HP Data Protector 6.21 Available

HP has released Data Protector 6.21 which now includes the HP StoreOnce de-duplication engine.  This enables the delivery of high performance and resource efficient software based de-duplication which helps improve utilization of storage across the enterprise.  This helps maximise existing IT resources, such as disk based backup storage, and meet stringent service levels (backup windows are shrinking and shrinking now).  The StoreOnce engine runs across multiple HP products now, so a standard de-duplication technology can now be implemented across the data centre.

StoreOnce is licensed through the Advanced Backup to Disk LTU, so if you’ve already got that, just upgrade to 6.21 and software de-duplication is yours to use!  Which is nice of HP, they could have made you purchase another license after all.

Improved P9500 support, disaster recovery, Hyper-V support, SQL 2012 support, further VMware features and the usual bug fixes are also included in this release.

I would be careful about upgrading to this version, if you google ‘6.21 upgrade’ and there are quite a few stories about issues after the upgrade (for example, having to downgrade to the 6.2 GUI to get mutlipathing working again!)  I’d watch the HP and general forums with regards to further patches and other user experiences with the process.

If you fancy upgrading or have a nice DEV/TEST env to use you will need two patches, one with the documentation and one with the actual 6.21 executable:

• Windows:            DPWINBDL_00621.exe & DPWIN_00551.EXE
• Linux:                   DPLNXBDL_00621.tar & DPLNX_00183.tar
• HP-UX:                DPUXBDL_00621.tar & PHSS_42652
• Solaris:                 DPSOLBDL_00621.tar & DPSOL_00477.zip

Download the patches from here:

http://support.openview.hp.com/selfsolve/patches

You will need an HP Passport ID linked to a valid SAID that contains a Data Protector Support line.