dataGuard

Our tape backup system was unreliable. There were times when we would come into the office in the morning and see that the previous night’s backup, or the entire weekend’s backup efforts, had failed. That left gaps in our ability to restore information, which was unacceptable. As Deputy Executive Officer for Administration for the American Sociological Association, I knew a new solution was imperative.

So, I began to investigate options. I knew I wanted a system that was reliable, automatic and didn’t consume staff time. I found exactly what I was looking for—and more—in dataGuard^sm , Optimal’s backup and disaster recovery service. We became dataGuard^sm clients in February 2008.

With dataGuard^sm, our association receives full, continuous and incremental backups—that are independently verified. No more checking to make sure last night’s backup happened! Plus, it provides us with a failsafe disaster recovery plan. Because dataGuard^sm stores the most recent copy of each of our servers at two offsite data centers (on the East and West Coasts), I know that if a disaster occurred, we would be able to reconstruct our membership info, get our servers up and running and rebound our systems in a matter of a few hours.

The best part? I no longer have to worry about it—and neither does the Association’s governing committee or our IT staff. dataGuard^sm provides me with peace of mind; I know our business-critical data is safe and protected.

--Deputy Executive Officer for Administration
Large national association
Washington, DC

As the chief financial officer for a mid-sized Washington, DC law firm, I’m always on the lookout for technologies that will help the daily management and productivity of the firm, have a proven ROI and are cost effective.

I found that in Optimal’s backup and disaster recovery service, dataGuard^sm.

Tired of dealing with tapes and worrying about offsite storage to ensure proper backup mechanisms were in place, I knew a new solution was in order. When Heinan told me about this new service, it sounded perfect. I became an Optimal dataGuard^sm client in February 2008.

It makes backup so much simpler—there is no administrative time expended to change tapes, no more buying new tapes each year and no more backup software renewals. When I factored in all the costs of a tape backup system and compared that to dataGuard^sm, it just made sense. Plus, dataGuard^sm protects us comprehensively. All of our data is now backed up every 15 minutes as opposed to once a day. It is a tapeless solution with offsite storage that acts as our comprehensive disaster recovery plan and I couldn’t be happier.

The value of the service was proven at the beginning of July 2008 when our one of our servers experienced a problem. We thought it was a server failure; had that been the case, dataGuard^sm would have been ready to take the place of our failed server through their server virtualization capabilities.

dataGuard^sm is seamless to our attorneys and I sleep better knowing that the firm’s mission-critical information is comprehensively protected.

--Chief Financial Officer
Mid size Washington, DC law firm

Optimal’s backup and disaster recovery service, dataGuard^sm , has given me freedom.

Before dataGuard^sm, as the Manager of Administration and Operations for a national trade association, I was spending a large part of every morning facilitating our tape backup system— going into the server room to change tapes, scheduling the secure retrieval of tapes through a courier service and making sure someone else could do these essential duties when I took a day off. And, even though I did everything I was supposed to do, I couldn’t shake the “what ifs?” What if a tape failed? What if it wasn’t working properly?

When I signed up for the dataGuard^sm service in December 2007, I signed up for worry-free data protection. I know that dataGuard^sm is a constant, consistent and secure system and that has given me peace of mind. I know that our network is being comprehensively backed up regularly. Plus, because dataGuard^sm stores the most recent copy of our associations’ servers’ offsite at two data centers, the service is an integral part of our disaster recovery plan. If disaster struck, this service would allow us to be operational within 24 hours!

dataGuard^sm is the answer I had been looking for—a simple, remote and seamless solution to data protection.

-- Manager, Administration & Operations

 Washington, DC national trade association

As Director of IT and Systems for an international trade association of sheet metal, HVAC, and mechanical construction contractors, I quickly became frustrated with the amount of staff time our tape backup system was consuming. I was also concerned with the inherent hardware concern associated with tapes—they could fail at any time. I needed a solution that put the redundancy necessary for data backup and protection on our side—a solution that was comprehensive and automated.

In March 2008, our association signed up for dataGuard^sm , Optimal’s backup and disaster recovery service.

Soon after, one of our users deleted a file. In 15 minutes I had restored the file—something that would have taken easily an hour if we had still been using a tape backup system. Plus, with dataGuard^sm, my staff and I can perform restores from anywhere as long as we have a secure connection to the network. A solution that offers increased efficiency and convenience, plus a failsafe disaster recovery component, translates to a significant ROI.

As an IT director, it is my job to make sure our organization’s information is always secure and available. dataGuard^sm is our association’s insurance policy. In conjunction with Optimal’s server monitoring and patching services, I feel that we have someone looking out for us around the clock and in great technical detail to make sure that everything is working smoothly, and will continue to do so. Whether the problem is as simple as a lost file or as complex as a fried server, I know we are covered.

--Director of IT and Systems
Washington, DC international association