SmartPick Backup Rolls Out Virtual Appliances

SmartPick Backup Solutions, Inc., a San Jose, CA-based provider of data backup appliances and services, announced a series of virtual SmartFiler data backup appliances.

                                SmartFilerVirtual

These virtual appliances are for businesses that have invested in VMware technologies and SAN storage. The virtual appliances run on VMware Player and VMware Workstation; they are available in various sizes ranging from 10GB to 500GB ($699) and maybe downloaded from the company website. The 10GB version is free.

"With our virtual appliances, small and medium businesses can now backup large amounts of data onsite and offsite using their existing desktop computer, NAS, or USB drive infrastructure. There is no need to invest in additional hardware or make monthly payments to online providers for data backup", says Swami Nathan, Founder of SmartPick Backup.

The virtual appliances come with the same enterprise class features available on the physical SmartFiler appliances. These include scheduled daily and weekly backups, snapshots for point in time data recovery daily, and are integrated with Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery 2010 for Exchange Server backup without tapes, bare metals restore, and backing up third party databases. All virtual SmartFiler backup appliances come with a 30-days free trial enabling businesses to try a virtual appliance even if their data storage requirements are only met by a physical SmartFiler backup appliance.

The virtual SmartFiler backup solution is simple. Use VMware Player or VMware Workstation to run these appliances. Install the Onsite SmartFiler on a desktop computer, USB drive, or NAS; install the Offsite SmartFiler on a removable USB drive. After the initial backup, relocate the Offsite SmartFiler to a remote location. The Onsite SmartFiler will continue to perform the incremental backup to the remote Offsite SmartFiler.

The new series of virtual backup appliances may be used with the existing line of backup appliances to form a hybrid solution, enabling businesses to implement their own private cloud solution capable of backing up data from 10GB to 10TB, both onsite and offsite.  

"Our backup appliances can backup unlimited number of servers in a heterogeneous network consisting of Windows and Unix  servers, without any additional software or per computer licensing fees", adds Swami.