EMC this week is expected to announce its entry into the continuous data protection market, an increasingly crowded field populated with big names such as HP and IBM, plus a host of smaller companies.

EMC will use the Storage Networking World conference in Orlando to introduce its RecoverPoint, which is based on technology supplied by Mendocino Software. Other companies, including Availl, FilesX and StorServer, also plan to show off CDP products.

The EMC software is designed to help customers continuously back up data, as well as instantly recover files and transaction-oriented data.

RecoverPoint, which runs on a Linux server, will save and recover data on any EMC, HP, IBM or Hitachi array, EMC says. It supports Sun Solaris, Windows 2003, and Oracle and SQL Server databases.

RecoverPoint differs from some other products on the market because it can be used to back up both file and database data to disk. Other products, such as Symantec's Backup Exec 10d for Windows Servers and LiveState Recovery 6.0, IBM's Tivoli Data Protection for Files and Microsoft's Systems Data Protection Manager, only back up files created on a network.

EMC is not the first big-name company to look to Mendocino for CDP technology. HP last week announced it has agreed to resell Mendocino's RecoveryOne software.

Click to see: Making a full recovery

Also, FilesX has announced CDP on Demand, software that can be used to restore Microsoft Exchange, Word and SQL Server files, and that allows regularly scheduled snapshots of data to be taken. Unlike Microsoft's System Data Protection Manager, CDP on Demand allows for unlimited snapshots. The software is available as part of FilesX's Xpress Restore, which starts at $10,000.

Also at the show, StorServer is expected to introduce a CDP option for its storage appliances that works with IBM's Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files. The application enables users to protect data on their laptops, desktops and file servers by backing it up to multiple locations, including those with StorServer Appliances. The boxes start at $3,500; CDP coverage costs $35 per laptop or desktop and $995 per server.