Chapter 12: Tales from the Trenches: My Life with Backup 2.0

In the second chapter of this book, I shared with you some of the horror stories of Backup 1.0. I did so primarily as a way of highlighting how poorly our traditional backup techniques really meet our business needs. In this chapter, I want to do the opposite: share with you some stories of Backup 2.0, both from my own experience and from stories you readers have shared over the year‐long production of this book. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, of course, but I think you’ll find these to be compelling examples of how Backup 2.0 has been applied. Where possible, I’ll share information about the infrastructure that goes with these stories so that you can see some of the creative and innovative ways Backup 2.0 is being used in organizations like your own.

Chapter 11: Upgrading Your Backup Mentality: Is It Really Worth It?

We’ve covered quite a bit of ground in the preceding ten chapters. It’s time to circle back and look at some of the original problems with old-school backups, and see what we may have solved with a “2.0” approach. It’s also time to look more precisely at what’s involved in redesigning your business’ backup strategy, and outlining a methodology for determining the real cost of a redesign. We should also look at some of the more human or, shall we say, political factors involved in a redesign.

United Distribution Corp. Protects the “Whole Shootin’ Match” with Replay AppImage

Challenge: Protecting Exchange environment, speeding up recoveries
Solution: Replay 4’s backup, disaster recovery and virtualization capabilities
Results: Fast backup and restore of all Exchange objects

Background
(This story is true. The company and staff names have been changed by AppAssure at the company’s request.) United Distribution Corp. is a global distribution company with annual retail sales over $1 billion. [...]

American Data Technology Inc. Delivers 99.9% Up – time with Replay

Challenge: Speeding service delivery with fast backup and recovery
Solution: Replay 4’s backup and disaster recovery solution
Results: Fast backup and recovery of all Windows servers, mailboxes, and individual messages

Background
American Data Technology Inc. (ADTI, www.localweb.com) delivers Information Technology services including web hosting, managed dedicated servers, collocation, Microsoft SharePoint / MOSS hosting, Microsoft Exchange hosting, and web [...]

Apptix Chooses Replay as their Exchange Backup Solution

Challenge: Easy and fast Exchange backups
Solution: Replay 4’s fast backup and recovery capabilities
Results: Saved time spent on backups, reduced backup storage requirements by 50%

Background
Apptix is the leading provider of business-class communications services for SMBs. Apptix services includes hosted Exchange email, business VoIP services, and SharePoint collaboration. The company’s 19,000 customers are located around the world. [...]

BestFriends.org Reduces Stress and Worry with Replay AppImage

Challenge: Reliable email backup and recovery
Solution: Replay 4’s backup & recovery solution and virtualization capabilities
Results: Protection of 570 Exchange mailboxes, snapshots every 30 minutes

Background
On any given day, about 1,700 animals are in the care of Best Friends Animal Society. Housed, treated, and trained at the organization’s sanctuary in Southern Utah, dogs, cats, rabbits, pigs, horses, [...]

Blackboard Ensures E-mail Availability with AppAssure’s Replay AppImage

Challenge: Exchange data corruption, email loss
Solution: Replay’s continuous backup and disaster recovery solution, data-store validation and backup-to-tape processing
Results: Fast and reliable backups at 350GB for 1,500 mailboxes

Background
Blackboard Inc. is a leading provider of enterprise learning software applications and campus commerce solutions. Founded in 1997, Blackboard enables educational innovations everywhere by connecting people and technology. [...]

Replay AppImage Helps the California Almond Board Support an Entire Industry

Challenge: Real-time Exchange backup/recovery, SharePoint environment protection
Solution: Replay Live Recovery solution
Results: Snapshots of Exchange and SharePoint data every 10 minutes, immediate data recovery

Background
Last year, 1.5 billion pounds of almonds were grown in California. That’s 81% of the world’s supply. Established in 1950 through a Federal Market Order, the California Almond Board supports every grower in [...]

Canton Township Relies on Replay AppImage for Application Backup and Recovery

Challenge: Сost-effective way to restore lost email messages, protect Exchange environment along with SQL and application servers
Solution: Replay 4’s backup and disaster recovery solution
Results: Ability to restore lost messages and get Exchange back online quickly, all at affordable cost

Background
Canton Township is home to 85,000 people in southeastern Michigan. A large suburb of Detroit, Canton employs [...]

