TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

AppAssure Brings High-End Application Protection to SMBs

Stan Gibson | Date: 12-22-09 | Comments

The startup's Relay 4 data protection software is capable of recovering anything from a single Exchange message to an entire Exchange server, but at a low cost.

Small and midsize businesses face a tall task when they seek to build an IT infrastructure�including backup, recovery and data protection�that offers comparable performance to that of a large enterprise. To fill that need, AppAssure, a tiny startup, has created Replay 4, data protection software intended to deliver high performance and ease of use at a low cost.

Designed for a Windows environment, Relay 4 is capable of recovering anything from a single Exchange message to an entire Exchange server; it can similarly recover a SQL Server module row or table of data up to an entire server, said Josh Hoffman, �lead geek,� at AppAssure in Reston, Va.

�IT pros are looking at backup when they�re upgrading to a new version of Exchange or SQL [Server],� said Hoffman.

Relay 4 is intended to work with hard disks for backup rather than magnetic tape. Thus, it�s capable of capturing data as written and is of recovering a full application quickly, Hoffman explained.

AppAssure includes both data deduplication and compression. Using those features together can shrink the quantity of data to be stored by 80 percent, according to Hoffman.

Relay 4 also supports virtualized servers, including Microsoft�s HyperV virtualization technology and EMC�s VMware. A built-in replication engine can replicate snapshots to a disaster recovery location.

The price of implementing Relay 4 is between $5,000 and $10,000, said Hoffman. Venture-capital-backed AppAssure has annual revenues of $2 million, 50 employees and more than 900 customers, according to Hoffman.