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Pleonasm

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Norton Ghost 12
Jan 30^th, 2007 at 1:41pm

The beta version of Norton Ghost 12 appears to be available, as indicated by emails sent from Symantec to select individuals.

Quote:

Hi “membername”,

You have been chosen to beta test Norton Ghost 12.0, a backup and restore product from Symantec! Norton Ghost 12.0 testing will begin soon; if you are interested in joining the team, please click the link below. –deleted-

Norton Ghost 12.0 offers all the power of the Symantec Norton Save & Restore, with a few additional features. In addition to backing up everything on your computer - digital photos, family videos, key financial records, essential computer system files, and other data - Norton Ghost 12.0 also includes advanced features like Remote Management, Physical to Virtual image conversion, and LightsOut Recovery.

Norton Ghost 12.0 is a product for advanced computer users, and it may not be easy to use if you are a novice user. For Norton Ghost 12.0 testing, we would prefer that you test on home networks or small office networks. However, if you are an advanced computer user who does not have a home network, please sign-up as well. This project will support Windows XP 32-bit and 64-bit, and Windows Vista RTM 32-bit and 64-bit. Norton Ghost 12.0 does not support Windows 2000 platforms or Windows Server 2003.

As a reminder, the username for your account is "Memebername"
Testing for Norton Ghost 12.0 will last until March. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know at –deleted-. I look forward to working with you on this exciting project!

Cheers,
-deleted-
Sr. Beta Test Coordinator
Symantec Corporation

Source: http://www.joejoe.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=4436&mode=threaded&pid=45714

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Pleonasm

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Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release
Reply #1 - Jan 30^th, 2007 at 3:56pm

Based on the initial post in this thread, Symantec may be migrating features from its corporate products into the consumer environment.

For example, the translation of the term “lights out” is as follows:

Quote:

Unattended bare metal recovery for remote locations & blade servers
IT Administrators can now easily restore servers in remote, unattended environments and distributed locations from a Windows desktop, laptop or Pocket PC using the LightsOut Restore functionality. This functionality eliminates the need for travel or onsite assistance to remote devices or headless servers in data centers by leveraging baseboard management controllers on standard servers (e.g., Dell Remote Access Card—DRAC or HP Integrated Lights-Out—RiLO).

Unattended Remote Restorations
The process here is simple. An administrator uses the LightsOut Restore capability to install the Symantec Recovery Disk on the hard drive of each server. If a server must be recovered due to a failed installation, virus or BSOD, use your server's out of band controller (or Baseboard Management Controller) available on many servers to boot the server remotely. The administrator then selects the on disk recovery environment and can perform a full system restore remotely using the built in pcAnywhere host for connectivity.

With this feature installed administrators can also add additional drivers directly to the Symantec Recovery Disk files located in the boot volume subdirectory. With the ability to modify the Symantec Recovery Disk environment, this offers more flexibility for easily recovering systems with the latest hardware devices (NIC cards, storage controllers, etc.), and eliminates the need for a new recovery CD to be built.

Source: http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/products/newfeatures.jsp?pcid=1018&pvid=1602_...

The term “remote management” might be a reference to the Veritas NetBackup PureDisk Remote Office Edition product – see: NetBackup PureDisk.

Very interesting.

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rulirahm

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	Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release Reply #2 - Feb 2^nd, 2007 at 10:53am So, a home user can use/try this product? I thought for corporate only. Can I join the testing and how? I'm impressed with ghost. Amazing!!!
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Pleonasm

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Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release
Reply #3 - Feb 2^nd, 2007 at 11:03am

Rulirahm, the beta test of Ghost 12 is “by invitation only.” I do not know the criteria or selection process used by Symantec, but if you’re interested, contact them and request to be part of the team.

Ghost 12 is intended for the home user, although as noted in the original post, it is now being positioned as appropriate for “advanced computer users” – probably because of the new “Remote Management, Physical to Virtual image conversion, and LightsOut Recovery” features.

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Pleonasm

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Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release
Reply #4 - Feb 11^th, 2007 at 3:32pm

Comments from a Ghost 12 beta tester seem to indicate that Ghost 2003 and Ghost 8.2 are not presently included in the product.

Quote:

Ghost 12 bot cd does not (yet) have a ghost 2003 type utility. I have begged them for it ans they are considering putting it on there like it was in Ghost 10.

