Unitrends Launches Cloud Disaster Recovery Solution
Data storage application vendor Unitrends has launched a cloud-based disaster recovery service for resellers. Rather than push all your stored data back to you over IP when calamity strikes, Unitrends will actually rush customers a brand new appliance fully loaded with your sensitive data. Here’s the scoop.
Vault2Cloud, as Unitrends is calling the service, has been in beta since late 2009, they say. It’s all administrated and monitored through the same console as their traditional storage appliances, but customer data gets seeded to the cloud from the data vault.
What that means is that Vault2Cloud sidesteps the traditional problems of cloud computing by leveraging what science fiction writers call “meatspace:” local backup and recovery is handled through the on-premises appliance which reduces latency, and since they’re shipping you the loaded appliance in the post when things go wrong, the amount of secure data going over the tubes is greatly diminished.
It’s an intriguing offering, and Unitrends is offering their channel partners a 100% discount on the first 100GB of reserved capacity. Otherwise, it’s $0.49/gigabyte/month. My only concern is that by eliminating the ability to grab data from your cloud backup on the fly, you’re also eliminating a lot of the benefit of the cloud. What if they need to mail you out your replacement appliance on a Sunday?
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If a replacement appliance needs to ship on Sunday…No problem. Even if itcould not ship on Sunday, even if we didn’t ship till tuesday, it would still be FASTER than recovering 500 GB over a dedicated T1. Users are not restricted to recovery by mail. End users absolutely have the ability to recover from their rapid recovery console.
Lincoln: So, um, it sounds like you’re leaning towards on-premises appliances for disaster recovery and business continuity?
-TVG
absolutely. its hard to take complete ownership of the data otherwise, and the local appliance provides quick restore. many of my clients only use the on premise appliance for local retention amp; baremetal. Our appliances are vertically integrated, so moving data to a public or private cloud is a snap.