Hitchcock Schools Protects SQL Servers and Data with Replay AppImage

Challenge: Protect student, business, and course application data based on 10 SQL servers, reduce storage space
Solution: Replay 4’s backup and disaster recovery solution with storage compression
Results: Protected SQL infrastructure, reduced storage, saved backup/recovery time

Background
The Hitchcock Independent School District in Hitchcock, Texas serves 1,200 students in grades K – 12 through 4 schools with a new [...]

ITS Group Consulting Offers “More 9’s” and Killer RTO/RPO with Replay AppImage

Challenge: RTO/RPO of 30 minutes or less under any disaster scenario
Solution: Replay 4, a disk-based solution protecting the entire Exchange application
Results: Ability to restore Exchange server under any level of outage in less than 30 minutes

Background
ITS Group hosts Microsoft Exchange for the SMB market and leads larger clients through Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 transitions. [...]

AppAssure makes Network administrator “Hero of the Day”

Challenge: Easy and flexible backup/recovery of Exchange/SQL servers
Solution: Replay 4’s backup and disaster recovery solution
Results: Reliable backup/recovery of Exchange and SQL servers, no extra load on the Exchange server

Background
Imagine Schools operates 72 public charter schools that serve about 37,000 students. Schools are located in 12 states and the District of Columbia. While each school is [...]

Kalmbach Publishing Co. Ensures E-mail Availability with Replay™ for Microsoft Exchange

Challenge: Affordable and easy-to-use solution to protect the entire Exchange environment against disaster
Solution: Replay for Exchange Server backup and disaster recovery solution
Results: Ability to easily recover any missing message – or the entire Exchange environment – in minutes and at affordable cost

Background
Kalmbach Publishing Co.’s magazines, web sites, and books cover a wide variety of special-interest [...]

Lloyd Gosselink Rochelle & Townsend Ensure Reliable, Constant E-mail Services with Replay AppImage

Challenge: Easy-to-use solution to protect Exchange data against a server outage or database corruption
Solution: Replay 4’s backup and disaster recovery solution
Results: Ability to ensure reliable, constant email services

Background
Lloyd Gosselink Rochelle & Townsend, PC concentrates in the areas environmental, regulatory, administrative, and utility law, as well as government relations, litigation, and transactions. Like any law [...]

Great Things Happen on the Road to Disaster Recovery

Challenge: Fast and reliable disaster recovery for Exchange Server
Solution: Replay 4’s backup and disaster recovery capabilities
Results: Fast and reliable data protection across the entire Exchange environment

Background
Raycom Media is one of the country’s largest broadcasters, owning and operating 46 television stations in 35 markets and 18 states. Raycom stations serve over 12% of US television households [...]

Shelly Automotive Group Keeps Executive Email Rolling with Replay AppImage

Challenge: Affordably protect executive mailboxes stored on Exchange
Solution: Replay 4’s backup and disaster recovery capabilities
Results: Snapshots of Exchange environment every 15 minutes and quick recovery of lost messages

Background
Shelly Automotive Group operates five car dealerships (BMW, Mercedes Benz, Mini, Infiniti), Dealers Choice Auto Auction, and Spectrum Collision Center in Orange County, California. Managing 7 business [...]

The Villages Saves Time & Money with Replay™

As told by Ken Peakman, Supervisor of Server Operations, The Villages

Challenge: Exchange recovery at affordable cost
Solution: Replay 4’s backup and disaster recovery capabilities
Results: Reliable Exchange protection with saved time and reduced storage costs

Background
The Villages is a self-contained retirement community in Florida covering 36 square miles of land and is home to over 65,000 residents. [...]

Replay™ Gives Ubicom an Easy Route to Disaster Recovery

Challenge: Secure the Exchange environment without increasing management overhead
Solution: Replay 4’s backup and disaster recovery capabilities
Results: Protected Exchange, BlackBerry and other Microsoft servers without requiring additional management

Background
Ubicom develops multithreaded 32-bit microprocessors for use in the embedded consumer and small/home office networking markets. Ubicom’s IP processor families provide superior processing performance and efficiency. Its [...]

University of Maryland finds “peace of mind” with Replay AppImage

Challenge: Fast backup and recovery in a complex Exchange environment
Solution: Replay 4’s backup and disaster recovery capabilities
Results: Protected Exchange environment from all sorts of disasters with backups and recoveries in minutes

Background
Academic departments at the University of Maryland rely on systems administration teams to deliver all IT services including e-mail. System Analyst Carlos Luceno and his [...]

