Admittedly, I should have written this post earlier. NetBackup 8.1.1 is already out since February 16th, 2018. Despite the version increasing by “0.0.1”, it is not a maintenance pack. It is a full release.
You can check out the list of new features, enhancements and changes here. One of the most exciting new features (to me, anyway) is the option to choose either fixed-length deduplication or variable-length deduplication (VLD). VLD is disabled by default and can be granularly enabled for a particular backup policy or client.
There is an endless debate on which method is better, but I feel that each one has its own merit. Most backup software is stuck with only one method.
W 