Features and enhancements that we want to highlight in this platform release are listed here, with a link to full documentation for the feature.
For your convenience, the Newsletter for New Features in Commvault Platform Release 2024 is also available in PDF format, New Features in Commvault Platform Release 2024.
For a comprehensive list of all new features, see New Features.
Complete Backup and Recovery
"Backup Destinations" Tab for Plans
You can view and modify backup destinations on the "Backup Destinations" tab for a plan. On the tab, you can perform operations such as adding a region to a backup destination, adding a copy to a region, modifying a copy associated with a region, and running a backup copy for a snapshot copy.
More Information
Back Up and Restore Personal and Channel Chats for Teams Users
You can configure backups for Teams personal chats and channel chats. When you enable this feature, chats are backed up per unique user account. All posts in personal messages, posts in channel (team) chats, posts in multiple-user conversations, and posts in meeting chats are included in the backup content.
More Information
Detect Malware with ThreatScan Predict
ThreatScan Predict leverages AI to scan for unknown and new zero-day threats with greater fidelity. Finding threats earlier in an attack can help limit the exposure for your organization and reduce the costs to cleanly recover, customers can fight bad AI with good AI capabilities.
More Information
EWS Support for Archive and Journal Mailboxes
You can use Exchange Web Services (EWS) to create an email journaling app in on-premises environments and an email archiving app in both on-premises and hybrid environments. EWS replaces Microsoft's deprecated MAPI technology and allows you to continue to use email journaling and email archiving with Exchange 2013 and later versions.
More Information
- Creating an Email Journaling App for the Journal Mailbox
- Creating an Email Archiving App for the User Mailbox in an On-Premises Environment
- Creating an Email Archiving App for the User Mailbox in an Hybrid Environment
Enhanced Dashboard to Monitor HyperScale X Cluster
The HyperScale dashboard in the Command Center is enhanced to provide a comprehensive view of the status of the software, security configurations, key hardware components, and cluster health.
Using the dashboard view, you can quickly determine the systems or nodes that need immediate attention and drill down to view detailed reports for the nodes in the cluster. You can further customize the report to filter the view by storage pool, node, and status to easily monitor the problem area.
More Information
Faster Backups and Browse Operations with Offline Cataloging for File System Block-Level Backups
For faster file system backup and browse operations, you can catalog files offline as a separate job after the block-level backup completes.
Key Features
- Faster backups: The cataloging job runs as a separate job which results in faster backups.
- Quick browse: Files are cataloged for efficient browse performance.
More Information
Introducing 1-Touch Recovery and Redesigned Virtualize Me in Command Center
You can now perform the 1-Touch recovery operation to restore your Windows and UNIX client computers from the Command Center. Also, the Virtualize Me operation to convert or restore a physical computer to virtual machine is simplified and has a new wizard which makes it easy for you to quickly restore your client environment from disasters.
Key Features
- Virtualize Me
- 1-Touch Recovery
Applicable Agents
- Windows
- UNIX
More Information
Performance Enhancements to Postgres Dump-Based Backups
Commvault support for protecting a DumpBasedBackupSet in PostgreSQL database includes the following enhancements:
- Support for PostgreSQL15.x
- Perform backup and restore operations using parallel Postgres jobs
- Support for including global objects in backups
More Information
- System Requirements (Command Center)
- Restoring One or More PostgreSQL Databases (Command Center)
- Enabling Backups for Global Objects in PostgreSQL Databases (Command Center)
- Using Parallel Jobs to Dump the PostgreSQL Database (Command Center)
- System Requirements (CommCell Console)
- Performing Restores from DumpBased Backup Set (CommCell Console)
- Enabling Backups for Global Objects in PostgreSQL Databases (CommCell Console)
- Using Parallel Jobs to Dump the PostgreSQL Database (CommCell Console)
Security IQ Dashboard
Security IQ dashboard provides organizations with a simplified approach to validate and improve Commvault security posture using data insights that drive actions, reduce cyber risks, and protect backups for clean data recoveries.
