If you face the challenge of safeguarding your company's data, you want to avert problems whenever possible and recover from the inevitable instances when disaster strikes. Voters selected the following companies as providing best-of-breed disaster- prevention and recovery products.
Best Enterprise Backup/Recovery Hardware. Dell's PowerVault proved a powerhouse, winning 82 percent of the vote in this category. Readers attributed their preference for PowerVault's tape backup drives, autoloaders, and libraries to the products' simplicity and reliability. PowerVault's tape backup drives range from low-cost desktop models to robust, reliable drives for nightly backup and to rack systems suitable for weekly backup. PowerVault's autoloader line offers small and midsized organizations automated backup solutions, supporting a variety of tape cartridges and formats. PowerVault's library offering is designed to meet larger backup storage needs.
Best Enterprise Backup/Recovery/ Archive Software. Imceda's LiteSpeed for SQL Server uses online backup with integrated compression to provide faster backup performance and improved data availability. LiteSpeed's technologies typically reduce backup size and backup and restore times. LiteSpeed offers fully encrypted backups to protect your data against tampering and to comply with emerging information security and privacy acts. LiteSpeed communicates with your SQL Server through SQL query and command-line interfaces, independent of proprietary hardware, so the product can easily integrate with any storage solution. One reader noted, "\[I\] couldn't live without it."
Best High-Availability Solution. VERITAS Storage Foundation High Availability (formerly VERITAS Cluster Server 2.0) automatically detects application, database, or server failure and moves those services to another server. Storage Foundation manages up to 32 node clusters in a Storage Area Network (SAN) and protects data and applications in heterogeneous environments. The product includes management tools that let you test disaster-recovery plans and application- failure and migration scenarios in production without workload disruption. VERITAS Storage Foundation's speed and support of "bare-metal recovery" made it a favorite with voters.
Best Replication/ Data-Availability Solution. Readers declared Lumigent Technologies' Log Explorer "great for SQL Server." Log Explorer gives you access to the database transaction log, letting you identify the source of any data, schema, or permissions change; undo single or multiple transactions without losing more recent transactions; repair data by selectively undoing or redoing transactions or transaction sets; receive email notification when changes in database structure or permissions occur; and export transaction information for analysis. In many cases, you can recover data without taking your database offline. You can use the exported information to debug database applications without using debugging code or triggers and without introducing runtime overhead.
Best UPS. American Power Conversion (APC) earned the Best UPS award, with voters saying they rely on APC for customizable solutions that satisfy price, performance, and durability needs. For network-critical physical infrastructure (NCPI), APC offers InfraStruXure, a scalable, modular architecture that you can customize as your power, cooling, and environmental management needs change. For server and networking applications, APC's rack systems feature advanced cooling, power distribution, security, and cable management. In APC's UPS family of products, you can find power-protection systems for home- and business-computer needs, letting you work through brief outages and provide safe shutdown during power failures.
| Best Disaster-Prevention and Recovery Tools |
| Best Enterprise Backup/Recovery Hardware |
|
Dell, Dell PowerVault Tape Backup Drives, Autoloaders, and Libraries 800-999-3355, 512-338-4400, http://www.dell.com Price: Starts at $1038 |
| Best Enterprise Backup/Recovery/Archive Software |
| Imceda Software, LiteSpeed for SQL Server 888-763-7685, 781-229-6300 http://www.imceda.com Price: Starts at $599 |
| Best High-Availability Solution |
|
VERITAS Software VERITAS Storage Foundation High Availability 800-327-2232, 650-527-8000 http://www.veritas.com Price: Starts at $3995 |
| Best Replication/Data-Availability Solution |
|
Lumigent Technologies, Log Explorer 866-586-4436, 978-206-3700 http://www.lumigent.com Price: $1680, with maintenance |
| Best UPS |
|
American Power Conversion (APC) APC UPS Systems 800-788-2208, 401-789-5735, http://www.apc.com Price: Contact APC for pricing |