Source: http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=37512

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Rad

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	Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release Reply #5 - Feb 13^th, 2007 at 4:41pm Nice find, Pleo. You rock. Let's stay on this.
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Pleonasm

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Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release
Reply #6 - Apr 5^th, 2007 at 11:53am

More information on the forthcoming Norton Ghost 12 . . .

Quote:

For more advanced users, Norton Ghost 12.0 further leverages technology from Symantec's Backup Exec System Recovery solution for businesses to create the company's fastest, most advanced personal backup and recovery tool to date. ...

Norton Ghost 12 takes data and system protection to the next level with powerful new features such as remote management, Google Desktop integration, and LightsOut Restore. Support for one-to-one remote management enables users to back up other Norton Ghost clients on the network. Integration with Google Desktop allows users to create searchable backup indexes to make recovering data even faster. LightsOut Restore enables users to restore their systems from a remote location via an on-disk software recovery environment, obviating the need to use a bootable CD. Norton Ghost 12 also includes a software recovery disk that allows users to start their computers, scan for viruses or hard disk errors, and launch the recovery process even if the operating system does not start.

In addition, with Norton Ghost 12, users can now choose to do full system backups or to back up only specific files and folders, or both! Backups include encryption and error checking to keep data safe, while compression, incremental backups, and automatic backup file management minimizes storage space. Users can also use Norton Ghost to convert recovery points of a physical computer to a virtual disk. Additionally, users can leverage Norton Ghost for customizable, event-triggered backups that automatically protect systems when specific events occur.

Source: Symantec Helps Consumers Spring Clean Their PCs With Enhanced Backup/Recovery Toolset

As anticipated, Norton Ghost 12 will include functionality that was previously only available in the corporate Backup Exec System Recovery toolset.

It appears that Norton Ghost 12 will be a superset of Norton Save & Restore 2.0 – i.e., it includes all of the functionality of the latter plus additional capabilities.

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Rad

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Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release
Reply #7 - Apr 5^th, 2007 at 10:25pm

Thanks, Pleo.

Quote:

Norton Ghost 12.0 further leverages technology from Symantec's Backup Exec System Recovery solution for businesses

Gotta admit: that sounds impressive.

Quote:

with powerful new features such as remote management, Google Desktop integration, and LightsOut Restore

do you think these features will be used by the average pc backer-upper? i don't.

Quote:

Norton Ghost 12, users can now choose to do full system backups or to back up only specific files and folders, or both!

this is what norton save & restore (v1.0) had over ghost .. right? now ghost can back up folders, too. still, not a big deal, since backing up a folder is cake (compared to backing up your system drive).

Quote:

Backups include encryption and error checking

error-checking is good/useful (for reliability), but i doubt many home-users will find encryption useful. (i don't.)

Quote:

while compression, incremental backups, and automatic backup file management minimizes storage space

everybody has compression. incrementals are cool, long as they don't get in the way of a restore. minimizing space isn't the big deal it used to be, now that we are in the era of the 1-terabyte hard drive. space is not an issue for most pc users.

http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/menuitem.8027a91c954924ae4bda9f30eac4f0...

i still think the strength of an imaging prgm is *not* in its list of features (beyond supporting optical & external drives), but rather in reliability. doesn't matter how many or cool the features are .. if the restore doesn't work.

i'm becoming more convinced in the wisdom of the test-restore. of course, it depends how valuable your system is, and how much pain it would be to lose your system drive.

it's all about being able to restore your system when/if need be (reliability). no doubt you recognize my mantra.

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NightOwl

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	Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release Reply #8 - Apr 5^th, 2007 at 10:55pm Rad Quote: no doubt you recognize my mantra. NightOwl is rocking back and forth rhythmically, humming... Change is good! Change is good! Change is good! Change is good! Change is good! ... Heck--I'm still using Ghost 2003--what year is it--ummmm, oh yeah, 2007!
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Brian

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Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release
Reply #9 - Apr 5^th, 2007 at 11:27pm

Rad, I agree with all of your points. Except for incrementals. I like incrementals.

I've played with Ghost 12 beta and I like it. It reminds me of Ghost 9 but there aren't enough relevant features to make me part with money to upgrade. The extra features are ones I wouldn't use. The one feature of interest to me, Physical to Virtual image conversion, didn't work in the beta version.

