| Backup Software news |
Cleveland Indians Fix Baseball Backup Headaches
Editor:-
June 23, 2009 -
CommVault Systems
today published a
case study which describes how the
Cleveland Indians migrated to
their backup software due to problems with Symantec.
The
Cleveland Indians were among one of the first teams in Major League Baseball to
develop a state-of-the-art video system to capture nearly 2,600 games
played by all teams throughout the season for use in training and advanced
scouting. According to the team it now takes less than 5 minutes to restore a
video clip that once took more than an hour to locate and retrieve. And admin
overhead has been cut from 45 minutes a day to less than 30 minutes a week.
Vembu Aims at US Online Backup Market
Editor:- May
28, 2009 - Vembu
Technologies today announced the appointment of Randy J. Whitehead
as VP of Strategic Business Development.
Reporting to Vembu's
President, Lakshmanan Narayan,
Randy will primarily be responsible for growing Vembu's business in the US and
Canada, with a focus on channel partnerships.
"Our StoreGrid
software solution powers the
online backup services
business of more than 1,250 service providers worldwide, and more than 850 of
these service providers are based in North America," said Sekar Vembu, CEO
of Vembu Technologies. "Randy's deep experience in operations and sales,
coupled with his years of experience in the online backup market, will help to
further catalyze our rapid growth in the service provider market."
Prior to Vembu, Randy was co-founder and COO of
Arsenal Digital Solutions.
Randy has more than 20 years experience in outsourcing solutions and operations,
system integration and business development. He was also at
StorageTek, where he
was responsible for the industry's first implementation of a storage utility
solution and the structuring of large outsourcing/utility deals, as well as the
operation and delivery of managed storage services. He has also held senior
positions with IBM, BT, Data General and AT&T. Storage People
Microsoft and Double-Take Collaborate to Avert Data Loss in
Virtual Servers
Editor:- May 11, 2009 - Double-Take Software and
Microsoft
have
collaborated
on a disaster recovery solution for virtual workloads.
"Tough
economic times are prompting IT organizations to reduce costs through smart
virtualization solutions," said Dai Vu at Microsoft Corp. "The remote
site recovery solution from Double-Take Software and Microsoft is a smart
virtualization solution because it eliminates
SAN complexity and cost
making it easier to deliver
high availability
and disaster recovery for virtualized environments."
BakBone Acquires Effective Assets of Asempra
Editor:-
May 4, 2009 - BakBone
Software has
acquired
certain assets from Asempra
Technologies.
Under the terms of the agreement, BakBone has
agreed to issue 3,846,154 common shares and to pay cash consideration of
approximately $350,000, plus accrued royalties.
Editor's comments:- an article in
TheRegister
speculates that Asempr's VCs
(having already invested $29 million) pulled the plug on the cash draining
Asempra. This brings the gone-away
storage companies list to 491.
Storage Guardian Offers VARs White-Labeled Online Backup
Toronto,
Canada - March 17, 2009 - Storage Guardian
has just launched a
VAR/MSP
program so that resellers can offer its enterprise-grade online data backup
service to small and midsized businesses.
While there's no shortage of
online backup solutions
available, many of them are designed for modest amounts of data and do not offer
bare-metal
restores, backup lifecycle management, and handle >80GB data.
Storage
Guardian's solution is
compatible
with server-based services/apps such as Exchange, Small Business Server,
SharePoint Server, and Active Directory. A 30-day no-charge trial is available,
and itcan also be white-labeled and sold as a branded solution by resellers.
Editor's comments:- If banks can fail - then why should you
trust ANY online backup provider with your data? - I discuss that in a new
article published today - Looking
back at the online backup and storage market
Idealstor Releases VMware Virtual Center Backup
GAITHERSBURG, MD -
January 29, 2009 - Idealstor today the release of iBac VIP for VMware
Virtual Center (suggested retail price $5,495).
It offers a
single license that backs up every virtual machine regardless of how many
ESX hosts have been
implemented.
"When we entered the VMware backup market we realized that most
backup vendors were ignoring the flexibility and cost savings that were inherent
to virtualization", said Nandan Arora, CTO at Idealstor. "Virtualization
offers a unique set of tools that enables companies to consolidate servers but
also to quickly provision new server instances as needed without having to incur
the costs of implementing a physical server. Most software companies on the
market today ignored this and released VMware backup solutions that are tied to
the number of virtual machines, physical processors or ESX hosts running on the
network.
