Retrospective on Backup

Retrospect at Macworld Expo

Well be there, but we're going to be a little harder to find at Macworld Expo this year.

As you probably know, EMC purchased Iomega in 2008, and together with EMC's SOHO network storage management software development team, we're all part of EMC's Consumer and Small Business Products Division. That means one budget for Macworld Expo, and the booth will be branded as Iomega. This also means that you won't see "Retrospect" mentioned in the show guide.

You will find Iomega's booth in the North Hall, #4015. That's where we'll be showing EMC Retrospect, along with some really cool storage devices from Iomega.

Hope to see you there!

-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

Bug triaging in the field

Wil Shipley has a great blog post called The Greatest Bug of All which, among other things, talks about his personal triage order. Triage, when it comes to bugs, refers to how you decide which bugs to work on first.

His list is:

• Data-loss bugs
• Unavoidable crashers
• Functionality-blocking bugs
• Avoidable crashers
• Avoidable bugs
• Misfeatures
• Performance issues
• Feature suggestions
• UI feedback

That is pretty much what we go by here at EMC Retrospect. One challenge backup software faces is that if you aren’t backing up, you are at least running the risk of losing data. So many functional bugs manage to hit the #1 spot right away.

The other thing Wil writes about is, that to fix any bug, your first step is to replicate it. We have that most painful of bugs in the new Mac Client right now, it blocks backups and only happens to some people, some of the time. (See our forum for details). The current workaround is to downgrade back to the older client — but that isn’t the nicest of solutions.

So now you know our current #1 bug to fix. We’d like to apologize for the inconvenience if you are one of the unlucky ones. We wish we had a date to give you for when it will be fixed but at this point, I can only tell you we’ve got some of our best developers and QA working on it.

JG

Greetings!

Hello and welcome to Retrospective on Backup, a blog about the ongoing development of EMC's Retrospect backup software for small offices/home offices (SOHO) through medium-sized businesses.

My name is Eric Ullman, and I am the Retrospect product manager. I have recently returned to the Retrospect team where I served in a variety of roles from 1992-2004, before EMC acquired Dantz Development, the company that originally developed and sold Retrospect. It's great to return after four years away and come back to work again alongside folks with whom I worked five and ten years ago. They're some of the brightest minds in the business when it comes to data protection for the SOHO and mid-market, and I'm both honored and humbled to be a part of the team.

Retrospect—from a development perspective—has had its share of ups and downs over the past few years (some of which will be the topics of upcoming blog entries), but the future looks bright. We're hard at work on the next major release, and that's really the reason for my starting this blog. It's time to open up and let the community know what we're up to, and at the same time to invite the feedback and commentary that will ultimately lead to a better Retrospect.

Thanks for reading. There's lots to come, and the team and I look forward to hearing from you, as well.

Cheers!