10 features in BluVault that every IT administrator should know about
A backup solution is an important component of every IT administrator’s tool kit. The right backup solution is typically safe, efficient, and quietly reliable. Whether it be ransomware, an insider threat attack, or even a natural disaster, having safe copies of business data can make it easier for the IT teams to support business continuity and ensure data availability at all times.
But apart from core capabilities like reliable backups and on-demand restores, enterprise-class backup solutions like Parablu’s BluVault offer much more. BluVault has several designed-in features that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the data backup mechanism while making the job easier for the IT or Backup Team to secure, monitor, and manage.
Here are 10 features in BluVault that every IT administrator should know about
Here are 10 important ways your organization will benefit from having a comprehensive Data Backup and Recovery strategy in place:
1. User Migration
For large enterprises, the process of provisioning users can be cumbersome. To make user provisioning easy, BluVault offers a built-in migration feature that is intuitive and can enable IT administrators to register users en masse in an efficient way and with just a few clicks. They can integrate with their company’s user namespace such as Active Directory or Azure Active Directory, or simply use the provided .xls template to provision users in bulk.
Access this feature: Parablu Portal > Settings > Data Migration
2. Default protection policy
Once users are registered, what backup policy do they fall under? BluVault offers an easy way for IT administrators to map users to default policies that are automatically set to be applied to all new users immediately after they’re provisioned.
Want to add users, but not necessarily start all their backups at once? This is usually something administrators want to control when rolling out the solution across a large user base. Parablu provides a built-in staging policy that acts as a ‘parking lot’ for new users for whom administrators are not ready to kick off backups yet.
Access this feature: Parablu Portal > Policy Management > Backup Policies > Policy Mapping
3. Set thresholds
During backups, it is important that there are certain thresholds set to establish a sustainable process that supports optimized use of storage and network bandwidth. BluVault makes it easy for IT administrators by allowing them to set up rules such as device storage quota, the maximum number of file versions allowed, maximum permissible file size, etc. While BluVault has no limitations that restrict any of these values, Administrators may want to restrict them to ensure sensible and optimal utilization of resources. These can easily be configured using the centralized web console and pushed over-the-air to selected users.
Access this feature: Parablu Portal > Policy Management > Backup Policies > Create a new policy > Maximum Permissible File Size (In MB) / Per Device Backup Storage Limit (In GB)
4. Email Alerts and Notifications
For IT administrators it is important to identify any anomalies in the data backup processes. And this can be quite difficult when dealing with a large number of users or devices. Early detection of any such risks can help administrators to be proactive and take steps to mitigate them. BluVault makes this easy for IT administrators by allowing them to turn on alerts to be sent directly to their inboxes when specified events occur. For instance, a user decoupling the backup agent on their endpoint, an unauthorized restore that gets initiated – can all be proactively detected.
Access this feature: Parablu Portal > Policy Management > Backup Policies > Create a new policy > Email Alert Configurations
5. Endpoint Domain name Check
When end-users are working from remote locations, there is a heightened risk that business data can be downloaded or restored to a personal endpoint.
A restore to an unapproved device can mean data leakage or even render the organization non-compliant. BluVault offers IT administrators an advanced feature that once enabled will ensure that no agent installation happens on non-domain devices or devices under non-corporate domains.
In addition to this, Parablu also has the ability to integrate with Azure Active Directory’s conditional access feature to check a device certificate before successful authentication.
Access this feature: Parablu Portal > Policy Management > Backup Policies > Create a new policy > Advanced > Endpoint Domain Check
6. Assign Additional Owners
BluVault offers an option to transfer ownership of registered devices to an alternate user. This can be especially useful when employees leave the organization, and the IT administrator needs to preserve their backups, but re-use their backup license for a new user. With the Assign Additional Owners feature, a device belonging to a ‘blocked’ user (i.e., a user whose license has been relinquished) can be reassigned to one or more alternate users with a valid BluVault user license. The alternate user typically is a replacement for the original user or their supervisor. The user to whom the device is re-assigned can view, access, and download/restore backed-up data from the device – just as they would for one of their own devices.
Access this feature: Parablu Portal > Policy Management > Backup Policies > Create a new policy > Advanced > Endpoint Domain Check
7. Restore Permissions
While many businesses like BluVault’s self-service option – which allows end-users to restore their own data, there are also several that like to keep backups under lock & key. Keeping a close watch on backup data restores can also be important for effective and efficient data protection. For IT and Backup administrators, BluVault offers an easy way to counter these issues by limiting restore functionality to only specified users and administrators.
Access this feature: Parablu Portal > Policy Management > Backup Policies > Create a new policy > User action preferences > Restore
8. Bandwidth throttling for backups
Data backups can sometimes impact user experience, especially if they’re operating in a low bandwidth environment. BluVault offers an option to limit the bandwidth that the endpoint agent can utilize for backups. This can be applied centrally via policy settings and pushed out over-the-air to road warriors or to users in remote locations.
Access this feature: Parablu Portal > Policy Management > Backup Policies > Create a new policy > Advanced > Throttling Attributes
9. Purge Deleted Files
A backup is usually designed to preserve data even if it is lost on the source system. But sometimes, users may delete data from their endpoints which is truly unnecessary and irrelevant. If such data has already been backed up, it will continue to take up valuable space on backup storage.
BluVault’s feature to purge deleted files allows IT administrators to specify the number of days until when such files are preserved in the backup vault. For instance, if this setting is kept at 60 days, then deleted files, if they don’t reappear in incremental backups for that period of time will be considered eligible for purging, and deleted out of the backup. This setting is usually OFF by default but can be turned ON by administrators if needed.
Access this feature: Parablu Portal > Policy Management > Backup Policies > Create a new policy > Advanced > Purge deleted files from the catalog after
10. Provision Self-Service for users
An overextended IT team may want to let end-users perform some operations on their own. A user wanting to recover a lost file, or download an important piece of data doesn’t need to turn it into an IT support ticket. BluVault allows administrators to empower end-users with the flexibility of self-service. Users can be given rights to restore, download, view previous versions, preview files, or even share them securely. And these can be enabled selectively and only for certain users as required. This can go a long way in terms of reducing dependency on the IT team.
Access this feature: Parablu Portal > Policy Management > Backup Policies > Create a new policy > User action preferences > Portal
These are just a few of the features BluVault offers, beyond the core backup and restore functionality. But we’ve only scratched the surface. Parablu’s BluVault offers a range of several other advanced and helpful features for enterprise IT teams. We will discuss other features such as end-user consent, data obfuscation, litigation hold, etc. in subsequent blogs.
Until then, if you would like a deeper dive into BluVault, just ask us for a personalized demo here or write to us at info@parablu.com.
