In today��s knowledge-based economy, you can’t afford to lose the crucial business information stored on the hard drives of your company’s computers. True, Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 (MS-SBS) includes a utility you can use to regularly backup your files email messages and website. It has limitations, however. For one thing, you can only back up information that resides on the MS-SBS host machine itself. Data stored on PCs and laptops across your LAN also need to be protected as they contain information that’s crucial for your day-to-day operations, as well as legal compliance.

EdgeCore Televaulting for Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 automatically and securely backs up all your data - data that resides on every machine on your LAN. And it backs it up directly to the offsite Data Center storage vault of EdgeCore Technologies. No time-consuming manual programs. No tapes to manage or store. No expensive tape hardware to maintain. You can back up more often, to minimize data loss between runs. Recovering lost data quickly, either over the Internet or with the built-in bare metal restore. Best yet, the software is free! You pay only for the total amount of data you need to protect.

This comprehensive solution protects all MS-SBS data types, including:

Now there’s a new bottom line. Simpler administration. Lower backup overhead. The peace of mind that comes from knowing that your business is fully disaster recovery ready. Automatically.

Eliminate the “soft” (hidden) costs associated with tape backup:

With EdgeCore's unique agentless technology, you can protect data on the MS-SBS server, and every other machine on you LAN, including workstations, laptops, other Windows servers, other operating systems (e.g. Netware, Linux). One free piece of software on your MS-SBS server will protect your entire LAN, without installing an agent on each target machine you want to protect!

The heart of the EdgeCore solution is the Asigra DS-Client,software that runs on the same host machine as Windows Small Business Server 2003. It automates and simplifies the backup process as much as possible. Back up as often as you choose. Incremental backups, down to the block file level, significantly reduce the amount of data transmitted. The DS-Client further reduces data transmission by eliminating common files across your entire LAN, and compressing your data before it’s encrypted and transmitted offsite.

You can recover any file generation (point-in-time) to the original location, or any alternate location you choose. You can store your data online, or request it from your service provider on CD, tape or any other media, and store the latest generation locally. You can even automatically send your data to deep archive (for regulatory purposes) after a pre-specified time period.

You can also run the free DS-Client Lite software on your laptops. You’ll receive just one consolidated bill from EdgeCore Technologies each month, covering all of your company’s data. Backup just doesn’t get much simpler than that.

A high level of data security is a key element in our DS-Client design. Your data is stored offsite in encrypted format. For added security, all encryption and decryption takes place at your premises. EdgeCore Technologies never escrows your encryption key.

Unabated Growth:

Organizations typically address these issues by consolidating backup processes, choosing either to assign responsibility to a central data center or to outsource data protection to a service provider. Whichever path an organization follows, the presence of agents in the backup/recovery software utilized (be it either a tape or a disk-to-disk (D2D) product), will directly impact data security, recoverability, and costs. IT managers already know the downsides that accompany agent-based solutions:

A port in the firewall must be opened for every agent. And, because almost every agent has administrative privileges, it effectively creates a backdoor hole in the server architecture—tap into the agent and have your way with the server. With no “in-flight” encryption mechanisms, agents also put data at risk during transmission from the remote office to the data center.

More pieces of software to manage and to fail:

More sites, more data, more applications, more users, more systems, more agents—growth makes everything harder to manage, and agents only compound the problem. As the infrastructure expands in size and complexity, problem diagnosis takes longer. Operating system upgrades (now implemented monthly by many organizations) have broader impact and potential to break software, including proliferating backup agents. Agent management drains IT resources, causes disruptive downtime, and negatively impacts data recoverability.

Exorbitant licensing fees:

‘Veritas users plead for simpler licensing’—that recent StorageSearch.com headline says it all (Source: StorageSearch.com, 26 Apr 2005). Most software vendors charge for software based on the old per-system model, a pricey plan that requires customers to keep close tabs on complex system and user landscapes. For many growing organizations, buying a site license is actually a simpler—albeit even more costly and often unnecessary—solution than trying to keep track of large numbers of backup products installed across hundreds or thousands of sites. There are even companies that now consult on doing audits to help enterprises try and lower license fees.

Mounting administrative costs:

Heterogeneous application environments can be administrative nightmares when backup processes require the installation and management of agents for every single flavor of database, application and operating system platform. It takes time and a lot of ‘touching’ of remote-site systems to push agents and agent upgrades out to every server in the backup roster. And each time a data center administrator or service provider has to deploy an agent or intervene to support it at a remote site, that cost rolls back into their business model, making it increasingly difficult to be competitive or stay within budget constraints.

To put licensing and administrative costs in perspective, an enterprise with just five offices can easily spend $50,000 to purchase and maintain the file/print server, email server, database, and workstation agents required for backup processes. For large enterprises with thousands of agents, licensing and support costs can quickly add up to millions of dollars.

As the industry’s only agentless, multi-site backup and recovery software solution, EdgeCore Technologies incorporates Asigra Televaulting technology which completely eliminates the negative impact of agents. How does it work? The Televaulting architecture consists of two software components: the DS-Client and the DS-System. DS-Client software, installed at the remote office on an existing or dedicated Windows, Macintosh, or Linux server, captures data from target backup machines. The DS-Client then conducts several data reduction processes, compresses, encrypts, and transmits the data via an IP WAN to the DS-System at the central location.

The DS-Client does not require installation of any backup agents on target servers, desktops, or laptops. The agentless DS-Client fully integrates with NT domains, Trusts and Novell NDS trees, and otherwise adopts the remote site’s existing LAN security settings. Using standard APIs, the DS-Client can remotely log in to target backup systems, capture requested data, and securely manage transmissions to the central site. Utilizing delta blocking and common file elimination technologies, the DS-Client reduces the amount of raw data transmitted and stored at the offsite vault.

The DS-System can be installed on Linux, Macintosh, Solaris, and Windows platforms and manages the online storage repository (configured as direct-attached disk, NAS or SAN) for backup data transmitted from one or multiple DS-Clients. EdgeCore's Televaulting software integrates a comprehensive feature set designed to maximize and accelerate data recoverability. An autonomic healing mechanism, for example, runs seamlessly in the background to identify and isolate corrupted or otherwise problematic files. As an added value, if a file is found to be unfixable, it is marked to be re-transmitted on the next scheduled

backup. Another feature, the Local Restore tool, allows remote-office storage of the latest generation of a backup data file. This ensures that local users can restore critical data immediately and at LAN speed.

Additional Televaulting tools include an Online File Summary, Long Term Storage policymaking, a Discovery Tool to automatically ascertain characteristics of primary data, Service Level Agreement Management, Budget Allocation to set backup/restore capacity limits, Email Message Level Restore, Bare Metal Restore capability, Client and System Monitoring, and SNMP Integration.

Why it works

The Televaulting software eliminates the requirement for locally installed agents because it leverages the protocols, APIs, methods and functionality that platform, operating system, database, and other application vendors utilize for remotely accessing and managing their own systems. While other backup/restore solutions require a unique backup agent (installed on every target server, workstation, and laptop) for each type of system and

application, the Televaulting architecture integrates support for all major platforms and applications into a single, optimized software system comprised of just two major components: the DS-Client (just one installed at each remote site) and the DS-System (installed at the vaulting location).

Another advantage of the Televaulting software is that it enables multi-level access controls. At installation, the DS-Client is assigned privileges to establish access rights that match the requirements of the site or organization. The DS-Client, for example, might be assigned multiple credentials for the same network to allow the domain administrator to back up all systems, including servers and workstations, while enabling users to control the backups of individual workstations. The Televaulting software has also been highly optimized to conserve both LAN and target-system CPU resources.

Another characteristic that differentiates the Televaulting software from other backup/restore solutions is that the software was designed from the ground up to be non-invasive and invisible in the customer environment. This trait reflects the Asigra corporate pedigree earned in the service provider market. Because service providers must support multiple distributed customers with limited visibility and control of their clients’ environments, a cost-effective solution must enable non-intrusive management—the backup/recovery solution must be centrally deployed,

administered and supported across multiple client sites. Admittedly a technology-development challenge with a unique-in-the-industry approach, the agentless design of the Asigra Televaulting architecture was nonetheless the right thing to do to ensure efficiency and profitability for EdgeCore customers. The result of that design and its real-world testing in has helped make EdgeCore Technologies today’s technology leader with an innovative, sophisticated, and proven architecture.

Implementing an EdgeCore backup/recovery solution produces immediate and dramatic benefits. Compared to agent-based alternatives, EdgeCore / Asigra Televaulting software offers:

Significant Savings:

Even if agents from other vendors were free, an EdgeCore solution would

still enable huge reductions in operating expenses. First-year operating expenses alone approach $150,000 for an enterprise environment with 1,000 server agents. Annual server maintenance and operating expenses for this same configuration add up to nearly $60,000. Eliminating agents eliminates those costs that are in addition to the purchase price of agents.

Simple Licensing:

DS-Client licenses actually are FREE. The DS-System offers businesses a

unique pay-as-you-grow pricing model based on the aggregate amount of compressed data stored across the network. Simply purchase software the same as disk capacity—no license fees, no tracking, no overspending on site licenses—customers pay only for compressed capacity consumed.

One piece of software to install, manage, and diagnose if you choose to not have EdgeCore Technologies manage it for you:

The Televaulting software even self-upgrades, so there is no time consuming and administrative-resource-draining pushing of agents or updates out to hundreds or thousands of remote-site systems.

WAN/LAN/CPU resource conservation:

Our software runs with negligible impact on servers, workstations, and laptops, eliminating the CPU-cycle hits associated with agentbased solutions. Delta blocking, common file elimination and compression technologies also minimize impact on bandwidth and storage resources. While many agent-based backup/recovery solutions require implementation of high-speed pipes between the central data center and remote offices, EdgeCore Technologies enables the effective use of existing links such as DSL.

Robust hard-coded security:

Asigra Televaulting software provides both ‘in-flight’ and ‘atrest’

data protection, utilizing up to 256 bits for AES encryption keys to guarantee extremely safe data transfer and storage. And, it works within the organization’s security framework—there are no agents to open hacker-tempting ports in the firewall. With secure data transmission across an IP WAN, the Televaulting solution helps businesses achieve compliance, minimize information-loss liabilities, and protect customer confidence.

Elegant Scaling:

The DS-System is capable of elegantly scaling both in the dimensions of

capacity and performance. This type of scalability is critical for environments with large numbers of remote sites, high-capacity data sets, and rapid high data growth. While agent-based solutions compound complexity in rapid-growth environments, the EdgeCore agentless backup/recovery solution easily accommodates new capacity, new applications, and new sites. Features such as integrated load-balancing ensure efficiency across multiple DS-System IP addresses.

Backup Consistency, incredible recoverability:

The simplicity, efficiency, and security of the EdgeCore system promote implementation of consistent data backup programs across remote sites. Able to implement more frequent, successful backup processes, companies can significantly boost data recoverability in environments where success rates below 50% were once the norm.