Whalen Furniture Protects Business-Critical Applications with Replay AppImage

Challenge: Fast application and data restoration
Solution: Replay 4’s backup and disaster recovery solution with virtualization capabilities
Results: Fast application backup and restore processes with improved system performance

Background
California-based Whalen Furniture manufactures and distributes furniture to retailers across the US an in Mexico and China. It’s an endeavor that requires crucial business systems – Microsoft Exchange and SQL [...]

Chapter 10: What’s Your Disaster Recovery Plan?

Much of this book has focused on backup and restore rather than disaster recovery. The difference? I regard “restoring” as something you do with a single file, or a group of files, or a single email message, or an entire mailbox—something less than an entire server. It might be a “disaster” that a file was accidentally deleted, but it’s typically a disaster for one or two people—not the entire business. A true disaster, in my view, is when an entire server goes down—or worse, when an entire data center is affected.

Chapter 9: Keeping Your Backups: Storage Architecture

All of the backups we’re making are going to require some serious storage, so Chapter 9 will focus on storage architecture. The chapter looks at how backup data is structured, and compares the advantages and disadvantages of things like storage area networks (SANs), tape drives, local storage, and so forth. The chapter also examines pressing issues of storage: compression, encryption, security, de-duplication, and so on. I’ll also look at unique ways that Backup 2.0 allows you to interact with your backed-up data more easily and efficiently.

Manufacturer Saves $25,000 with a 20x ROI after Switching from Symantec’s Backup Exec and Tape Backup to AppAssure’s Replay 4

Challenge: Minimize costly disruption to production
Solution: Upgrade from traditional, slow tape backup to fast Replay 4
Results: Continuous Snapshot of Servers, with item-level restorability, saving company a minimum of $25,000/year

Environment:

Exchange mailboxes: 100
SQL servers: 2
Windows file servers: 12
Virtualization: VMware
1.5 TB of data total
Users: 250

Derek Augsburger, Systems Administrator at Smith Brother Furniture is [...]

Chapter 8: Other Concerns and Capabilities

There’s more to a backup strategy than just grabbing the right files and making sure you can restore them in a pinch—although that’s obviously a big part of it. A solid backup strategy also concerns itself with disaster recovery in a variety of scenarios. You need to make sure your backup system has some redundancy—nothing’s worse than being without a backup system! Because backups inherently involve data retention, in this day and age, you also have to concern yourself with the safety and security of that data as well as any legal concerns about its retention. That’s what this chapter is all about: Dealing with the “extras” that surround a backup strategy. It will look at how traditional Backup 1.0 techniques addresses these extras, and suggest ways in which you might rethink them for a Backup 2.0 world.

Chapter 7: Virtualization Server Backups

Virtualization has changed the way we think about our data centers, and has enabled a number of new, flexible computing scenarios that are saving businesses money and helping them to be more agile. At the same time, however, virtualization has upset many of the tried-and-true IT operations practices that have been developed over the years. In many ways, virtualization is “Computing 2.0,” and Backup 1.0 just isn’t a good fit. This chapter explains how people have been trying to make Backup 1.0 get along with virtualized infrastructures, and suggests ways in which Backup 2.0 could do a much better job and help fully realize the promise of virtualization.

 Letter from the Lead Geek: Joshua Hoffman
 

 

Best Backup & Disaster Recovery
Product of 2009

We’re proud to announce that Storage Magazine has named Reply from AppAssure as one its Products of the Year for 2009 in the category of Backup and Disaster Recovery Software. In doing so, Storage Magazine has given the Backup 2.0 approach to protecting [...]

With De-Duplication, Compression and No Double Backups Required, AppAssure Releases the Fastest and Most Scalable Backup and Recovery Solution for Microsoft Hyper-V Environments

April 6, 2010 – Reston, VA. – AppAssure Software today released version 4.3 of Replay, the award-winning, next generation backup and disaster recovery software solution. Because Replay performs a single application-aware snapshot spanning the entire host machine and an unlimited number of guest machines in a Hyper-V environment, customers experience the fastest backup [...]

Chapter 6: Rethinking SharePoint Server Backups

The last major server product to cover in this guide is SharePoint, which offers its own unique challenges. In fact, SharePoint—which has rapidly grown in popularity in the past few years—may be the biggest challenge that Backup 2.0 has to face. Chapter 6 will look at native solutions, cover problems and challenges, and compare the “1.0” way of doing things with a more enlightened “2.0” approach.

The Best of 2009

I always love reading those “best of” lists that start to appear at the end of a year. I’m generally a nostalgic sort of person, so it’s always interesting to me to look back and remember major milestones and events before heading into a new year. This year brings an extra edge though, as it’s [...]

