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Recover in MINUTES

Our Backup and Disaster Recovery Solution is a tape replacement solution that includes disk to disk block level backups, off-site data storage, server virtualization capabilities and backups as frequent as every 15 minutes.

BDR = Backup & Disaster Recovery (or NAS Device)

We have addressed both Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery in the backup solution. When server hardware fails, we can minimize the downtime to your Business by providing a virtual environment on our BDR Appliance to host the failed server. This virtual server maintains the original server's settings and application state prior to the failure. Typically, the process of ordering and configuring a new server takes a few days. While this takes place, our solution keeps you up and running. In addition to ensuring your server environment runs with minimal downtime, we provide a complete Disaster Recovery solution. Once configured, your servers securely send data off-site to a state-of-the-art colocation facility. In the event of a disaster, we can deliver and configure the original BDR Appliance with the latest backup image. From this point, we can perform Bare Metal Restorations to dissimilar hardware to have your environment up and running in the same state it was before the disaster.

So how does our solution work? Well, first we place a BDR Appliance at your location and setup your servers to backup to the BDR Appliance. Once we have configured the BDR Appliance and servers, monitoring on those devices and the backup transfers to the colocation facility are being proactively monitored 24x7. If there are any failures relating to the backup, we are immediately notified and remotely resolve the issue.

Incremental Forever Technology The technology that is being used to perform the backups is based on Incremental Forever Technology. Initially, we take a complete image or snapshot of the server. Then we perform incremental backups as frequently as every 15 minutes. These 15 minute incrementals capture the changes on the drives of the servers and are performed throughout the day. Once every 24 hour, all the 15 minute incrementals are collapsed into what we call a daily synthetic incremental. This process continues, creating weekly and monthly synthetic incrementals as time elapses. What this means to you is that we have increased the number of your restore points. At any point in time, we are able to restore a failed server to any 15 minute period during the last 48 hours or any day of the current month, to any week of the previous month and any month as far as the backups were first started.

Block Level Backup After the servers and BDR Appliance are configured, the initial backup occurs. This is a block level backup where the backup software is looking at the actual 1's and 0's on the hard disk. We take a complete image or snapshot of the server at this time. These snapshots happen at the partition or drive level so open or locked files and folders are always backed up. Once the data reaches the BDR Appliance, it is first compressed then encrypted using 256-bit encryption.

Military Grade Encryption If you select the off-site storage option, the data transfer to the colocation facility takes place over a 256-bit encrypted tunnel. We use a smart transfer technology that allows us to cap the maximum outbound bandwidth used to transfer the backup's off-site. This gives priority to all other outbound applications, such as email and Internet traffic. In this example, we have a 3mbps line for outbound traffic and the backup solution is capped at 1mbps. What this means is the outbound transfer for the backup solution will never exceed the 1mbps cap. Also, if email and Internet traffic is consuming most of the outbound bandwidth, the backup solution will throttle down and give priority to all other outbound traffic. This Smart Transfer technology is able to pick up where it left off if there is a disruption in Internet service. We continue the transfer from the last successful packet received.

Restore to Virtual Server The BDR Appliance is capable of virtually hosting a server's OS and applications in the event of a system failure. If a server fails, we can start a virtual environment on the BDR Appliance and restore the complete image of the server from the last snapshot that was taken, typically within the last 15 minutes. This process usually takes less than one hour, depending on the size of the disk being restored. Once the server's image is running in the virtual environment, there are no additional configurations necessary as the system retains its original system state. For example, if an Exchange Server is virtually hosted, the IP address will remain the same so no configuration changes are needed for MX records or firewall settings. Once the virtual server is running, the backups occur every 15 minutes just as they did before the server crash.

Restore to Dissimilar Hardware When it comes time to restore the server back to physical hardware, the process is quite simple. With our virtualization technology, we can restore to dissimilar hardware by inserting drivers into the Hardware abstraction layer before bringing up the server image on its new hardware. Once the server has been completely restored, the incremental backups continue to take place every 15 minutes so there is no disruption to the backup process.

File / Folder Restore Another method of restoration is by mounting the image as a volume on the BDR Appliance and creating a network share that is mapped to this volume. In this example, we have a folder on the web server that was deleted 30 minutes ago. We can go back and restore a complete image of the server from 45 minutes ago and mount this as a volume on the BDR Appliance. Once mounted, a network share is created to enable users to copy and paste the files from the restoration image to the destination machine. This entire process only takes a few minutes to complete.

Exchange Server / SQL Server Restore In addition to file and folder level restorations, we provide Exchange Server restores at the message and mailbox level. We have the ability to restore emails directly to an Exchange Server or to a PST file. SQL Server restores are accomplished by performing a file/folder level restore. We connect to the restored database and have the ability to restore individual tables or an entire database.

Enterprise Class Web Management Portal We offer complete management and control of your solution by using a web based Enterprise class portal. Remember, there is nothing for you to manage; we do it all.

SENTRY DR Datasheet (PDF)


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