Have confidence in your backup and recovery process and enhance your DR strategy.

Attix5 Backup Professional Server Edition is a backup solution that backs up your server data to disk, not tape, and encrypts it at the same time. This means that your backup can be fully automated and you no longer have to rely on tape media and human intervention in this critical process, improving the overall integrity and quality of your backup.

For added security, you can also mirror your backup to a remote location over a low bandwidth internet connection, thus addressing requirements from auditors and insurance companies for secure offsite storage of your data.

What it works on
It runs on Windows Server with agents to backup Unix, Linux, Netware, Solaris, MAC, AIX in addition to Exchange, Groupwise, Domino, SQL, Oracle and Sybase.

How it works
One full backup is performed and thereafter only incremental backups are carried out. Unlike conventional backup software, these incremental backups work at either block or binary level, so if a large file is modified only the part of the file that's changed will be backed up and not the entire file. At the end of each month all the incremental backups are consolidated and a month end roll up is created, so effectively a synthetic full backup is produced and the process repeats for the next month. As many of these month end roll ups can be retained for rapid restoration within the Attix5 Storage Platform as the licence capacity of the Storage Platform permits. These month end roll ups can be archived off to disk, optical device or tape if required.

Provided with each Storage Platform is a licence to mirror the backup to a separate storage location, which is typically at a remote site. When the first full backup is performed, a local copy is made and shipped to the mirror site, due to its size. As the subsequent incremental backups are fairly small these can be transmitted over a low bandwidth link e.g. ADSL to the mirror site and at the end of the month the roll up can take place independently at the mirror location too.  

Where it fits
Attix5 is ideal for any backup regime, but especially suitable for centralising and automating backup for a distributed network. Each site can retain a local copy of their backup for rapid restoration but mirror the backup to HQ for protection.

Limitations
Attix5  Backup Pofessional is geared at backing up business data, not the system state nor individual’s holiday pictures or MP3 files as these do not compress well when dealing with the remote mirroring. For effective backup of a servers’ system state, we would recommend a product like Symantec’s Backup Exec System Recovery Server which enables rapid recovery to dissimilar hardware. 

This is backup to disk so you must ensure you have enough disk space on which to create the backup. The backup isn’t going to tape so it has to go somewhere else.

For further information on Attix5 or disaster recovery solutions, contact us or download the whitepaper.