Storage Vendors Embrace Continuous Data Protection

A host of storage vendors, including industry leader EMC Corp., this week plans to introduce offerings that give enterprises battling rising costs and shrinking capacity more options for continuous data protection.

At Storage Networking World in Orlando, Fla., EMC will announce its new CDP software, RecoverPoint. The Hopkinton, Mass., company will also introduce a new version of its Legato Networker tool, Version 7.3, that provides new 256-bit encryption, reporting and authentication capabilities, as well as its new third-party backup support plug-in, EMC Backup Advisor, said Mark Sorensen, senior vice president for EMC.

RecoverPoint enables customers to “dial in” to specific preset points in time for application-aware data retrieval. This is done by inserting software tokens into the I/O stream. The software then captures all writes to the production architecture.

Users will have the option to use RecoverPoint with Legato Networker as their backup environment or as a stand-alone tool.

EMC plans a rolling Legato Networker integration with RecoverPoint, first as an add-on module before years end, followed by tighter built-in integration early next year. Technology licensed from Mendocino Software Inc. is used for RecoverPoints engine.

RecoverPoint 1.0 is integrated with EMCs Replication Manager and will support Sun Microsystems Inc.s Solaris and Microsoft Corp.s Windows Server 2003, as well as Oracle Corp. and Microsoft databases.

Sorensen said customers can expect EMCs PowerPath software, an application management tool that performs load balancing, and its Invista storage virtualization technology to be CDP-ready next year.

Also at Storage Networking World, Overland Storage Inc. will announce its new Ultamus Series of primary storage appliances. The Ultamus I and II boxes offer data protection and simplified capacity management for SMB (small and midsize business) customers deploying either iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN (storage area network) systems, said officials of San Diego-based Overland.

The Ultamus Series combines up to two storage processors with as many as four 8TB expansion arrays for up to 32TB of raw storage capacity. Ultamus I will be available Nov. 1, followed by Ultamus II within 60 days.

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Grant Freeman, president of Electronic Printing Solutions LLC, also of San Diego, said the Ultamus I appliance his company is testing is working as advertised.

“Were continually finding that weve outgrown the small server-based storage,” said Freeman. “I like the ability to dynamically grow without having to manage from either the server or some esoteric appliance that maybe Ill touch one or two times a year and [have to] retrain myself every time I look at it.”

FalconStor Software will announce at Storage Networking World its iSCSI virtual storage technology, which will augment Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2006 to enable remote replication and bare-metal recovery of the entire DPM system.

In addition, the Melville, N.Y., company will announce it is working with channel partners to build a new appliance featuring enhanced tape caching and encryption to more quickly move data to and from physical and virtual tapes.

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