Avamar enhances disk-based backup

Start-up Avamar this week is expected to roll out a new version of its Axion disk-to-disk back-up and data protection software that makes backups of network data not only faster but also easier to recover, according to the company.

Enhancements in Axion 3.5 include an ability to encrypt data at rest, manage multiple Axion systems from a single console, and support an increased number of back-up clients.

Being able to manage several Axion deployments from a single console is the most impressive feature of the new software, says Jason Paige, IS manager for Integral Capital Partners in Baltimore, who has an Axion system there and in Menlo Park, Calif.

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Start-up Avamar this week is expected to roll out a new version of its Axion disk-to-disk back-up and data protection software that makes backups of network data not only faster but also easier to recover, according to the company.

Enhancements in Axion 3.5 include an ability to encrypt data at rest, manage multiple Axion systems from a single console, and support an increased number of back-up clients.

Being able to manage several Axion deployments from a single console is the most impressive feature of the new software, says Jason Paige, IS manager for Integral Capital Partners in Baltimore, who has an Axion system there and in Menlo Park, Calif.

"It's much more elegant and easy to use, including managing multiple Axion boxes on the same screen so you can get back-up information for your servers all at once," Paige says. "You had to change screens to check on the reporting before."

Axion 3.5 is software that resides on an x86-based server or an appliance that Avamar supplies. It will back up Windows, Unix and Red Hat Linux servers; Oracle, SQL or Exchange databases; and Network Appliance file servers. In addition, Axion 3.5 supports DB2 running on AIX, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server and AIX 5.3.

Avamar competes with Data Domain and Diligent Technologies, two start-ups that also provide software-based appliances that back up data to disk. These companies also employ a data-reduction technique: The software divides incoming data into segments, identifies it and compares it with data that has been previously stored. If incoming data duplicates data that's already stored, the software creates a reference instead of storing the duplicate data. If the data is unique, it is further compressed with algorithms that can reduce the amount of data stored by as much as 20-to-1.

It took Paige almost 24 hours to back up his Exchange database before he installed Avamar's product, but now it takes an hour and a half, he says.

Axion 3.5 starts at $25,000 per terabyte of data being backed up.

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