Chapter 5: Rethinking SQL Server Backups

More and more companies are using Microsoft SQL Server these days—and in many cases, they don’t even realize it. While plenty of organizations deliberately install SQL Server, many businesses find themselves using SQL Server as a side effect, because SQL Server is the data store for some line-of-business application, technology solution, and so on.

Chapter 4: Exchange Server Backups

Many folks take email for granted, although they expect it to be as available and reliable as a telephone dial tone. As one of the most popular solutions for corporate email, Exchange Server occupies a special place in your infrastructure. It’s expected to be “always on,” always available, and always reliable. Disasters simply can’t be tolerated. Discover how Backup 2.0 can better serve your Exchange Server backup needs.

WAN optimization

WAN optimization products seek to accelerate a broad range of applications accessed by distributed enterprise users via eliminating redundant transmissions, staging data in local caches, compressing and prioritizing data, and streamlining chatty protocols (e.g., CIFS). WAN optimization also helps avoid packet delivery issues common in shared WAN environments, like MPLS and Internet VPNs. Component techniques [...]

Virtualization

Server virtualization is the masking of server resources, including the number and identity of individual physical servers, processors, and operating systems, from server users. The server administrator uses a software application to divide one physical server into multiple isolated virtual environments. The virtual environments are sometimes called virtual private servers, but they are also known [...]

Virtual tape libraries

A virtual tape library (VTL) is a data storage virtualization technology used typically for backup and recovery purposes. A VTL presents a storage component (usually hard disk storage) as tape libraries or tape drives for use with existing backup software.

Tiered storage

Tiered storage is the assignment of different categories of data to different types of storage media in order to reduce total storage cost. Categories may be based on levels of protection needed, performance requirements, frequency of use, and other considerations. Since assigning data to particular media may be an ongoing and complex activity, some vendors [...]

Tape Library

In computer storage, a tape library, sometimes called a tape silo, tape robot or tape jukebox, is a storage device which contains one or more tape drives, a number of slots to hold tape cartridges, a barcode reader to identify tape cartridges and an automated method for loading tapes (a robot). One of the earliest [...]

Tape backup

In computers, tape backup is the ability to periodically copy the contents of all or a designated amount of data from its usual storage device to a tape cartridge device so that, in the event of a hard disk crash or comparable failure, the data will not be lost. Tape backup can be done manually [...]

SharePoint Backup

There are several methods you can use to perform data backup and restore for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services. Each of these methods allows you to back up and restore data, but each method acts at a different level of granularity and may require different permissions. You can perform data backup and restore for Windows SharePoint [...]

Server operating system

Server Operating Systems (Server OSes) are designed from the ground up to provide platforms for multi-user, frequently business-critical, networked applications. As such, the focus of such operating systems tends to be security, stability and collaboration, rather than user interface. Server OSes provide a platform for multi-user applications, and most come bundled with a batch of [...]

SAN / NAS

A storage area network (SAN) is an architecture to attach remote computer storage devices (such as disk arrays, tape libraries, and optical jukeboxes) to servers in such a way that the devices appear as locally attached to the operating system. Although the cost and complexity of SANs are dropping, they are uncommon outside larger enterprises. [...]

Remote backup

A remote, online, or managed backup service is a service that provides users with an online system for backing up and storing computer files. Managed backup providers are companies that provide this type of service.

Out-of-Band

Out-of-Band (OOB) is a technical term with different uses in communications and telecommunication. It refers to communications which occur outside of a previously established communications method or channel. The use of the word “band” in “out-of-band” originates from the term as used in radio and other electronic communications.

Network Backup

Network backup is any backup system where the data to be backed up traverses the network to reach the backup media. Network backup typically requires client-server software architecture. The backup server resides on a centralized server and the backup clients reside on every system to be backed up. Advanced network backup systems can manage backup [...]

Mirroring

Mirroring is the automated process of writing data to two drives simultaneously. Mirroring is used to provide redundancy. If one drive fails, the redundant drive will continue the data storage providing access to it. The failed drive can then be replaced and the drive set can be re-mirrored.

Migration strategies

Data migration is the process of making a copy of data and moving it from one device or system to another, preferably without disrupting or disabling active business processing. After data is transferred, processing uses the new device or system.

Information Lifecycle Management

Information Lifecycle Management (sometimes abbreviated ILM) is the practice of applying certain policies to the effective management of information throughout its useful life. This practice has been used by Records and Information Management (RIM) Professionals for over three decades and had its basis in the management of information in paper or other physical forms (microfilm, [...]