Key Features
- Security posture score to help identify new security recommendations.
- Over 23 security control recommendations including multi-person authorization controls.
- Quick view of backup and infrastructure anomaly conditions.
- Quick view of File Anomaly conditions.
- Latest Audit trail events.
More Information
Virtual Image with Windows CommServe Server to Support CIS Level 1 Security Controls
The CIS Level 1 Hardened CommServe server virtual image is a Windows-based deployable virtual machine installed with the CommServe server software. The operating system, SQL Server instance, and IIS configuration is pre-hardened using CIS Level 1 benchmarks.
More Information
Complete: Manage New Workloads
Backup and Restore Apache Hive Databases and Tables
You can configure full, incremental, and synthetic full backups up of Apache Hive databases and tables (both managed and external) in the Hadoop cluster.
Databases and tables can be restored in-place, or can be renamed and restored to the same cluster or a different cluster.
Key Features
- Backups leverage source-side deduplicaiton, compression, and encryption, to minimize the data transfer.
- Both backup and restore operations use multiple nodes, each performing parallel data transfer, maximising throughput to meet recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs).
Applicable Agents
Hadoop
More Information
Commvault Supports Kubernetes Clusters and Access Nodes Running on the Linux ARM64 Platform
Commvault's protection for Kubernetes workloads now supports Kubernetes clusters and access nodes running on the Linux ARM64 platform.
More Information
Configure Kubernetes Settings at the Application Group and Cluster Levels
Instead of the access node, you can now set up Kubernetes settings at the application group and cluster levels.
- Application group level:
- Modify the resource limits for the Commvault temporary pods.
- Convert backups to live volume backups when a Volumesnapshots snapshot fails or when a Volumesnapshots snapshot fails to change to readyToUse:True state.
- Cluster level:
- Specify a different image registry (such as for an air-gapped cluster) for Commvault temporary pods.
- Configure a namespace where Commvault CRDs and resource modifiers can be created.
- Increase the time for Commvault temporary pods to wait for Kubernetes activities.
Applicable Agents
- Kubernetes
More Information
- Application group level:
- Cluster level:
Complete: Protect Virtual Environments
Application-Based Backups for the Virtual Server Agent
With application-based backups for virtualized workloads, you can perform application discovery for VMs selected within the VM group and configure backups by installing an in-guest application agent. You can create the VSA VM group schedules separate from the subclient backup schedules because VM groups and subclients are independent of each other. The application-based backup includes the following parts:
- Virtual Server Agent (VSA) backup: The VSA backup of the virtual machine can be a streaming backup or IntelliSnap backup.
- Application backup: The application backup is always a streaming backup, even when the VSA subclient is an IntelliSnap backup.
Key Features
You can restore application-based backup data for the following:
- Active Directory
- Microsoft SQL Server
- MySQL Agent
- Oracle
Applicable Agents
- Virtual Server Agent (VSA) for VMware
More Information
Credential Manager for Nutanix AHV Clients
You can use Commvault's Credential Manager to save and edit Nutanix AHV hypervisor credential entities. These credentials can be re-used with multiple Nutanix hypervisors.
Applicable Agents
Virtual Server Agent for Nutanix AHV Platform
More Information
Disaster Recovery
Disaster Recovery Is Now Auto Recovery
The Commvault Disaster Recovery (DR) feature is renamed Commvault Auto Recovery.
More Information
Test Failover for Google Cloud Platform
You can perform test failovers of VMs that are hosted on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to test and optimize recovery readiness.
Use test failovers to recover test VMs to a network of your choice. After the test VMs are up and running in the network, you can perform recovery fire drills to practice and optimize recovery processes. This approach to recovery planning empowers you to respond to unforeseen events and maintain the resilience of your GCP infrastructure.
More Information
Use Scripts to Customize Pre and Post Failover and Failback Operations
In recovery groups and failover groups, you can use custom scripts to execute functions that must run pre-failover, post-failover, pre-failback, and post-failback. You can configure these settings for an entire recovery group or for individual VMs in a recovery group.
