Hello,
Looking over the manual, it appears open source Bacula 7.0.5 can do the following. However, I'd like to confirm via this list if possible just to make sure I didn't misunderstand something. Also, are they easy to setup and is performance good?
What is your easy definition? =)
I recorded some video classes that may help you if you go with the community version: http://bacula.us/video-classes/
- Synthetic Backups which I assume is Virtual Backups in Bacula
Yes. But on BE it is a improved feature: http://www.baculasystems.com/products/bacula-enterprise/features/progressive-virtual-full
- Encryption at rest and in transit
I think they are the same in both versions and it takes some time and understanding, configuring and generating the keys. I think it's slightly easier with Enterprise BE Bweb interface.
- Bare Metal Restores - however, I'm not sure if this is still in development
I had no news from BMR in Bacula community version for such a long time, probably because virtualization is increasingly popular and it's much easier to backup a full VM for disaster recovery purposes. I know BE has a improved and easier version of BMR for Windows and Linux however.
BE global deduplication goes further than the Community one because of block level instead of file level dedup, good for large files that always changes [E.g.: database dumps, VM images etc. - http://www.baculasystems.com/wp-content/uploads/bacula-enterprise-v8-global-endpoint-deduplication4.pdf]. I think it is also possible to replicate Bacula storage data and only sync modified blocks.
Last, is setup of the above easier and performance more robust in Bacula Enterprise?
They are basically different features. It always depend of the size of your data center, business needs, service and operational agreements. Probably a BE consultant can help you better at your decision.
