Arkeia Network Backup Version 8.2

Arkeia Software announced Arkeia Network Backup version 8.2 with new agents for backup and recovery of VMware and Hyper-V virtual environments and applications including Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and SQL Server, as well as Novell’s, GroupWise, eDirectory and iFolder. Arkeia Network Backup version 8.2 leverages the industry’s latest APIs to provide fast, easy-to-use, and affordable backup solutions.

“As companies adopt virtualized environments, data protection becomes more costly and difficult to manage, especially in mixed environments that include physical servers and require both disk and tape storage," says Bill Evans, CEO of Arkeia Software. “Arkeia is giving companies the solutions they need to protect data as they transition from exclusively physical environments, to environments that mix physical and virtual machines. Today, the vast majority of information technology shops deploy a mix of both environments. We are proud that we can both maintain our focus on performance and ease-of-use and continue to expand and upgrade our broad repertoire of backup agents for file systems, applications, databases, and virtual environments.”

VMware vSphere 4/ESXi 4.0 Agent
The new Arkeia VMware Backup Agent supports VMware’s vStorage programming interfaces (APIs) to enable proxy-less backups of VMware virtual machines.  VMware’s vStorage APIs supersede their VMware Consolidated Backup solutions and allow faster backups and reduced network traffic.

With the new release Arkeia provides extensive support
for vStorage on both vSphere 4/ESX and ESXi platforms
including:

• Block incremental image-level backups for faster backups and reduced storage requirements
• vCenter integration for simplified management of backup and recovery operations for environments with multiple physical hosts
• Multiple transport methods allowing the Arkeia Agent to perform LAN-free backups over the SAN for enhanced performance

Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and SQL Server Agents
Arkeia’s three new agents for Microsoft applications and databases leverage Microsoft’s Volume Shadow-Copy Service (VSS) architecture.  The VSS architecture permits Arkeia to capture a snapshot of data without interrupting the operation of mission-critical applications or databases. Arkeia can perform both full and incremental backups based on these VSS snapshots.

Arkeia’s support for VSS simplifies data protection
for new versions of key Microsoft products:

• Arkeia’s agent supports Microsoft Exchange (including 2010), SharePoint (including 2010), and SQL Server Agents
• Arkeia’s intuitive web-base administrator’s interface for the new agents improves ease-of-use and simplifies the deployment of the new Microsoft products that use VSS technology.
• Deployment is simplified and accelerated because Arkeia is bundling these new agents with the standard Windows Agent package. (Agents are priced separately.)

Microsoft Hyper-V Agent
Arkeia’s Agent for Hyper-V performs hot backups and recoveries of multiple Hyper-V virtual machines without requiring a backup agent to be installed on each virtual machine. A single agent enables consolidated management of multiple virtual machines for all backup and recovery operations.

Arkeia leverages VSS for snapshot-based backups of Hyper-V virtual machines. Arkeia’s enhanced support for VSS enables transactionally-consistent backups of Windows applications as well, allowing administrators to perform single-pass backups that protect both files and applications.  Image-level backup enables disaster recovery for both Linux and Windows guest operating systems, resulting in reduced downtime.

Novell GroupWise, eDirectory,
Novell Storage Services Agents
Arkeia is providing support for applications that leverage Novell’s Storage Management Services (SMS) architecture. Like Microsoft’s VSS programming interface, Novell’s SMS interface enables hot-backup of Novell file systems and applications.However, Novell’s API supports both Open Linux Enterprise Server (OES) and NetWare platforms and Arkeia agents will support both platforms.

Arkeia’s agents for the Novell Storage Services (NSS) file system include support for NSS trustee and access control list (ACL) models, as well as iFolder support.  

Arkeia also supports
hot backups of GroupWise and eDirectory data

• Arkeia’s SMS implementation ensures forward and backward compatibility for backup and recovery operations on Novell platforms
• Deployment is simplified because Arkeia is bundling these new agents with the standard Novell Agent package.
• Hot-backup of files and applications ensures backup reliability for open files and transactional consistency for applications.

Availability and Pricing
Arkeia Network Backup v8.2 is scheduled to be generally available in April 2010 with prices starting at $800 USD for one backup server license with first-year maintenance.