E-mail management vendor Azaleos this week is set to introduce an e-mail back-up option for users of its OneServer appliance. The option, which combines OneServer appliances running Exchange with network storage devices from Network Appliance, gives users a hot backup to a disaster recovery site.

The platform uses iSCSI connections and storage virtualization technology. A Network Appliance NetApp FAS270 storage device on the corporate network captures snapshots of the Exchange mail stored on a OneServer appliance and synchronizes them with the disaster recovery site, which also is running OneServer and a FAS270.

The FAS270 includes 1TB of storage, although it can scale to 4TB. It also includes built-in RAID for protection against data loss and disk failure, hot spare disks for fast failure recovery, redundant power supplies and cooling fans, and battery-backed RAM for guaranteed writes.

OneServer is a dedicated appliance that provides an active, passive, fault-tolerant and clustered Exchange platform for corporate messaging. The appliance, which is built on HP or Dell hardware, runs Windows Server 2003; Exchange 2003; and security, mobility and compliance software from third-party vendors.

"If you are going to have Azaleos provide you with the OneServer appliance and let them manage it, backup is a very logical extension of that," says Michael Osterman, president of Osterman Research. "Backup is absolutely a critical activity." Azaleos, which began shipping OneServer a year ago, is modifying its service-level contracts to change its guaranteed availability. It also is building its disaster recovery capabilities to mesh with the capabilities of Exchange 12, which is expected to ship at year-end.

OneServer, which focuses on fortifying the Exchange message store, is deployed within a corporation's network but is managed remotely by Azaleos.

User management tasks, such as password changes and message store limits, are handled by corporate administrators through a Web-based administrative console. OneServer includes Azaleos' OneStop Subscription Service, which does round-the-clock monitoring along with maintaining and managing the appliance, from hardware to patch management on Windows, Exchange and OneServer's third-party software.