Incremental forever

After a full backup, the application will only backup data that has changed. This is called an ‘incremental forever paradigm’.

In-band

In telecommunications, in-band signaling is the sending of metadata and control information in the same band, on the same channel, as used for data.

ILM

Short for information lifecycle management, the creation and management of a storage infrastructure and the data that it maintains. All information, or data, in a storage network has a specific lifecycle, from the time the information enters an organization’s system to the time it is archived or removed from the system. The information may have [...]

Failover

Failover is a backup operational mode in which the functions of a system component (such as a processor, server, network, or database, for example) are assumed by secondary system components when the primary component becomes unavailable through either failure or scheduled down time.
Failover is a backup operation that automatically switches to a standby database, [...]

Email recovery

Email Recovery is basically a process to restore your corrupted or deleted emails using email recovery software. The most popular platforms for saving emails are Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, and Microsoft Exchange.
Learn more about email recovery software.

Email and file archiving

E-mail archiving is a systematic approach to saving and protecting the data contained in e-mail messages so it can be accessed quickly at a later date. By using File Archiving, when a file is overwritten or removed during a run, the old file is first moved to an archive location, locally or over the [...]

Electronic data archiving

Electronic data needs to be archived in such a way that makes it traceable and retrievable, should there be any question of noncompliance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Companies are subject to fines if their data is subpoenaed but can’t be located, and simply creating backups isn’t always enough. All companies should [...]

eDiscovery

Electronic discovery (also called e-discovery or ediscovery) refers to any process in which electronic data is sought, located, secured, and searched with the intent of using it as evidence in a civil or criminal legal case. E-discovery can be carried out offline on a particular computer or it can be done in a network. Court-ordered [...]

Disk imaging

Disk imaging refers to copying the contents of a data storage device or medium, and transferring this to another, similar medium or device. In its original context, disk imaging implies the creation of an exact duplicate of a computer’s hard disk drive – including its programs, setup and data then storing this in a special, [...]

Data vaulting

Data vaulting is the process of sending data off-site, where it can be protected from hardware failures, theft, and other threats. Several companies now provide Web backup services that will compress, encrypt, and periodically transmit a customer’s data to a remote vault. In most cases the vaults will feature auxiliary power supplies, powerful computers, and [...]

Data recovery

Data recovery is the process of salvaging data from damaged, failed, corrupted, or inaccessible secondary storage media when it cannot be accessed normally. Often the data are being salvaged from storage media such as hard disk drives, storage tapes, CDs, DVDs, RAID, and other electronics. Data recovery may be required due to physical damage to [...]

Data management

Data Management is a broad field of study, but essentially is the process of managing data as a resource that is valuable to an organization or business. One of the largest organizations that deal with data management, DAMA (Data Management Association), states that data management is the process of developing data architectures, practices and procedures [...]

Data deduplication

Data deduplication (often called “intelligent compression” or “single-instance storage”) is a method of reducing storage needs by eliminating redundant data. Only one unique instance of the data is actually retained on storage media, such as disk or tape. Redundant data is replaced with a pointer to the unique data copy.
Data deduplication using Replay 4 backup [...]

Contingency planning

A contingency plan is a plan devised for a specific situation when things could go wrong. Contingency plans are often devised by governments or businesses who want to be prepared for anything that could happen. Contingency plans include specific strategies and actions to deal with specific variances to assumptions resulting in a particular problem, emergency [...]

Clustering storage

Clustering is a proven technique to support scale-out of performance, capacity, reliability and availability of servers and storage resources beyond the limits of a single device. Traditional storage systems are bound by their physical components (number of disk drives, attached servers, cache size and controller performance) along with functionality and logical constraints (number of file [...]

Clustering

In computers, clustering is the use of multiple computers, typically PCs or UNIX workstations, multiple storage devices, and redundant interconnections, to form what appears to users as a single highly available system. Cluster computing can be used for load balancing as well as for high availability. One of the main ideas of cluster computing is [...]

CDP

Continuous data protection (CDP), also called continuous backup or real-time backup, refers to backup of computer data by automatically saving a copy of every change made to that data, essentially capturing every version of the data that the user saves. It allows the user or administrator to restore data to any point in time. CDP [...]

Capacity planning

Capacity planning is the process of determining the production capacity needed by an organization to meet changing demands for its products. In the context of capacity planning, “capacity” is the maximum amount of work that an organization is capable of completing in a given period of time.

