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Revinetix - Total Disk BackupRevinetix FAQs



 

Is there a per site or per client license fee with Revinetix RevOS disk backup solution?

No. There is no per site fee. There is no per client fee. All Revinetix appliances come standard with a capacity license that allows all users to backup, restore and archive from the appliance, including an unlimited number of servers and clients from all customer locations, even over a VPN.

  • Purchase and use the capacity needed to protect your entire organization with a single, “All-In-One” complete network attached data protection appliance. Capacity license includes all the hardware and software required for reliable, secure, easy-to-use disk-based backups.
  • No site fees or limitations. The purchase of each Revinetix data protection appliance allows the customer to perform backup, recovery and archive services across an unlimited number of customer locations.
  • Without additional license fees, the Revinetix total backup appliance supports replication for disaster recovery solutions.
  • No server fees or limitations. The purchase of each Revinetix data protection appliance allows the customer to perform backup, recovery and archive services across an unlimited number of customer servers.
  • No client fees or limitations. The purchase of each Revinetix data protection appliance allows the customer to perform backup, recovery and archive services across an unlimited number of customer clients, including desktop and laptop computers, even over VPNs.
  • No license renewal fees required. Extended software maintenance agreements are available to provide feature enhancements beyond the initial one-year warranty.
  • When your organization expands, data protection for any and all new servers and desktop/laptop computers can be added and managed through your Revinetix backup appliance, with no additional fees.
  • Revinetix capacity licensing contributes to making Revinetix one of the lowest TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) solutions for data protection. No annual license renewal fees to worry about or plan for.
  • With current economic pressures, Revinetix offers a proven solution that’s affordable and easy on your budget.
  • Capacity licensing includes support for all major operating systems, including Microsoft, Netware, Linux, MAC OS-X, BSD, AIX, SCO Unix, and Solaris. No paying separate fees for each operating system. In fact, the Revinetix total backup appliance protects servers and clients running different operating systems in a single network environment.
  • Capacity licensing includes Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server agents. Unlike most backup solution providers, Revinetix does not charge additional software licensing fees for these agents. Everything needed is included in the Revinetix capacity license.
  • Data deduplication storage optimization and Active Directory support are also included in the Revinetix capacity license

Other vendors talk of Disk2Disk. Why should I choose Revinetix?

Most other vendors have Disk2Disk solutions that rely on tape for archiving, which has a very high rate of failure. Revinetix deploys disk technology throughout the entire data protection process, including backup, recovery and offsite archiving. Revinetix also fully integrates it's innovative data protection software (RevOS) into the mix, resulting in a solution that is comprehensive, easy to install and manage, and affordable to the SMB.

Can I perform remote backups with the Revinetix backup solution?

The Revinetix backup appliances can directly backup remote clients across a WAN.

Can I backup a mixture of Operating Systems?

Yes. With any of the Revinetix appliances, a wide range of Operating System support is included. The standard software supports Microsoft, Netware, Linux, MAC OS-X, BSD, AIX, SCO Unix, and Solaris. Additional Operating System support can usually be added.

If I lost my data center (including my Revinetix appliance) in a disaster, how could I restore my data from my archives? Would I need another Revinetix appliance?

The following text is from the Revinetix Disaster Recovery Program, described at www.revinetix.com:

Any Revinetix customer who has a current Software Maintenance contract is eligible for the Disaster Recovery Assistance Program. Under this program, a customer may call the Revinetix support line and inform the support staff of the emergency. Within two business days of notification, Revinetix will ship a temporary appliance to help the customer restore their data from their archive media. The Revinetix support staff will
assist the customer via telephone in any data restoration issues as its highest priority. The customer is responsible only for the shipping charges, and may keep the loaner appliance for up to two weeks.

What are the benefits of Data Deduplication?

Disk to Disk technology
The backup and disaster recovery industry today is experiencing a renaissance with the advent of Disk to Disk backup technology. The arrival of Disk to Disk based backup technology has enabled a complete rethinking of the backup process and has provided the foundation for new and exciting features to make an administrator’s life much easier.

One bright example of this renaissance is the arrival of Data Deduplication technology. Deduplication is getting a lot of press and attention lately and rightly so as deduplication is one of the biggest industry changing features to date.

Benefits of Data Deduplication
In a nutshell, data deduplication is the process of identifying duplicate copies of data, recording where that data is stored, and finally storing a single copy of that data. This process can result in large space and cost savings for customers.