" iBac VIP for Virtual Center was designed to turn this
licensing model upside down. VIP for Virtual Center lets you backup any number
of virtual machines regardless of the number of processors or ESX hosts being
run. The only limitation is that the backup proxy server will need to be able to
handle the load, but we feel that iBac VIP is affordable enough that if another
proxy server needs to be added to handle the load, we will still be far more
competitive than the existing players in the VMware backup space." ...Idealstor profile,
...Backup Software
Article Suggests - You Wash Backup Cares Right Out of Your Hair
Editor:- January 13, 2009 - AjaxWorld
magazine has published an article called - "Taking Backup and Recovery
Management off IT's To-Do List."
Author Bill Watson argues that outsourcing the responsibility for
recovering data is a better idea for many organizations than doing it in-house.
Coincidentally this is just the kind of service his company (Symantec
Managed Backup Services) sells.
See also the classic (2001)
article:-
Developing a Disaster
Recovery Procedure - by BakBone
Software which concluded "A Disaster Recovery Plan usually cannot be
written by the IT Deparment alone and should not be created for a given computer
or data center. Typically, effective Disaster Recovery plans are a long-term
project... "
A contra argument I suggest is that
backup and
data recovery are too
important to entrust to a single external service provider. In the interests
of data survivability you need diverse providers of this service (internal as
well as external) just as you need diverse backup locations and media types.
Where did my headline come from? - Listen to the song on
I'm gonna wash that man
right out of my hair
IBRIX Announces New Patents for Massive Content Backup
Billerica,
MA - December 8, 2008 - IBRIX Inc. today announced it has been
granted 2 more US patents.
The first of the new patents, "Shadow Directory Structure in a
Distributed Segmented File System" (No. 7,430,570), can be deployed in high
performing computing environments to achieve parallel data consistency checking.
The directory can also reconstruct lost data in the event of a system failure.
If a system hardware component is not working properly or a service interruption
occurs, the shadow directory ensures usability and continuity as the data
remains in a consistent state and users maintain the ability to access files.
The second patent, "Storage Allocation in a Distributed Segmented
File System" (No. 7,406,484), addresses how data is distributed across the
file system and greatly improves scalability throughout clustered enterprise
data storage environments.
Together the new patents improve the system administration
capabilities of IBRIX
Fusion, a software-only file system based on a segmented parallel structure.
Arkeia Partners with Nirvanix
San Diego, CA
- November 11, 2008 - Nirvanix and Arkeia Software have
partnered to deliver an integrated backup protection solution.
The
joint solution combines
Arkeia
Network Backup with Nirvanix's
CloudNAS (online storage) to provide
a claimed 80-90% cost saving over traditional backup storage solutions.
...Arkeia profile,
...Nirvanix profile
Atempo Announces New Email Archiving Support for Macs
Palo
Alto, Calif - September 17, 2008 -
Atempo, Inc. has introduced a series of enterprise digital archiving
solutions for combined Windows-Mac environments.
Atempo
Digital Archive enables the automated and end-user triggered movement of
data from primary disk onto archival media, saving on storage costs and
protecting digital assets for long-term retention. Atempo Digital Archive for
Messaging for
Microsoft
Entourage offers Mac users utilizing Entourage as their primary email
client the same level of access to the archived messages as traditional Outlook
users. ...Atempo
profile
Tarmin Technologies Appoints US Sales Director
Ongar, UK - September 9, 2008 - Tarmin
Technologies announced today that Bruce Holbert has joined Tarmin as
director of sales, North America.
Holbert was most recently partner accounts manager for national
accounts at EMC. Prior to
that, Holbert spent over 15 years at several start-up and reseller-oriented
companies where he was involved in numerous partnership, channel management, and
direct sales roles.
...Tarmin profile,
Storage People
Acronis to Add Support for Microsoft Hyper-V
London, UK - September 5, 2008 - Acronis
Inc. today announced that its Acronis True Image disk imaging and backup
software for businesses will add support for Microsoft Hyper-V technology to
provide those users with full disaster recovery for both physical and virtual
servers.