Business Continuity

Business Continuity is the activity performed by an organization to ensure that critical business functions will be available to customers, suppliers, regulators, and other entities that must have access to those functions. These activities include many daily chores such as project management, system backups, change control, and help desk. Business Continuity is not something implemented [...]

Backup software

Backup software is a computer program used to perform a complete back up of a file, data, database, system or server. The backup software enables a user to make an exact duplicate of everything contained on the original source. This software must also be used to perform a recovery of the data or system [...]

Backup for databases

Database backup is process that involves making a copy of a database in case of a hardware failure, program bug or system copy.

Array-based

Array-based memory is an evolving solid-state storage technology similar to flash memory but with potentially greater storage capacity. The increased capacity results from the fact that array-based memory is three-dimensional (3D) while most traditional memory and storage media are two-dimensional (2D).

Archiving

E-mail archiving is a systematic approach to saving and protecting the data contained in e-mail messages so it can be accessed quickly at a later date.
E-mail archiving is the process of systematically recording and saving copies of e-mail correspondence for records keeping and documentation purposes.

Application Protection

Application Protection is a catchall term, applied generically to all security measures that protect application services. URL-based attacks, script exploits, malicious data injection to SQL, ORACLE, IBM DB2 and other databases, mail server attacks and DNS poisoning are all examples of application level attacks.

Application Consolidation

Application consolidation generally takes two forms. The first type of consolidation is the merging of two instances of the same system into a single instance. The second type of consolidation is to merge two different systems with similar functionality into a single system. The second type of application consolidation is generally more difficult than the [...]

Chapter 3: Whole-Server Backups

In Chapter 3, I’ll address the most common kinds of servers: file servers, print servers, directory servers, and even Web servers. I’ll show you what some of the native solutions look like, discuss some of the related Backup 1.0-style techniques and scenarios, and detail why they just don’t cut it for today’s businesses.

Creating a Business Case: Translating Technical Capabilities into Business Advantage

This white paper outlines and illustrates how to create a business case for new technology. While features and benefits are an important part of the case, the focus is on business advantage: cost savings through improved operations and fast return on investment.

Deduplication: Effectively Reducing the Cost of Backup and Storage

Reducing the cost of backup and storage starts with reducing the amount of data that is backed up and stored. Data deduplication ensures that the same, unchanged files are not repeatedly backed up during nightly processes. Reducing storage capacity alone is a strong argument for implementing data deduplication, but when integrated with server-based backup processes that also include data compression, the combined backup and storage savings are compelling.

Chapter 2: Horror Stories: We Thought We Had a Backup!

Horror stories.  Tales from the trenches.  Case studies.  Call them what you will, I love reading them.  They’re a look into our colleagues’ real-world lives and troubles, and an opportunity for us to learn something from mistakes – without having to make the actual mistakes ourselves.

Server Backup Software

A server is a computer or device on a network that manages network resources. Servers are often dedicated, meaning that they perform no other tasks besides their server tasks. On multiprocessing operating systems, however, a single computer can execute several programs at once. A server in this case could refer to the program that is [...]

Tape Backup Software

A tape drive, which is also known as a streamer, is a data storage device that reads and writes data stored on a magnetic tape. It is typically used for archival storage of data stored on hard drives. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and long archival stability.
Magnetic tape has long been the [...]

SQL Server Backup

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational model database server produced by Microsoft. Its primary query languages are T-SQL and ANSI SQL.
Microsoft SQL Server enables users to back up and restore their databases. The SQL Server backup and restore component provides an important safeguard for protecting critical data stored in SQL Server databases. A well-planned backup [...]

Server Disk Imaging

Disk imaging refers to copying the contents of a data storage device or medium, and transferring this to another, similar medium or device. In its original context, disk imaging implies the creation of an exact duplicate of a computer’s hard disk drive – including its programs, setup and data, then storing this in a special, [...]

Message Level Restore

E-mail is the most widely used communications tool for many companies, and consequently any lost or corrupted emails can negatively affect any business.
The Message Level Restore (MLR) module, a multi-site backup and recovery software, protects and restores individual or group emails without interrupting email server and offers selective filtering in order to restore only specific [...]

Replication Software

Replication is the process of sharing information in order to ensure consistency between redundant resources, such as software or hardware components, so as to improve accessibility, fault-tolerance, or reliability. It could be computation replication if the same computing task is executed many times or data replication if the same data is stored on multiple storage [...]

High Availability

High availability is a system design protocol and associated implementation that ensures a certain absolute degree of operational continuity during a given measurement period.
Users want their systems, for example computers, to be ready to serve them at all times. Availability refers to the ability of the user community to access the system, whether to submit [...]

