Asempra Technologies has announced the Asempra Business Continuity Server (BCS). The Asempra BCS combines real-time data protection and instant application recovery. Asempra claims that its Business Continuity Server enables companies to eliminate the risk of data loss and inconsistent data recovery, simplifies the backup and recovery process, and lowers costs associated with data protection and disaster recovery infrastructure.
Backing up and restoring corporate data has increasingly become a slow, difficult, and often unreliable process. A recent report from META Group determined that the average cost of downtime is $1 million per hour. Using traditional back-up and recovery tools, companies are typically successful in recovering only 50-to-80 percent of corporate data and often cannot verify the integrity of the data. In addition, the time required to recover the data, via tape, is generally measured in days.
The complexity and reliability surrounding backup, recovery, and disaster recovery is compounded by the vast amount of data that businesses must protect. Everything from emails to satellite images needs to be saved on disks or tape. Analysts at International Data Corporation estimate that in 2005, 35 billion emails will be sent throughout the world each day. IDC estimates that emails alone account for up to 40 percent of the cost of storing data.
The Asempra BCS works with existing storage arrays to provide transaction-aware, continuous data protection for structured and unstructured data types. Asempra supports Microsoft Exchange, Windows file servers, and SQL database applications, such as Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server and custom applications for real-time industries like healthcare, transportation, and financial services. Data protection and recovery is supported over existing Internet Protocol (IP) LAN or WAN networks, providing a remote disaster recovery solution. Integration with existing tape libraries is provided through a standard interface for tape archival products including Veritas NetBackup, Legato NetWorker, and Tivoli Storage Manager to fully utilize existing software to store data to tape.
"The complexity and cost associated with backup, disaster recovery and business continuance places a heavy burden on corporations," said Steve Duplessie, senior analyst and co-founder of Enterprise Strategies Group. "The Asempra Business Continuity Server simplifies the process by providing real-time backup, with instant recovery and guaranteed data integrity. The BCS eliminates the possibility of data loss inherent with point-in-time backup strategies, and dramatically reduces recovery time of your mission-critical data. The BCS not only makes recovery operations work -- it does it at a price point that everyone can afford. That's the most compelling part of the equation."
