on Fri at 10:00 PM (offset +6 weeks), New Media Backup, Tape Set B

Most other backup software products would require six separate backup jobs to perform the same actions. While one could argue that Retrospect's method can be confusing to set up, it's certainly easier to make changes to sources, destinations, selectors/filters, etc, when you're dealing with just a single script. On the other hand, making schedule changes—especially with the current interface—can be more difficult.

One of our goals with Retrospect X is to make scheduling easier and more self-explanatory. To that end, we'd love to hear your comments on scheduling Retrospect scripts. Do you find the concept of multiple schedules per script easy to manage, or would you create six separate scripts, each with a single scheduler (D'oh!), to accomplish the tasks in the example above? We'd love to hear your thoughts.

-Eric