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Pleonasm

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Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release
Reply #10 - Apr 6^th, 2007 at 10:26am

Rad, no doubt you are correct: the advanced features of Norton Ghost 12 (NG12) are clearly targeted toward the sophisticated PC enthusiast.

As I read the Symantec material, my impression is that NG12 encompasses all of Norton Save & Restore 2.0 (NSR2) – and then adds advanced capabilities (i.e., NG12 is a superset of NSR2). Thus, the ability to “back up only specific files and folders” will probably be a consequence of the NSR2 functionality rather than a change to the core Ghost component.

Encryption of a recovery point (aka image) can be useful, in so far as it is the equivalent of full volume encryption of a hard disk drive. It can prevent, for example, someone from ‘peaking’ inside a recovery point and exploring your personal files (or the registry, etc.). (For myself, I encrypt all of my personal files anyway, so they are already encrypted when they are contained within the recovery point.) I could be wrong, but the existence of the encryption option in NG12 indirectly seems to imply that the use of a password on the recovery point isn’t sufficient to really protect the contents.

I suspect (but don’t know) that the “error checking” in NG12 is nothing more than the “verify recovery point” capability.

I completely agree with your bottom line: features can be good, but reliability is the most important attribute of a backup application.

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Pleonasm

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Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release
Reply #11 - Apr 6^th, 2007 at 10:27am

Brian, VMware Workstation says that it can open a Symantec recovery point directly. So, it is not clear to me what the physical-to-virtual conversion capability of Norton Ghost 12 adds.

Quote:

Open and convert third-party virtual machines and images

Open Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec Backup Exec (formerly called Live State Recovery) images. In this process, the initial virtual machine or image is left untouched in its native format and any modifications are saved in a much smaller VMware-formatted file that is linked to the initial image.

Convert Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec Backup Exec (formerly called Live State Recovery) images into complete, full VMware virtual machines. The initial virtual machine is left untouched.

Source: http://www.vmware.com/products/ws/new.html

The key feature that NG12 has, in my opinion, is compatibility with Windows Vista. That may ultimately be the reason why many will upgrade.

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Rad

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Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release
Reply #12 - Apr 8^th, 2007 at 9:22am

I can see the advantage of incrementals. But now instead of having a single image to restore, you have an image with an extra "increment".. or two or three or ... which complicates things a bit.

The benefit, as I see it, relates more to the time it takes to re-image, than actual space savings, which is less of a factor,now that hard drives are so big.

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Brian

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Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release
Reply #13 - Apr 8^th, 2007 at 4:55pm

Rad, I accept that the more incrementals one keeps, the more chance there is of a failure at that incremental restore point. But I don’t see that as a problem because if an incremental won’t restore then you just restore the previous incremental or all the way back to the baseline recovery point if necessary. I’ve never seen this situation. However I admit that I only keep 6 incrementals rather than 30. I create Baselines weekly rather than monthly so I’m hedging my bets.

To restore an incremental recovery point you just choose that point to restore in the wizard. You don’t have to restore the incremental and the baseline separately. There is no time penalty in the restore.

My Ghost recovery points are created at 6pm on a scheduled basis and I continue to use the computer normally while Ghost is running. So imaging time is not an issue. But HD space is an issue. My second HD is 160 GB and has 35 GB free. My baseline recovery points, created weekly, are around 3800 MB and daily incrementals average 60 MB. So 4 weeks worth of backup images add up to 17 GB. If I created baseline images daily it would add up to 106 GB. Do I really need to create backup images daily? Of course not. But I like being able to restore to a specific day. There is less work to do after the restore to get Windows back to normal (Windows Updates, installed or uninstalled programs, tweaks). I’m used to incrementals now so even if I had a 1000 GB HD, I’d still use incrementals.

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ckcc

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Re: Norton Ghost 12: Beta Release
Reply #14 - Apr 8^th, 2007 at 5:18pm

Brian wrote on Apr 8^th, 2007 at 4:55pm:

...and I continue to use the computer normally while Ghost is running.

Brian,
Do you see any effect on system performance at this time? You're making me want to try the "hot" approach to imaging with Ghost 9 or 10. I already use second copy for my data and am happy with Ghost 2003 for images, but I like the idea of daily incrementals for my images.
I'm running an AMD 2100+ 1.7 GHtz w/ 1 gig ram. I just don't like to bloat my system w/ added proccesses.
Thanks.

Guess I could just try it, huh?

If anything can go wrong, it already did, and you just now noticed it.

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