OpenVision Tames the Distributed-System Backup Beast

Mainframe-Strength Software Simplifies Backup Management, Eases Administrator Workload

PLEASANTON, Calif., January XX, 1994 -- Spurred by the explosive growth in the volume of information businesses are storing in distributed computing environments, OpenVision today introduced a complete, simple solution for protecting data on a wide range of Unix and PC platforms. OpenV*NetBackup and OpenV*Volume Manager are the first products to provide the mainframe-strength tools system administrators have been seeking to make distributed system backup management easier and less costly.

OpenV*NetBackup and OpenV*Volume Manager simplify the backup process for large networks of Unix systems and PCs by eliminating many time-consuming and costly tasks, greatly reducing administrator workloads. They provide centralized administration of backups without the need for dedicated storage devices, and offer a single interface for accessing and updating media information, regardless of the number and mix of storage devices. OpenV*Volume Manager gives OpenV*NetBackup access to a diverse array of removable-media mass storage devices, including stand-alone and robotic tape drives and optical disk drives, and provides other applications and users with the same benefits through its open application programming interface (API).

"OpenVision's mainframe-class backup and volume management facilities offer administrators 'glass-house' storage management power and practicality for distributed system data protection," said Asa Lanum, OpenVision's senior vice president of technology. "Today's announcement marks another step towards OpenVision's goal of providing best-of-breed storage management applications from the desktop to the data center."

The trend toward downsizing has caused an explosion in the amount of information scattered across computer networks. Until now, the cost of managing this information has been prohibitively high because system administrators have lacked the powerful tools necessary to efficiently and effectively back up information stored in multiple locations across a network of distributed computing systems. According to International Data Corp., it would take a typical engineering department, for example, 42 days and $98,000 to replace the loss of only 20 megabytes of data.

OpenV*NetBackup, and the integrated OpenV*Volume Manager, are part of OpenVision's Storage Management Products family, a collection of integrated applications designed to advance the state of the art in five essential functional disciplines of storage management: Archiving, backup and restore, hierarchical storage management, distributed storage management and media management. The Storage Management Products family augments OpenVision's OpenV*OPSS, an integrated suite of best-of-breed systems management applications in the areas of operations, performance, storage and security.

Simplified Backups

OpenV*NetBackup and OpenV*Volume Manager make it easier for system administrators to protect valuable data for a wide range of Unix and PC systems.

OpenV*NetBackup's flexible, easy-to-use scheduling facility fully automates the backup process. OpenV*NetBackup enables administrators to schedule "lights out" backups while allowing end users to perform their own backup, archive and restore operations on their own files on demand without administrator or operator intervention through a simple point-and-click graphical user interface.

OpenV*NetBackup enables administrators to divide client machines with common backup and archive requirements into powerful "client classes," making backup configuration for large networks much simpler, dramatically reducing set-up times. Backup configurations can be quickly defined and saved for repeated use.

OpenV*NetBackup requires no dedicated storage devices. The ability to back up to storage devices on multiple servers allows OpenV*NetBackup to be tailored to existing hardware in many cases. And through its support of raw data partitions, OpenV*NetBackup makes it possible to back up and archive live relational databases across the network.

OpenV*Volume Manager's powerful ability to coordinate the operation of multiple robotic peripherals offers unprecedented scalability for growing small networks as needed. OpenV*Volume Manager makes it easy to add new storage devices without greatly impacting existing applications and user procedures by isolating applications and users from device-specific commands, and supports multiple storage servers running concurrently

Broad Device and Platform Support OpenV*NetBackup and the integrated OpenV*Volume Manager are augmented by software supporting a wide range of robotic mass storage devices, including: HP Optical Disk Libraries, IGM Tape Carousel, Lago LS/380L Data Wheel, Exabyte 10i Tape Stacker, Metrum RSS-48b and RSS-600b Tape Libraries, Exabyte 60/120 Tape Libraries, StorageTek Automated Cartridge System.

Servers supported include: Sun4/SPARC platforms running SunOS 4.1.3, Hewlett-Packard Series 9000 Model 700 and 800 running HP-UX, and Control Data 4000 Series computers running EP/IX 2.1.1.

Clients supported include: Cyber 910/920 running IRIX 4.0.5 or 5.0, Control Data 4000 running EP/IX 2.1.1, DEC 3100 and 5000 running Ultrix 4.3, Apollo DN10000 and DN3000 running DomainOS 10.3.5 or 10.4, HP 9000-400 running DomainOS 10.3.5 or 10.4, HP 9000-300, -700, -800 running HP-UX 8.0, HP 9000-700 running HP-UX 9.0, IBM RS/6000 running AIX 3.2, SGI running IRIX 4.0.5 or 5.0, Sun3 running SunOS 4.1.1, Sun4/SPARC running SunOS 4.1.3, Sun4/SPARC running Solaris 2.2 (SunOS 5.2).

Pricing and Availability

OpenV*NetBackup version 1.6, and the integrated OpenV*Volume Manager version 1.6, are available now from OpenVision's direct sales force and telemarketing group, as well as through authorized value added resellers and OEMs.

The OpenV*NetBackup server costs $3200, while OpenV*NetBackup agents are $100 each for the client workstations listed above.

OpenV*Basic Volume Manager, without robotic device support, is available for $3200, and OpenV*Advanced Volume Manager with full robotic device support sells for $10,000.

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