Written by Callum Sinclair - Product Engineering Manager.
Comet 25.2.0 Rhea
Comet 25.2.0 Rhea, our latest Quarterly release, brings 11 new features and 14 enhancements, including direct virtual machine restores into Hyper-V and VMware, User Grouping, Single device ownership of Storage Vaults and more.
The full set of changes can be found in the release notes.
Why Rhea?
This Quarterly release is named after Saturn's moon Rhea. Fun fact: Rhea might have its own ring system, which would make it the only moon in our solar system to have rings.
Webinar announcement
Join us for our Quarterly webinar on Tuesday 11 March (4pm EST / 1pm PST)! Comet's CTO, Mason will cover all the latest product updates, with a live question-and-answer session at the end.
New Feature: Direct VM Restores
Your input is important to our decision making at Comet. Direct VM Restore was a highly upvoted request in our Feature Voting system, so we're excited to share this with the Comet community.
Direct VM Restores to Hyper-V
You can now restore your Hyper-V and VMware Protected Items directly to a Hyper-V Server without any extra manual steps.
Direct restores into Hyper-V are available from the Comet Management Console and from the Comet Backup desktop app. The following screenshots are from the Comet Management Console.
Migrate VMware Guests to Hyper-V
VMware (vSphere or vCenter) virtual machines can be migrated to Hyper-V using Comet. Simply back up VMware guests using Comet's VMware Protected Item type. Once the guests have been backed up, you will be able to restore the guests using our restore workflows. Comet will automatically convert the guest on the fly at restore time into a format Hyper-V can boot.
Direct VM Restores to VMware
You can now restore your Hyper-V and VMware Protected Items directly to a VMware (vSphere or vCenter) without any manual steps necessary.
Direct restores into VMware (vSphere or vCenter) are available from the Comet Management Console and from the Comet Backup desktop app. The following screenshots are from the Comet Management Console.
Migrate Hyper-V Guests to VMware
Similar to our VMware guest migration, you can migrate Hyper-V guests into VMware (vSphere or vCenter) using Comet. All that is required is a backup of the Hyper-V guests using Comet. Then you can use Comet's restore workflow to directly restore the guest into VMware. Comet will automatically convert the guest on the fly at restore time into a format VMware can boot.
New Feature: Disk Image Restores to Hyper-V and VMware
Comet's Disk Image Protected Items can now be restored directly into a Hyper-V or VMware (vSphere or vCenter) Server. This removes any need for manual conversions of VMDK files when restoring a physical Disk Image Protected Item into a virtual environment.
Once a Disk Image Protected Item has been backed up using Comet, you will be able to choose if you'd like to restore the Disk Image directly into Hyper-V or VMware. This is a fantastic improvement for customers who need to restore a physical device as soon as possible while they wait for new physical devices or hardware to arrive.
Physical To Virtual Disk Image Migrations
Disk Image Protected Items can also be migrated into a virtual (Hyper-V or VMware) environment permanently using Comet's new Disk Image restore functionality. This allows customers migrate phyiscal machines into a virtual environment, and continue to protect the machine with our Hyper-V or VMware Protected Item types.
New Feature: Comet Server Roles and Features Renamed
Comet Server Roles were initially named and styled after Windows Server Roles. Customers who have managed or worked with the Windows Server Operating System to manage roles would have been more familiar with this naming style.
To improve the usability of Comet for new and existing partners, all Comet Server Roles have been renamed.
- Auth Role has been renamed to Management Console.
- Storage Role has been renamed to Storage Gateway.
- Constellation Role has been renamed to Cluster Manager.
- Software Build Role has been renamed to Backup Agent Downloads (and its settings have been relocated under Management Console).
These changes better reflect the capabilities of what each role does within Comet.
The Comet Management Console has also been updated to reflect these changes, grouping the related side menu pages and settings under each of the new names.
New Feature: User Grouping
It is now possible to group users in the Comet Management Console. This will allow users belonging to a department, company, cost center, etc. to be grouped logically inside Comet. This makes it easier to find and manage customers belonging to the same group.
Once a user belongs to a group, admins will be able to assign policies to these users in bulk. This means admins will be able to roll out new policies and settings in one go, without having to remember what policy a user should have applied just based on the name of the user.
New Feature: Single Device Ownership Of Storage Vaults
Single device ownership of Storage Vaults is a new user setting to determine whether devices that share the same user account login should back up Protected Items to a shared Storage Vault or isolated Storage Vaults. There are pros and cons of each option:
Pros of shared Storage Vaults: Data from multiple devices stored in a shared Storage Vault can take advantage of Comet's deduplication, reducing overall storage requirements.
Cons of shared Storage Vaults: Devices are able to see and restore all data from the other devices, and it is possible for backups to be delayed or missed on a device due to the Storage Vault being locked for retention jobs.
Pros of isolated Storage Vaults: Devices cannot see or restore data from other devices, and there is no risk of delayed or missed backup jobs due to the Storage Vault being locked.
Cons of isolated Storage Vaults: Backup data will not be deduplicated between devices, increasing overall storage requirements.
To configure isolated Storage Vaults, when configuring a new user account select the "Provision storage vaults automatically ..." option under Storage Vault Provisioning. For existing users, head to the users account page and set the "Automatically create Storage Vaults for newly registered devices" option to a Storage Template.
To configure shared Storage Vaults, when configuring a new user account select the "Provision storage vaults once ..." option under Storage Vault Provisioning. For existing users, head to the users account page and set the "Automatically create Storage Vaults for newly registered devices" option to (none).
This feature gives admins the flexibility to chose how the data for each device in a user is handled. Admins can now chose to prioritise data being deduplicated between devices, or prioritise data not being shared between devices to enforce strict data compliance requirements.
