pgBackRest 2.28 Released

**July 28, 2020**: Crunchy Data announces the release of pgBackRest 
2.28, the latest version of the reliable, easy-to-use backup and restore 
solution that can seamlessly scale up to the largest databases and 
workloads.

pgBackRest has introduced many exciting new features this year including 
Azure repository storage, time-based retention for full backups, ad hoc 
backup expiration, Zstandard/lz4/bzip2 compression, backup auto-select 
for time-based PITR, and a pure C implementation.

pgBackRest supports a robust set of features for managing your backup 
and recovery infrastructure, including: parallel backup/restore, 
full/differential/incremental backups, delta restore, parallel 
asynchronous archiving, per-file checksums, page checksums (when 
enabled) validated during backup, multiple compression types, 
encryption, partial/failed backup resume, backup from standby, 
tablespace and link support, S3/Azure support, backup expiration, 
local/remote operation via SSH, flexible configuration, and more.

You can install pgBackRest from the PostgreSQL Yum Repository 
(https://yum.postgresql.org/) or the PostgreSQL APT Repository 
(https://apt.postgresql.org). Source code can be downloaded from 
https://github.com/pgbackrest/pgbackrest/releases.

Links:

- Website (https://pgbackrest.org)
- User Guides (https://pgbackrest.org/user-guide-index.html)
- Release Notes (https://pgbackrest.org/release.html)
- Support (http://pgbackrest.org/#support)

New Features:

- Azure Repository Storage

Repositories may now be located on Azure blob storage using either 
shared key or SAS authentication. See 
https://pgbackrest.org/user-guide.html#azure-support.

- Time-Based Retention for Full Backups

Full backups can be expired based on the age of the backup rather than 
the total number of backups. This prevents violating the retention 
period in the case where a new full backup is made outside the regular 
schedule. See https://pgbackrest.org/user-guide.html#retention/full.

- Ad Hoc Backup Expiration

Any backup may be expired even if it is still inside the retention 
period. This allows a custom retention scheme to be implemented or a 
single backup made by mistake to be removed. See 
https://pgbackrest.org/command.html#command-expire/category-command/option-set.

- Zstandard/lz4/bzip2 Compression

These new compression options allow for more choices between compression 
speed and ratio. Note that only bzip2 is available on all supported 
platforms. lz4 is available on most non-EOL platforms and Zstandard on 
only newer platforms. See 
https://pgbackrest.org/configuration.html#section-general/option-compress-type.

- Backup Auto-Select for Time-Based PITR

When restoring with the `--target-time` option the optimal backup will 
be selected automatically based on the time provided. See 
https://pgbackrest.org/user-guide.html#pitr.

- Pure C Implementation

pgBackRest is now implemented in pure C99. This implementation improves 
performance, simplifies dependencies, and allows deep integration with 
PostgreSQL data structures on any architecture.