More Information
- Adding Customization Scripts for a Recovery Group
- Adding Customization Scripts for Individual VMs in a Recovery Group
- Adding a Pre Script for a Failover Group
- Adding a Post Script for a Failover Group
Virtual Lab Support for Network Mapping and IP Customization
You can set up a virtual lab in an isolated virtual environment for a VMware destination to perform a test failover operation for a recovery group.
A virtual lab in the isolated network provides the following capabilities:
- Use a network configuration in the virtual lab to mirror the network configuration of the production environment.
- Use a test network mapping to map a source network with an isolated network and VLAN ID to perform a test failover operation.
- Use a masqueraded IP address on the gateway appliance to forward the traffic from the external network to the test failover VMs on the private network.
- Use test VM IP customization and IP masquerading at the VM level, and IP masquerading range at the recovery group level.
More Information
- Periodic Replication Recovery Group Options for VMware
- Recovery Target Options for VMware
- Testing Failover for a Periodic Replication Group
Journey to the Cloud
Backup and Restore of Azure Cosmos DB Cassandra API Keyspaces and Tables
You can back up and restore Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB accounts that use the Cassandra API. Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model cloud database (Database-as-a-Service). You can back up and restore Cosmos DB Cassandra API keyspaces and tables across multiple Azure accounts and regions. You can configure full and incremental backups of tables and keyspaces to meet recovery point objectives (RPO), long-term retention, and compliance needs. This functionality is available using the Command Center and REST APIs.
More Information
Linux Access Node Support for Azure SQL
You can use an access node that has a Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system to back up and restore Azure SQL and Azure Managed SQL instances.
More Information
Modern Infrastructures
Automatic Access Node Selection for Virtualized Workloads
The Commvault software can automatically select access nodes for managing backups and restores. When you create a hypervisor, you can select the Automatic setting to have the Commvault software automatically select access nodes.
Key Features
- Automatically selects access nodes for managing backups and restores
- Does not require USE PROXY permissions to associate any access node to the company
- Uses the MediaAgents that are associated with your selected plan as access nodes
Applicable Agents
Applicable hypervisors:
- VMware vCenter
- Microsoft Azure (without Managed Service Identity, MSI)
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Nutanix AHV
- VMware vCloud Director
More Information
Security Related Enhancements for HyperScale
The following security related enhancements were made for HyperScale:
- Enable restricted shell on HyperScale clusters to provide an additional layer of security. This process involves the following steps:
- Creating a 'cvbackupadmin' user with limited capabilities or commands needed to administer the nodes and cluster. This user's capabilities will be limited to the set of commands supported by restricted shell.
- Disabling root login on the nodes fom the Commmand Center, so that only the cvbackupadmin user can log on and access the nodes.
- Enable firewall on HyperScale X clusters, which automatically opens the necessary ports on the HyperScale nodes.
More Information
Enabling Restricted Root Access
- Restricting Root Access on HyperScale X Appliance
- Restricting Root Access on HyperScale Reference Architecture
- Restricting Root Access on HyperScale 1.5 Appliance
- Restricting Root Access on HyperScale 1.5 Reference Architecture
Enabling Firewall
- Enabling Firewall on HyperScale X Appliance
- Enabling Firewall on HyperScale X Reference Architecture
Simplified Process to Install Operating System Updates on HyperScale Nodes
You can install operating system updates on the HyperScale nodes using the existing Commvault software update installation process. On HyperScale X nodes, the installation process installs the Commvault Distributed Storage (CDS) updates along with the OS updates.
Setup Requirements
- The CommServe server must have internet connectivity.
- The CommServe and the nodes must be on the same release version and must have Commvault platform release 2022E or later installed.
More Information
- HyperScale X Appliance
- HyperScale X Reference Architecture
- HyperScale 1.5 Appliance
- HyperScale 1.5 Reference Architecture
WORM lock and retention rules support in Command Center
You can set WORM lock and retention rules for cloud storage and disk storage in Command Center.