Features - Storage Innovations:

SNAP APPLIANCE LAUNCHES COST-EFFECTIVE DATA REPLICATION SOLUTION

Snap Appliance, the network storage division of Adaptec Inc, announced a powerful new software application for its GuardianOS-powered departmental and enterprise Snap Servers called Server-to-Server (S2S) Synchronization v2. A full-featured data replication and distribution solution, S2S v2 is an affordable and easy-to-use solution for synchronizing data between Snap Servers across a distributed network.

S2S v2 is an asynchronous, byte-level replication application that can transmit data or files in a one-to-many, many-to-many, or many-to-one fashion over a Wide Area Network (WAN). The byte level replication functionality improves performance and reduces the amount of data being sent over the network by copying only the changed bytes of large files, not the entire file, keeping network resources available for increased productivity. S2S efficiently and cost-effectively synchronizes data between Snap Servers and, before the end of the year, any Windows, Unix, or Linux application server in the enterprise.

"Snap Appliance's new S2S v2 fills an important gap in midrange data replication," said Bill North, director of storage software research at IDC. "Storage replication is a key element of a comprehensive data protection strategy, and to date there haven't been a lot of solutions for systems tailored to the midrange enterprise. I am pleased to see that Snap is planning support for non-Snap application servers too. Many enterprises have unprotected application servers and now with S2S, the data on these systems can also be protected."

"S2S v2 is a product that our distributed enterprise customers have been asking for to help them easily and cost-effectively protect their business data," said Mark Pollard, vice president of marketing of the Snap Appliance division of Adaptec. "Tape-based products are difficult to implement and existing disk alternatives are too expensive for the majority of SMBs or midrange enterprises. S2S delivers a simple, affordable, advanced server synchronization and replication solution that is ideal for nearline backup of server data, remote office backup and recovery, as well as data distribution and centralization between local and remote offices."

Features and Benefits of S2S v2

• Designed for Dynamic Business Environments -- S2S is completely bi-directional, allowing a system to be both a target server and a source server simultaneously, providing the ultimate flexibility needed to meet today's dynamic business requirements. Flexible, up-to-the-minute scheduling allows any level and frequency of data protection to be achieved. Replication jobs can be customized to include or exclude shares, directories, or files, depending on business requirements and available bandwidth. If a file happens to be open during a replication job, S2S provides uninterrupted user access to the data.

• Bandwidth Optimization -- S2S v2 is intelligent and when a file is changed, only the changed bytes are replicated to the target system, not the entire file. Additionally, S2S users can leverage bandwidth throttling to specify the maximum amount of network bandwidth assigned to the replication function. Business-critical applications continue to operate at the capacity needed. Optional compression further aids efficient data transmission over the WAN.

• Data Protection Made Easy -- S2S has a browser-based management console that is integrated with Snap Servers and included with the GuardianOS unified software platform. Users can remotely monitor and manage replication jobs from anywhere on the network. S2S runs directly on Snap Servers, so no additional software or hardware is needed. Email alerts can be set up to proactively monitor jobs in progress, successful completions, and failures.

• Data Integrity and Availability -- The replication data stream can be encrypted by the source server before being sent over the LAN or WAN. Snapshots can be replicated to further enhance data availability.