The typical space savings depends a lot on the data that the data deduplication agent is processing. For example, large encrypted files with little duplicate data will not benefit much from the data deduplication process. However, a team of developers working on the same code, or a team of graphic designers working on the same project generally will have a lot of duplicate data.

A process such as Backup and Archiving which generally has a lot of redundant data (how many copies of Windows or Microsoft Office does your organization have?) can benefit immensely from data deduplication. Some vendors claim up to a factor of 300x for space savings, but a factor of 20x is more realistic.

As mentioned earlier, the data deduplication is a new feature and technology born from the paradigm switch from using tape as a backup medium to using disk as a backup medium. Unlike disk, tape is a sequential or non random-access medium; data can only be read or written in sequence.

This sequential characteristic of tape means that generally, it takes longer to access specific files. Disk to Disk backup enables immediate access to specific files without having to read through the preceding files on the disk. This greatly speeds up the process of both backup and recovery and can save valuable time. It also enables the system to be more efficient, backup the data and move on to the next task.

Client Side Deduplication
In this scenario, the agent residing on the client handles the deduplication process. The client is the ultimate authority of what data resides on it, and what data is changed. Especially for remote offices where network bandwidth is at a premium, being able to deduplicate the data prior to sending it to the backup appliance at the main office saves valuable bandwidth. The down side to this is that the processing of the data consumes client processor time. Depending on the circumstances, the trade off for network bandwidth could be well worth it.

In-Band Deduplication
For appliance based products that use the in-band approach, data is deduped before the data is actually written to the disk. This process has the advantage that the data is only touched once. However, the in-band approach adds increased overhead to the actual backup process, and can slow down the process, which is not ideal.

Out-of-Band Deduplication
For appliance based products that use the out-of-band approach, backup data is first written to disk in-line during the backup process. After the backup is finished, the data is then processed and duplicated data is discarded. Since the data is not processed in-line, there is no overhead penalty during the backup. The trade-off here is that extra storage is necessary while the backup data is being post processed, but there is the assurance that the backup data is captured as quickly as possible.

Best Approach
In our view, the biggest advantage of disk-to-disk technology and data deduplication is being able to combine all three approaches to leverage the strengths of each, while mitigating their weaknesses. For example, Continuous Data Protection (CDP) is a Client Side Approach that makes a lot of sense. A CDP based client knows which data has been modified, and can keep track of it on the fly. Newly modified data is rarely a duplicate and can be confidently sent to the backup server appliance. When the back end server is coordinated with smart clients, duplicated data can be identified on the fly; greatly reducing overall network congestion while minimizing client side processing.

Data deduplication is big win in any backup environment; as is replacing tape with disks as an archival medium. We recommend you consider incorporating Disk to Disk and Data Deduplication technologies into your Backup processes.

How does your software license model work?

The Revinetix appliances come with a capacity license, allowing an unlimited number of servers and clients to be backed up at no additional charge. And support for all major operating systems, MSSQL, Exchange and deduplication are included. Therre are no additional license fees.

How do I archive data off-site with Revinetix?

Revinetix offers a revolutionary approach to disaster proofing. With the Sentio line of products from Revinetix, you can select key files that will be saved to a removable disk to be safely stored off-site.

What operating systems does RevOS currently support?

RevOS supports Microsoft, Netware, Linux, MAC OS-X, BSD, AIX, SCO Unix, and Solaris.

If my data needs grow, can I expand my capacity?

Yes. There are a number of alternatives for expanding your capacity. We recommend you speak to one of our sales people to identify the appropriate solution for you.

What is the largest capacity available from Revinetix?

Revinetix data protection solutions range from 500GB to 70TB of licensed capacity.

What does Revinetix recommend for a backup schedule?

Revinetix recommends using its automated “monthly” backup schedule, which performs only 1 full backup per month – with differential and incremental backups throughout the remainder of the month. The Revinetix appliances automatically manage the differential and incremental backups, and help allow the maximum utilization of the onboard disk based capacity.

What is the capacity of the Sentio Pro 1000 and 2000 Series?

The Sentio Pro 1000 Series provides 500GB to 4TBs of licensed capacity (1-8TBs of raw capacity).

The Sentio Pro 2000 Series provides 1.5 to 12TBs of licensed capacity (2-16TBs of raw capacity).

Do I need to purchase additional software to use the Revinetix products?

