ViaBack^®

Completely Automated Data Protection For
Your Hosted Applications And Servers

The Challenge

Explosive data growth and scalability issues are among the most persistent challenges in the world of data protection, challenging companies to keep up with dramatically increasing volumes of information. In addition, traditional methods are dangerously unreliable – according to a 2007 study from Enterprise Strategy Group, only 28% of IT leaders are confident that their organization’s critical data are protected, while the majority believe their data could be at risk. Security is another major issue for traditional solutions, as tapes are often unencrypted and can easily be lost or stolen, particularly in transit - for example, when they are being moved to a secure off-site facility.

Most companies also face issues with availability of personnel that have the right skill sets for effective enterprise data protection. As a result, data protection often becomes the responsibility of overworked office administrators and business users who lack the time and willingness to follow corporate backup schedules and procedures. As the volume and complexity of business data grows, companies need to ensure that they are able to keep up.

In addition, while many IT departments recognize that different data sets can have different business value, most backup systems allow only one level of service. In a single-tiered system, IT managers are forced to store all data in one pool, at the same cost, with no opportunity to classify data by forecasted growth rate, regulatory requirements, recovery time objectives (RTO), or recovery point objectives (RPO). This single-tier service often leads to inflated costs and/or insufficient service for the company's needs.

The Solution

ViaBack^® is a fully-managed tape and/or disk-based data protection service that you can use to back up mission-critical data stored at our partners' hosted data centers or stored at your own data center. With an established presence in most major data centers in North America, and many others globally, it's easy to add ViaBack as an essential part of your overall data protection strategy. ViaBack provides you with powerful, on-demand backup and restore services that protect files, databases and applications. Combining proven best practices, industry-standard hardware and software, and a dedicated, expert staff, ViaBack delivers financially-guaranteed service levels to help you meet your organization's business objectives for data protection.

Backups are performed over a private virtual local area network (VLAN) to a shared backup infrastructure. For customers with aggressive recovery time objectives (RTO) and short backup windows, ViaBack's tiered storage option can dramatically improve backups and restores to keep your mission-critical applications up and running. ViaBack ensures the recoverability of your data in the event of most types of data loss - from everyday problems to a catastrophic site failure. It includes all the necessary hardware, software, installation, provisioning, reporting, and operational support to seamlessly backup and restore data. ViaBack supports both online and offline database backups. For customers who require multiple daily backups, ViaBack offers an option at user-specified intervals.

In addition, users can now choose Viaback RecoveryPlus^TM for increased service customization and cost savings. It enables data to be stored on tiers that vary in performance, cost, availability, and/or recoverability. With RecoveryPlus^TM, IT departments can segment costs, optimize use of resources, and respond more quickly to growth. The solution gives users the power to:

• Choose a service level that offers the right combination of data protection at the right cost for the business value of their digital assets
• Combine disk with standard tape technologies to assure seamless, long-term retention of critical data
• Leverage SATA disk and newer de-duplication technology to improve RPO and RTO

ViaBack Highlights

• Complete backup and restore service. Tape and/or disk-based data protection service for critical data sets.

• Security. Arsenal has partnered with some of the most secure, best known technology hosting firms in the world to protect your data from disaster. We also hold to stringent internal processes to keep your data safe as evidenced by our SAS 70 II certificates. Your tapes are dedicated, and contain only your data. And for protection, you can choose from a variety of encryption options to ensure that your data are secure, no matter where your media might be housed.

• World-Class Support. Expert staffing with 24x7 monitoring and management.

• Proven Backup and Restore Technology. Best-in-class hardware and software with a proven track record of performance.

• Increased cost savings and ROI. All equipment and support is provided for you eliminating the need for you to make capital investments in hardware or software. Pricing is based on the amount of data you protect, enabling you to control your costs because your capacity utilization is constantly optimized. Because with ViaBack your critical data protection operations are automated, you can redeploy your people to other projects and significantly lower your backup and recovery management costs. And with ViaBack RecoveryPlus, you enjoy a greater number of data protection options to meet your needs, so you don't pay for more than you need for each class of data protected.

• Flexibility and Customer Choice of Protection ViaBack enables the user to choose the type and level of protection that is appropriate and effective for each set of data.

• Sophisticated Reporting and Provisioning. ViaBack provides web-based visibility into your backup environment, constantly providing important analytics and status information.

• Comprehensive application and database support. ViaBack supports most major versions including Oracle, SAP, Informix, Sybase, Microsoft SQL, Microsoft Exchange, DB2, and Lotus Notes.

ViaBack RecoveryPlus

ViaBack RecoveryPlus is a cost-effective way for new and existing data center customers to improve their data protection levels over a tape-only solution. Customers may choose a standard service level or work with their sales team for a customized solution.

• ViaBack RecoveryPlus Premier – targeted at customers requiring high levels of data protection for high-change-rate databases and applications. RPO and RTO improvements are ensured with frequent incremental and full backups. Incremental backups to disk may be performed as often as every hour. Weekly full backups to disk are standard. Available today in standard configurations.
• ViaBack RecoveryPlus Value – reliable, basic protection for most types of data files, digital video, communications, and other non-compressible data sets. Incremental backups to disk may be performed as frequently as every eight hours, improving RPO significantly over typical processes. Available in custom implementations.