Start-up takes fresh approach to backups

Rejoice! You have more choices for backup today than ever before. Perhaps backups may soon become so painless that the 60% of you who don’t back up regularly may actually start.

Did I just say that out of five small to midsized businesses, three of them don't back up enough? Sad to say, but that's the number, according to a recent survey by IDC. I'm actually surprised so many do a good job backing up, because it takes commitment, time and money.

Newcomer Lasso Logic aims to help make backups easier. The company’s approach meets what I consider the three important criteria for back-up systems: It’s automatic, reliable and offsite.

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Rejoice! You have more choices for backup today than ever before. Perhaps backups may soon become so painless that the 60% of you who don’t back up regularly may actually start.

Did I just say that out of five small to midsized businesses, three of them don't back up enough? Sad to say, but that's the number, according to a recent survey by IDC. I'm actually surprised so many do a good job backing up, because it takes commitment, time and money.

Newcomer Lasso Logic aims to help make backups easier. The company’s approach meets what I consider the three important criteria for back-up systems: It’s automatic, reliable and offsite.

Lasso Logic is part of a new group of back-up vendors promising "continuous data protection" (CDP). I don't know if Lasso Logic coined the term, but it is certainly implementing the idea.

Lasso’s network appliances use customized PC cases operated by the Lasso Logic software and controlled over a local network. I tested the smallest appliance, with 80G bytes of local space, and it worked quite well. It's in a slim-line desktop case, about the size of a VCR player. Larger units move on up to tower cases, but function the same way.

The only way to get continuous data protection is to carefully monitor changes on each client. Lasso Logic requires client software, as do all systems that provide CDP. The client module only took about 20M bytes of system resources and never got in my way. In fact, it was a polite guest that never drew attention to itself, either on a Windows XP Pro desktop or on a laptop running Windows 2000.

Most client-side back-up utilities watch the file activity. Lasso Logic looks more deeply and watches block activity on the disk. There are two big advantages to this approach: smaller file transfers and the ability to copy open files, such as Outlook e-mail databases. Once the folders tagged for backup are copied the first time, which takes a few minutes, updates to any monitored files are archived quickly and quietly with no interruption on the client.

Multiple copies of revised files stay in Lasso Logic, so you can choose which version of a file to restore. Access to files for restoration goes through the client GUI and works much like Microsoft Explorer, as users drill down through folders to find the files they want.

Disk-to-disk backups on the network are great, but a complete back-up system needs an offsite storage option for files in case of a disaster, either natural or manmade, such as a fire or your office computer theft (including the back-up appliance). Lasso Logic allows you to tag which folders go to offsite storage (maintained by Lasso Logic in an updated San Francisco telecom facility). As they should, Lasso Logic allows remote users, such as traveling workers, to access the offsite storage with proper authorization.

I used my laptop to access my remote storage archives through a Web browser (Firefox worked fine, as did Internet Explorer). Finding the files and restoring them remotely took no more trouble and only slightly more time than it did over the local network.