Exchange Backup

Microsoft Exchange is a popular Microsoft messaging system and collaborative software product widely used by businesses using Microsoft infrastructure solutions.
Exchange’s major features include a mail server, e-mail client, and multiple groupware applications. It is part of the Microsoft Servers line of products and often used in conjunction with Microsoft Outlook. The server supports web-based as [...]

Cloud Recovery

In general, disaster recovery is a plan for duplicating computer operations after a catastrophe occurs, such as fire or earthquake. It includes routine off-site backup as well as a procedure for activating vital information systems in a new location. One method of off-site backup is often referred to as backing up to the cloud.
Cloud computing [...]

Disaster Recovery

Disaster recovery contains the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster.
Disaster recovery planning is a subset of a larger process known as business continuity planning and should include planning for renewal of applications, data, hardware, communications (such as [...]

Deduplication

Data deduplication essentially refers to the elimination of redundant data. In the deduplication process, duplicate data is deleted, leaving only one copy of the data to be stored. However, indexing of all data is still retained should that data ever be required. Data deduplication is able to reduce the required storage capacity since only the [...]

Continuous Data Protection

Continuous data protection (CDP), also known as continuous backup or real-time backup, refers to backup of computer data by automatically saving a copy of every change made to that data, essentially capturing every version of the data that the user saves. It allows the user or administrator to restore data to any point in time.
CDP [...]

Bare-Metal Restore

Bare-metal restore is a technique in the field of data recovery and restoration where the backed up data is available in a form which allows one to restore a computer system from “bare metal”, i.e. without any requirements as to previously installed software or operating system.
In most cases, the backed up data includes the necessary [...]

Backup and Recovery

In information technology, a term backup refers to making copies of data so that these additional copies may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. These additional copies are typically called “backups.” Backups are useful primarily for two purposes – to restore a state following a disaster (called disaster recovery) and [...]

BlackBerry Protection using Replay AppImage

See how easy it is to deploy disaster recovery protection for BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) using Replay AppImage.

MailRetriever – Product Demo

CEO Naj Husain presents MailRetriever – Message level recovery in-action! Learn how easy it is to gain message level recovery for Microsoft Exchange, as well as repairing of corrupted EDBs and e-discovery.

In-Action

Learn how to recover Exchange from a server failure caused by corruption using Replay AppImage accelerated recovery capabilities.

Recovery Points

Development Lead for Appassure Software Adam Nelson demonstrates recovery point images and how to backup and recover your Exchange Server.

Protecting A Server

Development Lead for Appassure Software Adam Nelson demonstrates how to protect your server with Replay AppImage

Chapter 1: Why Backup 1.0 Is No Longer Enough

Our decades‐old backup techniques are not sufficient anymore. They may be great for creating backups—although in many cases, they aren’t even good for that—but they do not excel at bringing the right data back into production as quickly as possible. Despite advances in specialized agents, compressed network transmissions, and so forth, we’re still just making a copy of the data, and that doesn’t always lend itself well to restoring the data.  Why?

Windows Server Disaster Recovery

Windows Server applications are often mission critical. The impact of natural, random and man-made disasters on these applications, especially email, and their subsequent disruption can cripple an organization. This white paper from AppAssure Software offers advice for protecting your existing Windows Server infrastructure from disruptive application outages.

SQL Server Database Backup and Restore Planning

Whether a business is small, medium or large business, it must have a well-written plan for backing up the servers. Planning a backup strategy up-front and documenting not only the backup process but also the restore process, will save you a ton of time in the end. Because of its value to the company and the sensitive nature of it, the classification of data must be carefully considered in the planning stage.

Leveraging Virtualization for Application Assurance

Business continuity. Application assurance. Virtualization. The applications that are most central to the productivity of every staff person in your organization are e-mail and SQL databases. They need reliable and consistent access to those applications in order to communicate with work peers, customers, and partners.

Backup Redesign: Do More with Less…Really!

New disk-based backup solutions that focus on application – not just data – protection are redefining the state-of-the-art by realizing significant time and money savings through data expansion moderation, fast backup, easy data retrieval, high availability assurance, and reliable disaster recovery.

Configuring Microsoft Exchange for Fast Recovery

The Essentials Series: Configuring Microsoft Exchange for Fast Recovery will provide you with the tools for configuring hardware backup and restoration strategies to help return Exchange to full function with minimal downtime.

