The four main features being added in Firefly are:
- Physical MSSQL
- Physical Linux
- Virtual Appliance
- Erasure Coding
These additions are now fairly standard in the industry and great to see Rubrik adding them to their arsenal. The MSSQL features installs a connector service that becomes an endpoint that handles communications between the Rubrik brick and MSSQL server. The Linux feature actually covers both physical and virtual Linux severs and provides the ability to restore file systems, paths or files.
The Edge appliance is an OVA deployment of Rubrik for remote or branch offices which can be used to replicate and archive to a physical appliance. Azure blob storage has also been added as an archival location. The erasure coding will deliver approximately 2x capacity and increase storage utilization and efficiency.
This new release builds on the features added in 2.0 like Role Based Access Control which was sorely missed from the original releases. There is also enhanced compliance reporting and log and audit monitoring and have built on their encryption and security features.
Overall more good news from Rubrik and looking forward to seeing them continue to improve and add features during and after VMworld. If you want to know more about Firefly you can book a one on one at the Rubrik booth here.