INFO: Paragon Hard Disk Manager 14 Hyper-V Preview

For all of you business owners (and virtual machine users), I got an email earlier from a friend at Paragon, announcing the release of a free (until August 31st) Hyper-V hard disk manager;

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 14 Hyper-V Preview protects entire virtual machines (online or offline) registered on a local Hyper-V host, where the product is installed. Hyper-V guest machines can be backed up directly to pVHD (Paragon Virtual Hard Drive), VMDK, VHD, or VHDX virtual containers. If using VHD or VHDX as the target backup format, the user can attach the resulting backup image to an existing virtual machine of Hyper-V and the operating system will be launched successfully. If using pVHD, there will be available additional options, like high-level compression, encryption, or image splitting. Resulting virtual containers can be stored on a local disk (mounted/unmounted), a mapped network share, or by UNC path.

In case of a disaster recovery, HDM 14 Hyper-V Preview enables businesses to restore a previously backed up virtual machine to a new location according to a certain time stamp (if several are available). Users also are presented with the option to retrieve certain files from virtual containers through Connect VD and File Transfer Wizard.

To support external hosts with their guest machines, users are required to upgrade to Paragon Protect & Restore.

Key Features:

• Operates at the virtualization layer, employing MS VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service) to agentlessly protect Hyper-V guests
• Backs up entire virtual machines (online/offline) hosted by Hyper-V (Windows, Linux, etc.)
• Backs up directly to virtual containers (pVHD, VMDK, VHD, VHDX)
• Provides wide backup destination: a local disk (mounted/unmounted), a mapped network share, or a UNC path
• If using pVHD, additional options are available, like high-level compression, encryption, or image splitting
• Restores a previously backed up virtual machine to a new location according to a certain time stamp
• Allows granular file-level recovery through File Transfer Wizard
• Hyper-V Incremental Backup wizard

System requirements:

• Windows 8.1 with Hyper-V role
• Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V role
• Windows Server 2012 R1/R2 with Hyper-V role

Availability:

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 14 Hyper-V is a preview of a full-fledged commercial product and it is available to all SMBs for free download till August 31st, 2014 at: http://www.paragon-software.com/small-business/hdm-hyper-v/

Will be checking it out myself, but am interested in what others think, so feel free to drop me an email. You can grab a copy of it at;

http://www.paragon-software.com/small-business/hdm-hyper-v/

hpHosts: Updated 05-06-2014

The hpHOSTS Hosts file has been updated. There is now a total of 521,560 listed hostsnames.

If you are NOT using the installer, please read the included Readme.txt file for installation instructions. Enjoy! :)

1. Latest Updated: 05/06/2014 23:00
   
2. Last Verified: 05/06/2014 19:00

Download hpHosts now!
http://hosts-file.net/?s=Download

INFO: Major removals, new classification

Just an FYI folks, there's approx 90K currently being removed from hpHosts, including a lot of those that had no classification, as these no longer meet the inclusion criteria.

Additionally, I'm also planning to introduce a new classification specifically for illegal pharma sites. At present, these are assigned the PSH classification, however, in an attempt to differentiate this from phishes, I've decided they need their own (not decided on what to use yet, but will likely either be PRA, PRS, PMS or PMA, suggestions are welcome (though must be 3 letters)).

As an aside, the hpHosts site is also to be moved to a new and faster server, this is currently ongoing and you may see some downtime once this happens (don't have a planned date yet unfortunately).

I'm also planning on having a new compeition in the next week or so, just have to decide on the details.