With Acronis True Image, an entire server can be recovered within
minutes to either an existing system, a new system with different hardware, or
to a virtual server. Acronis True Image also helps increase hardware utilization
for better datacenter return on investment by backing up both physical and
virtual computers.
...Acronis profile
Databarracks Unlocks Free Buddybackup
London:-
August 26, 2008 - Today Databarracks announced that it is offering
refunds to all Buddybackup users who have paid for the full version of its
popular Buddybackup software.
The decision comes as Databarracks
removes all of the limitations within the free version of Buddybackup, a
peer-to-peer online backup software used by tens of thousands of people in over
126 countries around the world.
Buddybackup uses the spare space on buddies' computers creating a free
storage trade between you and your friends with no costs; all you need is a
buddy with internet connection and some free disk drive space to share. Files
are backed up in real time and all data is encrypted to military standard so
your data can't be accessed or read by your Buddies.
With a number of free or very low cost
online backup services
failing and leaving many customers without access to their data within the past
year, the Buddybackup solution seems to rise to users' expectations. While other
backup providers are not able to sustain backup service, leaving users' data
irretrievable, Buddybackup users can have multiple copies of their data saved on
friends' or families' computers so that they are always going to be able to get
the data back. Buddybackup also caters for a number of businesses that use the
software to backup their corporate laptops or remote offices back to their own
central storage server.
Currently Buddybackup runs only on Windows XP. However,Databarracks
says it plans to extend this to other OS's including Linux and Mac
...Databarracks
profile,
Backup Software
Building Solaris / Linux Servers in Hours not Days
Cork Ireland - July 24, 2008 - Tapasol Ltd
is looking for resellers / integrators / partners for its new bare metal server
restore technology.
Tapasol supports the Solaris OS (on both SPARC &
X86/64 architectures) and Redhat Enterprise Linux . Tapasol say that their
technology reduces installation time by upto 85% and this can be done
from a single piece of media or from another server, without needing skilled
engineers. For more info contact Managing Director,
Dan Hayes (dan.hayes@tapasol.com)
...Tapasol profile,
SPARC VARs,
SPARC Product Directory
Another Warning about Backup Strategies
Editor:- July
23, 2008 - you can never have too many warnings about the things that can go
wrong with backup and
data recovery
strategies.
I had a reminder this week on Tuesday when a series of
flaky virus protection updates eventually trashed my pc. I was irritated with
myself that I had wasted over a day rebooting, re-installing, defragging,
de-installing and debugging to no avail. Then sanity prevailed. I said to myself
- I don't care if I can get that machine working again - it's quicker for me to
go into disaster recovery mode.
As I hadn't been affected by the 3 F's
fire, flood or feft (theft? - sorry about that one) - it was easy.
I
got a clean PC with no applications on it, installed my data and apps and was
going again within a few hours. About 5 years ago my strategy was to have a
spare PC with apps already installed on it. But when I went to test it one day
- I found it was dead. Safer by far to plan for the worst case scenario.
An
article published today on
USNews.com,
written by David LaGesse - called "Online Storage Site Fails Amid
Lost Files " reminds readers that backup strategies can fail, and you
need redundancy.
This point has been made many times in these pages -
if you haven't
encountered an unrecoverable error in your backup system then you probably
aren't doing enough backups..
Asempra Recovers Microsoft Apps in Seconds
Santa Clara, Calif. -
July 21, 2008 - Asempra Technologies today unveiled the latest version
of its Business Continuity Server - which can recover Microsoft applications
and data in seconds.
Asempra's BCS ensures that mid-market companies that are becoming
increasingly reliant on immediate access to Windows-based applications and data
can avoid costly and disruptive downtime or data loss if an outage occurs.
Asempra claims it is the only offering that allows users to send and receive
emails or process SQL transactions while the complete data set is being
recovered in the background. Asempra's BCS Version 2.7 is immediately
available with prices starting at $19,500.
...Asempra profile,
Backup Software
Seagate Plans to Ship 1.5TB HDDs Next Month
SCOTTS
VALLEY, Calif - July 10, 2008 - Seagate said it plans to ship
1.5TB 3.5" SATA hard drives in August.
The world's highest
capacity disk drive - the Barracuda 7200.11 - spins at 7,200 RPM and has 4
platters. It has a sustained data rate of up to 120MB/S. ...Seagate profile,
Hard disk drives
, Record
Breaking Storage
Editor's comments:- with 4 platters - there's
a lot more mechanical stuff to go wrong than with single platter drives.
