EVault Adds Deduplication, Replication to InfoStage

EVault is giving its InfoStage online backup software more features and making it easier to use.

InfoStage, the Emeryville, Calif., companys software-based answer to disk-to-disk backup, has been around for years, and EVault has slowly been adding more functionality to it. The last major upgrade, in April 2005, added features like load balancing and parallel restore while allowing users to add storage on the fly.

The new EVault Unified Recovery platform, with the revamped InfoStage 6, adds features fast becoming must-haves in the storage world—data deduplication and replication. The deduplication feature, which works with EVaults DeltaPro snapshot and compression software, backs up and compresses only new and changed data at the block level. This feature makes the process efficient and suited to high-performance requirements, said Richard Heitmann, EVaults vice president of product management.

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InfoStage 6 also offers full replication through EVault InfoStage UltraRecovery, which replicates a local vault to an alternate vault offsite, and InfoStage LocalRecovery, which creates local backup vaults at remote offices, helping guard against outages and providing shorter backup and recovery windows on local vaults.

"Companies want to make sure they have an alternate backup and restore location while at the same time have their data backed up locally in case they need to recover a full server," Heitmann said. "Having your data local means you have fast backups and restores, so you get very short recovery time objectives, but the replication still gets your data offsite for disaster recovery purposes."

The addition of deduplication and replication, however important, is also something EVault simply had to do to remain relevant and competitive, said IDC analyst Laura DuBois.

"Many of their competitors already have these capabilities," she said.

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In addition to primary competitor Asigra, DuBois said Symantec and EMC, both of which have products with deduplication capabilities, will be the ones to beat moving forward. Symantecs Symantec Protection network already is in the game, and EMC, of Hopkinton, Mass., has announced intentions to jump in. Both Symantec, of Cupertino, Calif., and EMC are approaching the market differently than EVault, which is coming from a hosting angle. Either way, though, "EVault is definitely starting to get more heat from the competition," she said.

The new version of InfoStage also provides something EVault calls self-healing, which ensures that if files are accidentally deleted or become corrupt, they can be automatically regenerated on the fly by regenerating the delta index file so subsequent backups will be clean and full.

InfoStage 6 also sports more user-customizable features. For example, users can modify the dashboard to suit their needs, including creating user-defined links and tailored communications for specific accounts or customers. The dashboard allows users to quickly determine the status of all data and applications.

In addition, the new version allows for centralized management, enabling users to manage and monitor the entire environment, including remote offices, from a single location. Other customizable features include the ability to create folder hierarchies, search folders, quickly access internal and external resources from user-defined links, and quickly identify agents needing updates.

EVault InfoStage 6, which starts at less than $10,000 for a complete solution, also now provides hot backups and document-level recovery of Microsoft SharePoint servers, supports Microsoft Exchange 2007 and Vista, and supports the VMware infrastructure.

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