Disaster Recovery, Hoping for the Best, Planning for the Worst

Email has evolved from a convenience to a business necessity.  This E-Guide from SearchExchange.com and AppAssure Software offers best practices and advice for protecting your existing infrastructure from disruptive email outages.

3 Best Practices for Reducing Exchange Downtime

Messaging has rapidly become the one, true business critical application in use today by many, probably most, enterprises. Learn how to proactively approach disaster recovery for Microsoft Exchange.

11 Myths About Microsoft Exchange Disaster Recovery

With the large variety of products available for all types of businesses, it is no surprise that there are several misconceptions about backup and recovery software. Learn how to improve your backup process, reducing outage windows.

Assuring Successful Exchange Recoveries

Mark Arnold discusses how to develop a consistent method for validating the recoverability of Exchange and incorporating it into everyday operations to prepare for disasters.

CEO Naj Husain Discusses the Company’s Rapid Growth with Rebecca Blackwell

Rebecaa Blackwell of the Leader’s Spot interviews AppAssure Software CEO, Naj Husain on how the company was started, the fuel behind its fast growth and where it is headed in 2009.

TechNet Magazine Presents: Optimizing Exchange for Fast Recoveries – Lessons from the Field

Special guest Mitch Chen with ITS Group discusses Lessons from the Field and Todd Frederick, an expert in storage management and email management, discusses Replay AppImage from Appassure for fast backup and recovery for Exchange.

After a Cataclysmic Flood, University Chooses Replay to Protect Its Data

Challenge: Physical location loss with 4TB of data
Solution: Replay 4’s disaster recovery solution and virtualization capabilities
Results: Backup at 400GB, ability to replicate in another physical location

After being forced to pack all its servers into a pickup truck heading for higher ground due to a 500-year flood in North Dakota, Valley City State University decided [...]

When Walden House director loses all the mail in the mailbox, AppAssure helps recover the data in minutes!

When Walden House director loses all the mail in the mailbox, AppAssure helps recover the data in minutes!

Challenge: Losing all the mail in an inbox
Solution: Replay for Exchange’s lightening-fast restore
Results: Opened Replay snapshot and within minutes, all the mail was back in the mailboxes

The staff at Walden House has its work cut out for [...]

Replay Gives Lincoln Electric System a 3-in-1 Solution: Item-Level Restore, Simple Backup Capabilities, Seamless Disaster Recovery

Challenge: Switching from Lotus Domino to Microsoft Exchange meant new backup solution
Solution: Robust backup/recovery solution with range of functionality: DR to granular, item-level restore
Results: Three-in-One Solution : Item-Level Restore, Simple Backup Capabilities, Seamless Disaster Recovery

Aaron Anderson, Senior IT Administrator at Lincoln Electric System (LES) and his 25 colleagues in LES’s IT [...]

Replay Protects Sensitive Patient Information for SEUC’s GE Healthcare Centricity System

Challenge: Zero RTO
Solution: Virtualization and restore snapshots down to 5 minutes
Results: SEUC has a seamless “hot ready.” If there’s a problem, they flip a switch and there’s very little downtime

For over 40 years, Southeastern Urological Center, P.A. in Tallahassee, FL., has been a unique facility designed to give patients the most comprehensive urological health [...]

Replay 4 Customer Takes Risk, Fights for Budget to Protect Information Systems

Challenge: Traditional tape backup that wasn’t working
Solution: Affordable price for the integrated hospital system
Results: LCH’s small IT team can easily test and restore (even from bare metal)

Lincoln County Healthcare’s mandate – to ensure access to high-quality, patient-centered, affordable care – meant that 2 distinct hospital systems had to be integrated to provide a seamless whole [...]

Replay 4 Keeps Hamilton Port Authority Data Secure at a “Fantastic” Cost

Challenge: Secure data off-site and for reasonable cost
Solution: Replay 4’s server-based, disk imaging solution that automatically and continuously snapshots servers
Results: Smooth testing restores of files and databases and intervals they can choose

To support the significant growth that Hamilton Port Authority had seen recently, IT Administrators, Ross Englefield and Peter Hammerl needed a backup and [...]

Flagler College gets Storage Savings of 84%

Challenge: Physical location loss with 1TB of data
Solution: Replay 4’s disaster recovery solution and virtualization capabilities
Results: Backup at 400GB, ability to replicate in another physical location

Before Replay 4, the biggest fear that Flagler Colleges’ Technology Services Network Engineer Brendan Hourihan had was not being able to recover something he was responsible for from a [...]