But
this is aimed at the desktop PC market where low cost is more important than
reliability.
New Version of Casper Hard Disk Backup
Indianapolis, IN -
June 10, 2008 - Future Systems Solutions, Inc. announces a new version
of its hard disk backup utility for Windows.
Casper 5.0
(download price $49.95) enables the creation of a complete and
immediately-bootable PC backup for use when disaster strikes.
Among
other new features it eliminates severe performance degradation commonly
arising from aggressive filtering techniques in leading antivirus and
antispyware products. ...Future
Systems profile, Disk to
disk backup
1U StorageLoader LTO Aims at Entry Level Tape Backup
Oslo
Norway - June 2, 2008 - Tandberg Data today announced the availability
of its StorageLoader LTO.
The 1U
tape library offers
compressed storage capacities up to 12TB and transfer rates up to 576GB/hr and
is available with LVD SCSI
or SAS connectivity.
The StorageLoader has 2x 4-slot removable magazines. ESP for the
StorageLoader LTO-4 HH is $4,499.
...Tandberg Data
profile | |
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| Squeak!
- the Fastest Growing Storage Companies |
This
is the 6th annual edition of this popular article, and is compiled from
analyzing the reported results from the top 1,000 storage companies.
The
top 3 companies had over 300% year on year revenue growth.
If
you're looking to team with successful storage companies or want to emulate
their success, this article will tell you who they are and the market segments
they are in. ...read
the article | |
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| Squeak!
- SSD Myths and Legends - "write endurance" |
| Does the
fatal gene of "write endurance" built into
flash
solid state
disks prevent their deployment in intensive server acceleration
applications - such as RAID
systems? |
It was
certainly true as little as a few years ago.
What's the risk with
today's devices?
This article looks at the current generation of
products and calculates how much (or how little) you should be worried. |
 | |
| RAM based SSDs have been
used alongside RAID for years - but
flash SSDs are
physically smaller and have bigger capacity (upto 412G in 2.5", 512G in
3.5") and are lower cost than RAM-SSDs and could actually be configured
in standard RAID boxes. F-SSDs aren't as fast as RAM based products but a single
flash SSD can deliver 20,000 IOPs - which when scaled up in an array - starts to
look interesting.
...read the
article,
storage reliability
solid state disks | |
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Sanitization
Methods for Cleaning Up Hard Disk Drives - article by Intelligent Computer
Solutions
Removing the data on old unwanted disk drives has
become a concern for all users.
In 2005
Pointsec found that
they were able to read 7 out of 10 hard-drives bought over the Internet
at auctions such as eBay, for less than the cost of a McDonald's meal, all of
which had "supposedly" been "wiped-clean" or "re-formatted".
This article reviews the various methods available to sanitize hard disks along
with the advantages and disadvantages in each case....read the article,
...Intelligent Computer
Solutions profile,
disk sanitizers | |
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the
Dangers of Removable Storage Media - article by Pointsec
In the
early
James
Bond films of the 1960s, viewers were introduced to an array of implausible
(at the time) portable high tech spy gadgets. Nowadays we know from our own
everyday experience that something the size of a cigarette lighter can actually
be a video camera with its own wireless internet access.
The
proliferation of miniature high capacity storage devices creates a serious
problem for commercial and national security. This article provides an up to
date picture of the intrinsic dangers posed by current removable storage
technologies. ...read
the article, ...Pointsec
profile, Security,
Removable Storage | |
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Squeak! -
Animal Brands and Metaphors in the Storage Market
Animal
marketing metaphors are popular in service industries, but you'd be surprised
how many companies have used animals in their marketing of data storage
products and services.
The storage market was worth over $160 billion
in 2006, and as it gets bigger - more companies will turn to animal brands to
help differentiate their otherwise bland products and lend them artificial
(or deserving) characters and virtues.
The idea behind this type of
marketing is to suggest positive connotations so it's unlikely that anyone will
choose to associate their products with gremlins. But you may be surprised by
the population of the storage ark.
This reference articles lists all
known companies who have furry marketing brands, and also includes some which
are slimy, scaly and scary too. ...read the article,
Mice in storage |
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