Computer Associates International Inc.s BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Windows offers new multiplexing capabilities and improved integration with CAs BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Laptops and Desktops backup utility.
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Computer Associates International Inc.s BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Windows offers new multiplexing capabilities and improved integration with CAs BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Laptops and Desktops backup utility.
BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Windows, which began shipping this week at a list price of $775 for the management software and $195 for each Windows agent, is designed to simplify storage management. eWEEK Labs tests showed that BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Windows offers a good antidote to the growing complexity of storage management tools.
BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Windows is a department-class backup utility that competes with comparably priced software packages such as Veritas Software Corp.s Backup Exec.
In tests, we found that BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Windows was easy to use and offers several areas of improvement over previous editions.
The new multiplexing capabilities, for example, will allow IT managers to stream multiple backup jobs to a single tape drive. Instead of waiting for each backup job to finish, an IT manager using BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Windows can concurrently send as many as four backup jobs to a single drive.
Multiplexing will allow IT managers with a significant number of legacy servers to get the best performance out of their tape drives because the multiple data streams should keep the tape drive occupied and prevent it from back hitching (where a drive partially rewinds a cartridge to unused tape segments to compensate for poor data flow).
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The laptop connection CAs BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Laptops and Desktops is a good tool for backing up data stored on Windows clients; the Laptop and Desktop edition, released this week, is priced at $495 for 10 users and $2,295 for 100 users IT can archive to tape using BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Windows; in tests, BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Laptops and Desktops client-side interface was fairly easy to use and allowed us to pick which data on our laptop was worthy of backup |
We were impressed with the backup packages new Report Writer, which permitted us to generate custom reports that helped us analyze the efficiency of our backup process.
Report Writer enabled us to create easy-to-read reports without the clutter normally found in canned report templates. However, canned report templates are available for IT managers who dont want to create their own reports.
Overall, although integration between CAs server and client backup packages is not complete, it seems like the company is moving in the right direction, based on our tests.
CAs new integrated functionality between Backup for Windows and Backup for Laptops and Desktops allows IT managers to archive data for their client backup servers onto tapes. Previous versions of BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Laptops and Desktops backed up data only to the backup server hard drive.
The ability to archive data from client backup server disks to tapes will be of most benefit to IT managers who need to migrate older data to tape when their server hard drives run out of storage. Therefore, IT managers need not add more disks to their systems.
However, although BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Windows has improved integration with the Laptops and Desktops edition, a fair amount of work still needs to be done before these products can be considered as a single, comprehensive Windows backup solution.
For example, BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Laptops and Desktops has a separate management interface from BrightStor ARCserve Backup 11 for Windows, which forced us to learn two different interfaces for backing up servers and clients.
Senior Analyst Henry Baltazar can be reached at henry_baltazar@ziffdavis.com.
