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A new wave of business continuity technologies debuting this week will help customers dramatically enhance recovery and snapshot capabilities.
Expected to make the biggest impact at the Storage Decisions Conference in New York is Microsoft Corp.s long-awaited launch of its Data Protection Manager offering. Designed to back up and recover Microsoft file servers, DPM is integrated with Active Directory and a host of other Microsoft platforms.
Several third-party storage software and hardware vendors will announce DPM support and integration at Storage Decisions. Quantum Corp., of San Jose, Calif., will announce a disk-based appliance that builds upon Microsoft DPM with capabilities such as integrated data migration to tape, according to sources.
iSCSI SAN (storage area network) provider EqualLogic Inc. will introduce the PS300E, the first member of its PS Series to feature 500GB SATA (Serial ATA) II drives. Available next week, the box offers 7TB per array, has multiarray configurations including the PS200E and PS2400E, and new Native Command Queuing support allowing disk drives to accept commands, said officials of EqualLogic, based in Nashua, N.H.
The PS300E offers a scalable SAN for DPM backup and snapshots, extending the technology into multi-off-site remote replication and restoration, removing the need for tape.
Awaiting the shipment of EqualLogics PS300E, James Tarala, CIO/chief technology officer of Schenck Business Solutions, in Appleton, Wis., said he plans to replace his current installation of NSI Software Inc.s Double-Take with DPM to replicate his data. Tarala said that by working together, the two products will help him add additional recovery muscle, have more space to keep growing snapshots and accelerate site-to-site replication.
“Its really with this current wave of [storage] technology coming out that Ive been able to accomplish what I wanted to do and do it with realistic budget constraints,” said Tarala.
“Now that the tools are finally starting to roll out, I can actually have multiple snaps of all of my major systems online and available for instant recovery while youre on the phone with [an] end user. Im excited about that,” he said.
Onaro Inc. this week will introduce SANscreen Business Continuity, software that provides real-time analysis and monitoring of an IT environments replication data paths and application recoverability in line with set policies, said officials of the Boston-based company. The agentless product is currently available and priced at $35,000.
Asempra Technologies Inc. this week will unveil its new byte-level data collection Asempra Business Continuity Server. Due next quarter, the hardware is designed to help data centers better manage the recoverability process. The new storage-agnostic box offers instant point-in-time application recoverability and data protection, said officials of the Sunnyvale, Calif., company.
David Kronick, vice president and CIO of CD&L Inc., of South Hackensack, N.J., is currently deploying the Asempra Business Continuity Server for his transportation logistics company.
“Tape windows are always a problem, especially as the more data you get, the bigger problem it becomes,” said Kronick.
“This reduces the complexity of backup and shortens my downtime to virtually nothing. We run a 24-by-7 same-day delivery shop, so recovery issues are very big for us.”