Double-Take Software

Editor's Notes

• #6: SPLA 12-15K average sale 30-45 Average Close time 250 software services Champion/Terramake
• #28: 10/20/10 Page With traditional backup, protection is generally a disruptive daily event that has to be scheduled and managed. When there is a problem with the backup, it can fail, schedules can overlap and you are left to clean up a whole mess and try to reschedule or give up and have an even greater exposure to data loss until the next scheduled backup. The backup window has been a real nightmare for administrators, and the shift to global trade and 7 X 24 hour operation has made this impossible in some circumstances. The open file managers and specialized backup APIs have helped (when they work) by making it possible to keep files semi-open during backup. However, in reality, they do a “rolling close” and slow down operations considerably, requiring that backups still be scheduled for times where system activity is very low. Snapshots can help reduce the gaps in protection associated with backup to a point. Snapshots typically rely on proprietary hardware deployments, so cannot be used universally in a mixed environment. There are practical (often vendor imposed) limitations on the number of snapshots that can be maintained, and on how active the system can be. Integration with backup and applications is complex, and may require professional services or experienced consultants to implement and update. Replication maintains an at or near real time image of the primary dataset. While this can be helpful in the case of physical interruption, it does nothing to protect against logical corruption, nor does it provide a time dimension. Corruption or accidental deletion on the primary dataset is instantaneously replicated to the secondary – corruption time 2 phenomenon. Third mirror splits and BCVs (Business Continuance Volumes – an EMC term) may be used to “freeze” points in time. However, these are costly and complex, both in terms of disk usage and operational management. Generally, customized scripting and vendor verification are required, and this still does not eliminate the gaps in coverage between splits. TimeData continuously captures all changes that are made to the data on the server, including changes to the meta data (permissions, attributes). This is an automatic process that occurs in real time. There is no scheduling involved, and no need to pre-select times to snapshot data. Everything is captured, and no intervention is required. TimeData offers the best Recovery Point Objective available, eliminating the protection gaps inherent with backup, snapshot and replication. No pre-selection or psychic awareness required Meaningful events, such as database checkpoints, transactions, file save events, are captured and marked Data is captured exactly as it is written to the primary file system – (no secondary processing or reconstruction of blocks to file) This is not a series of granular snapshots or points in time – ALL changes are captured as and when they occur Changes are ordered and applied in the sequence in which they occur, thereby maintaining congruence at all times
• #39: SPLA 12-15K average sale 30-45 Average Close time 250 software services Champion/Terramake