SMBs Get Their Backup

Intradyn today launched Compliance Vault06, an upgrade to the ComplianceVault email archiving appliance for small firms it has shipped since July of 2004 (see Startups Look for SMB Feast).

The upgraded version has a new GUI interface, with improved search and audit features. The Intradyn appliance includes from 320 Gbytes to 1 Tbyte of disk capacity and can connect to Sony WORM tape drives with prices ranging from $8,995 to $11,495. Unlike its predecessor, ComplianceVault06 supports wildcard, fuzzy, proximity, and range searches, and allows customers to save searches.Intradyn CEO Gary Doan says the first ComplianceVault was originally aimed at small brokerage firms, but he found other SMBs were just as interested in email archiving. He says Intradyn has more than 200 customers for ComplianceVault, and only around half of them are brokers and dealers.

“Companies are using it not necessarily for SEC regulations, but for good practices for email retention,” he says.

Doan says Intradyn is also preparing to upgrade RocketVault, its first SMB backup appliance product that began shipping in 2003 (see IntraDyn Launches Archiving Appliance). “The appliance model makes a helluva lot of sense, especially for SMBs,” he says. “We don’t anticipate we will be without competition.”

The InteliStor appliance Tandberg Data rolled out last week is one of those competitors Doan refers to (see Tandberg Backs Up SMBs).

InteliStor combines the InteliNAS device Tandberg acquired in March with InoStor, a Tandberg LTO 2 tape autoloader, and Symantec Backup Exec software in one disk-to-disk-to-tape backup system (see Tandberg Takes Over InoStor). The 1U box comes with 480 GBytes, 1 Tbyte, or 1.6 Tbytes of disk capacity, with prices ranging from $5,999 to $12,500.

Tandberg’s Licosoti suspects SMBs will eventually warm to Fibre Channel SANs, but not yet. He says InteliStor’s preloaded backup software and Web management interface is designed to make life simple for neophyte IT staff.“Customers see a NAS device as very simple,” he says. “They don’t have to learn anything new. They don’t have to map drives and they know how to plug in Ethernet.”

Storage distributor Bell Microproducts last week began selling Anthology Solutions Inc.’s Yellow Machine NAS backup appliances, which come in 1 Tbyte and 2 Tbytes capacities. Anthology has sold the Yellow Machine since January (see Anthology Unveils Tbyte Storage Appliance ). The RAID appliance includes an eight-port Ethernet switch.

Netgear takes a slightly different approach with the Storage Central system it announced Monday. Instead of shipping a low-end NAS, Netgear takes a shot at bringing a SAN into the home with its IP SAN based on a proprietary IP protocol from Zetera Corp. (see Zetera Rewrites iSCSI).

Netgear is going after the low end of the SMB market, billing the product for consumers and small offices looking to share large volumes of music, video, photos, and other digital files, although larger organizations can span Storage Central devices through Ethernet or wireless connections. The devices look like small toasters and hold one or two hard drives. They cost $149, not including disk drives.

Maxtor in October will ship Shared Storage Plus, an upgrade to its Shared Storage Drive home NAS box (see Maxtor Centralizes File Sharing). The new devices include backup software, a media server, and more capacity for consumers, SOHOs, and SMBs that want to share files or streaming video. Drives come in capacities of 200 Gbytes, 300 Gbytes, and 500 Gbytes, with prices ranging from $300 to $500.

— Dave Raffo, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch