LiveVault Latest To Automate Data Backups

The Marlborough, Mass.-based software developer, which traditionally focused on the SMB space, is using the new applications to move up to the remote office market, said Blair Heavey, senior vice president of worldwide field operations.

Heavey said LiveVault is the only company to automate backup solutions and thereby overcome such tape shortcomings as data not being available for immediate recovery.

"We keep it simple so it's easy for our channel partners to show the solution to their customers," he said.

To automate the process, the company introduced LiveVault InSync, an SMB backup service under which one or more servers can send their data to an external, online data vault.

Such backups can be done automatically, with policies configurable by the customer for such tasks as when data should be destroyed and who has access to the data, said Daniel Stevenson, director of channel marketing for the company.

"LiveVault InSync is completely rules-based," Stevenson said. "We think people often hesitate about where data is stored offsite, and so we work with [offsite hosting providers like] Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Iron Mountain. We don't want customers to worry that an employee will direct data to their own accounts."

Also new is the TurboRestore appliance, which is based on an array from Hillsboro, Ore.-based LaCie. With the TurboRestore appliance, data is backed up to the appliance and to the remote site at the same time in order to allow fast recoveries from the appliance if data is lost, Heavey said.

The second new software application, LiveVault InControl, is similar to LiveVault InSync, except that it is designed for remote offices, Stevenson said. In this case, data is backed up at the remote office to a TurboRestore appliance while also being copied to one or more corporate data centers to give customers central management of the data, he said.

With the new applications comes a new focus on the channel, Stevenson said. Previously, the company focused on making its online backup software available through such storage backup service providers as Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Iron Mountain, all of whom are able to sell both LiveVault InSync and LiveVault InControl, Stevenson said.

However, the company just introduced two new tiers to its channel program, he said. At the gold level, solution providers that commit to investing in sales and marketing and technical resources can sell and support LiveVault InSync and the TurboRestore appliance. At the silver level are solution providers that resell the LiveVault InSync services, he said.

Both LiveVault InSync and LiveVault InControl are currently available. LiveVault InControl pricing starts at $25,000, while LiveVault InSync starts at $119 per month. The TurboRestore appliance, also available, is priced at between $400 and $1,000.

LiveVault is only the latest vendor looking to automate the backup and recovery of data.

Last Fall, for instance, Emeryville, Calif.-based EVault introduced EVault Desktop, a software application for automatically backing up data from desktop and laptop PCs to an EVault data center. The company also introduced EVault Continuum Server for automatically mirroring of data to an external site.

More recently, Overland Storage added software to its Reo series of disk-based appliances that enables data to be simultaneously backed to an on-site Reo and an off-site storage array. This allows data to be available locally for fast restores while letting a corporation manage data from multiple sites simultaneously.