IBM expands data protection software

BANGALORE, INDIA: IBM has announced a new suite of integrated data protection solutions designed to help Windows Intel customers deal with the challenges of quick and efficient data backups and restores to meet business, legal and regulatory requirements.

According to the IDC AP Enterprise Server Tracker, Q1 2008, the number of x86 units shipped in 2007 were 126,940 and forecasted at 148,467 in 2008. With almost this entire infrastructure generating business critical data, the need for data management, backup and recovery focused at Windows and x86 market is greater than ever.

IBM’s new Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack software will enable IBM Tivoli to cater to a completely new market segment of x86 customers on Windows at competitive price points and functionalities. In particular, this offering will help small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs) and remote locations, which typically lack dedicated IT staff but have to deal with mounting storage concerns.

IBM’s new Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack software – the first new products resulting from IBM's recent acquisition of FilesX – can provide customers with improved business continuity and comprehensive recovery of data and applications, as well as the ability to address compliance across customer data centers and remote offices. Part of IBM’s Tivoli Storage Manager line, the new software expands IBM’s existing enterprise data protection solutions with new capabilities to help protect data that resides outside managed servers, on remote networks. 

“The Small and Medium businesses are increasingly adopting Windows as their platform of choice for all or a few of their applications. We have identified their need for a Windows conducive backup and restore management software. TSM Fastback follows the ‘easy to use, quick and inexpensive’ philosophy that is dear to the Wintel users”, said, Gaurav Agarwal, Country Manager, Tivoli Software, IBM India/ South Asia. “These new solutions complement our existing data protection software portfolio by offering backup and recovery features tailored for remote office and mid-market customers.”

The new products deliver continuous data protection and near-instant recovery of applications, databases, and file servers:

• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack for continuous data protection and near-instant recovery technology for Windows file servers and applications including Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, Lotus Domino, Oracle, DB2 and others. The software provides data protection and recovery for applications in data centers or remote branch offices, enterprises and small business customers. Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack can eliminate backup windows by continuously capturing data changes at the block level with minimal impact to the systems it protects. Its policy-based approach to data protection allows administrators to improve recovery service levels -- specifically Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) -- on a per-application basis. Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack also provides a nearly instantaneous restore capability that enables applications to be up and running within minutes after data recovery is initiated, while data recovery is performed in the background. Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) can be reduced to near zero when recovering from almost any type of data loss. 

• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack for Microsoft Exchange for quick and easy restore of individual Exchange objects such as e-mail messages and attachments, contact lists, calendars, tasks and journal entries. Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack for Microsoft Exchange uses an intuitive interface which can reduce downtime and improve productivity. 

• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack for Bare Machine Recovery to help users easily recover entire systems to a comparable server, to a new server with different hardware or to a virtual machine. Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack for Bare Machine Recovery provides customers with a tool for performing server migrations, and offers a highly cost-effective business resilience solution for remote branch offices. 

• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack Center which combines the three Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack products into a single, convenient package. 

The new, enterprise-level continuous data protection capabilities complement IBM's existing file-based software called IBM Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files, which is targeted at SMB customers as well as laptop and desktop users. 

IBM System Storage DS4000 and IBM System Storage DS3000 select models have been added to the suite of storage products intended to integrate with IBM Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack to provide SMB customers with comprehensive data recovery and business continuity solutions.