PodHeitor MSSQL — VDI/TDS Backup, Always On AG & Replication for Bacula - PodHeitor

Enterprise plugin for Microsoft SQL Server 2022 (Linux + Windows + Azure MI) on Bacula Community 15.0.3+. Capabilities exceeding the Bacula Enterprise MSSQL plugin itself: up to 64-way parallel stripes, 3 native replication modes, Always On AG awareness with automatic replica selection, full integrity suite, instant recovery, single-item restore and cross-server TDE capture. Drop-in compatible — same namespace as Bacula Enterprise mssql-fd, zero FileSet rewrites. 16/16 E2E PASS on SQL Server 2022 + 2-node Always On AG.

Capabilities

🪟 Windows + Linux — VDI on Windows; TDS/FIFO on Linux; Azure Managed Instance via BACKUP TO URL
⚡ Parallel striped I/O — up to 64-way parallel stripes, 4× throughput on VLDB
🔁 3 native replication modes — log shipping, AG bootstrap, fanout (1→N regions)
🔄 Always On AG aware — automatic replica selection, failover resilience, secondary seeding
✅ Full integrity suite — VERIFYONLY, DBCC CHECKDB, checksum, page audit
🚀 Instant recovery — database queryable in minutes while restore continues
🔍 Single-item restore — table/row extraction via ephemeral sandbox instance
📊 BI server coverage — SSAS (XMLA), SSRS, SSIS (SSISDB)
🔐 TDE-aware — capture and restore TDE certificates cross-server
📈 Prometheus + OpenTelemetry — built-in observability, Grafana-ready
🎯 Drop-in compatible — exact same namespace as Bacula Enterprise mssql-fd

GA validation

Metric	Result
E2E test suite (T01–T13, 16 tests)	16 / 16 PASS (3 consecutive runs)
OL9 cargo test	311 passed, 0 failed
Win2025 cargo test	381 passed, 0 failed
SQL Server tested	SQL Server 2022 on Windows Server 2025
AG configuration	2-node, CLUSTER_TYPE=NONE, SYNCHRONOUS_COMMIT
Bacula version	Community 15.0.3

Quick Start — Linux (TDS/FIFO)

FileSet {
  Name = "MSSQL-Linux"
  Include {
    Options { Signature = SHA256 }
    Plugin = "podheitor-mssql: mode=tds_fifo hostname=localhost user=backupuser passfile=/opt/bacula/etc/.mssql_pass stripes=4 compress=native+zstd"
  }
}

Quick Start — Windows (VDI)

FileSet {
  Name = "MSSQL-Windows"
  Enable VSS = no
  Include {
    Options { Signature = SHA256 }
    Plugin = "podheitor-mssql: checksum=yes verify_backup=yes compress=native+zstd"
  }
}

Quick Start — Always On AG (backup from secondary)

Plugin = "podheitor-mssql: ag_preference=readable_secondary ag_failover_retry=3 copyonly stripes=4"

Quick Start — VLDB (1 TB+, 8-way stripes)

Plugin = "podheitor-mssql: database=warehouse stripes=8 parallel_dbs=2 compress=native+zstd buffercount=32 maxtransfersize=4194304"

Comparison

Feature	Bacula Community	Bacula Enterprise MSSQL	Veeam SQL Plug-in	PodHeitor MSSQL
Linux MSSQL via TDS/FIFO	No	Limited	Limited	Yes
Parallel stripes > 4	No	4 max	16 max	64
Always On AG aware	No	Partial	Yes	Yes
TDE cross-server capture	No	Manual	Manual	Yes
SSAS / SSRS / SSIS coverage	No	No	SSIS only	SSAS+SSRS+SSIS
1→N fanout replication	No	No	No	Yes
Instant recovery	No	No	Yes	Yes
Cost	Free	$$$$	$$$$	≥50% cheaper

Compatibility

SQL Server 2017, 2019, 2022, Azure Managed Instance
Bacula Community 15.0.3+
Linux: RHEL/Oracle/Rocky/Alma 8/9 · Debian 12 · Ubuntu 22.04/24.04
Windows: Server 2019, 2022, 2025 (VDI)

Installation

# Linux RHEL/Oracle/Rocky/Alma 9
sudo dnf install podheitor-mssql-plugin-2.0.0-1.el9.x86_64.rpm

# Linux Debian/Ubuntu
sudo dpkg -i podheitor-mssql-plugin_2.0.0-1_amd64.deb

# Windows: extract zip into C:Program FilesBaculaplugins

Ready to switch?

Bring us your renewal or new-contract proposal from Bacula Enterprise, Veeam, Commvault or NetBackup. We commit to a minimum 50% discount, with more capabilities included.

Heitor Faria — Founder, PodHeitor International
✉ [email protected]
☎ +1 (789) 726-1749 · +55 (61) 98268-4220 (WhatsApp)

Technical whitepaper

📘 Read the full technical whitepaper — architecture, backup modes, integrations, anti-patterns and licensing model.

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