Asigra automates remote-office backups

Asigra this week is launching a version of its back-up and recovery software that businesses can use for remote offices.

Asigra is making its enterprise-level Televaulting product available to organizations for backing up data on dispersed WANs or LANs. Previously Asigra provided the software to service providers.

The Televaulting for Enterprises software collects data from branch offices that are often without the IT staff or infrastructure to back up data on their own. By using Televaulting for Enterprises, a customer can eliminate unnecessary back-up infrastructures, license fees for back-up software, tape costs and training of local staff.

"We've saved on the back-up software and the tapes themselves, as well as time for our office managers," says Jim Miskovsky, director of IT for law firm Fischer & Phillips in Atlanta.

"We wanted to centralize our backups, and we wanted to know that backups were done each evening," says Miskovsky, whose law firm chose Asigra's Televaulting for Enterprises to back up 1.5T bytes of data, 12 regional offices and a number of lawyers with laptops. Before using the product, Fischer & Phillips had office managers back up their regional offices with Veritas Software's Backup Exec and tape drives.

The software resides in a Linux, Windows or Solaris server in the data center. The server collects information from desktops, laptops, and file servers that are enabled with a Televaulting agent, called the DS-Client. The DS-Client sends changes to data to the DS-System located in the data center, compressed and encrypted over IP.

Asigra says it competes with traditional back-up software from Computer Associates, Legato Systems and Veritas, and that the benefit of its technology comes from eliminating the need for back-up software at each remote location. Other back-up services exist from start-ups such as Arsenal Digital Data, Connected and LiveVault.

"A service provider could take that software and build a service around it, but an enterprise can use the same software for its own internal needs and charge back departments and remote offices for its use," says Mike Fisch, a senior analyst with Clipper Group.

The cost is based on the amount of data being backed up. An initial license of $56,000 covers 1T byte. Subsequent terabytes can be licensed for $7,500.