No. All Revinetix data protection appliances include our data protection software, RevOS. We provide a complete backup, restore and archive solution. The Revinetix solution also comes with a capacity license, enabling your organization to backup as many servers and workstations as needed without additional licensing fees.

  • Capacity licensing includes support for all major operating systems, including Microsoft, Netware, Linux, MAC OS-X, BSD, AIX, SCO Unix, and Solaris. No paying separate fees for each operating system. In fact, the Revinetix total backup appliance protects servers and clients running different operating systems in a single network environment.
  • Capacity licensing includes Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server agents. Unlike most backup solution providers, Revinetix does not charge additional software licensing fees for these agents. Everything needed is included in the Revinetix capacity license.
  • Data deduplication storage optimization and Active Directory support are also included in the Revinetix capacity license.

What is your product End-of-Life Policy (EOL)?

Products reach the end of their product life cycle for a number of reasons. These reasons may be due to technology innovation, changes in the product, market demands, or simply because products mature over time and are replaced by better technology. While this is an established part of the overall product life cycle, Revinetix recognizes that end-of-life milestones such as end-of-sale and end-of-support life impact its valued customers. Therefore, Revinetix has established an end-of-life policy to help customers better manage this transition and help migrate to better suited platforms and technologies.

The End-of-life Policy applies to End-of-life and End-of-sale announcements made on or after August 1, 2008 for all Revinetix product lines. The Policy does not apply to product that is already subject to an End-of-life and/or End-of-sale announcement.

Definitions:

  • End-of-life Program - A process that guides the final business operations associated with the product life cycle. The end-of-life process consists of a series of milestones that once completed make a product obsolete. Once obsolete, the Product is not sold, improved, repaired, maintained, or supported.
  • End-of-sale Notice - A formal notice that specifies the last date of purchase, specifies the support period, and/or transition to a replacement product.
  • End-of-sale – The last date on which a Revinetix catalog number is available for purchase through normal sales channels.
  • End-of-support - The date on which Revinetix ceases to provide support services for a product.

End-of-life Policy:

  1. 1. Revinetix will provide advanced notice of End-of-sale by means of an End-of-sale Notice. This notice will specify the End-of-sale date and End-of-support date for that product. This notice will appear on Revinetix’s website, http://www.revinetix.com/. This site contains useful information regarding Revinetix’s end-of-life program so visit it regularly. Revinetix also may send e-mail notifications or notify verbally.
  2. The end-of-sale notice will contain the end-of-support date. Revinetix will continue to support hardware after the end-of-sale date up to the end-of-support date in accordance with all warranties and maintenance contracts.
  3. Spares or replacement parts for hardware will be available while the product is supported and all warranties will be honored. In some cases, the exact same spare or replacement part may not be available. In those cases, Revinetix will provide a functionally equivalent part. Parts may be new or refurbished.
  4. Software support will be as follows
    a. End-of-sale notices will be used to notify end-of-life decisions for Revinetix software or software features. The End-of-sale Notice will include a date for End-of-support.
    b. While software or a software feature is in support, Revinetix will provide fixes, maintenance releases, work arounds, or patches for critical bugs.
    c. After End-of-support, Revinetix may provide limited support such as bug fixes, workarounds or patches. It may be necessary to upgrade software to a current release to correct a reported problem.
  5. Support is only available for products covered under a current and fully paid support contract or warranty with Revinetix. Please contact Revinetix Sales regarding fees payable during the end-of-life period so that we can support you through the end-of-life transition period.
  6. The End-of-life policy pertains to any custom hardware or software.
  7. Below are guidelines that should be followed to ensure that you receive effective support for your products:
    a. Stay current with hardware warranties and/or software maintenance contracts.
    b. Additional one-year hardware warranties can be purchased as you get near to warranty expiration. If your warranty lapses you may be subject to a service charge upon renewal. Warranties can be extended up to 4 years from the date of purchase.
    c. One-year Software Maintenance contracts can be purchased as you get near to expiration. If your maintenance contract lapses you may be subject to a service charge upon renewal. Maintenance contracts can be extended indefinitely. You will need to be current with software maintenance contracts to receive support.

Does the Revinetix solution take advantage of VSS (Volume Shadow Services) on Advanced Server2003 and XP?

Yes, Revinetix takes advantage of Microsoft’s VSS in backing up clients running Advanced Server 2003 and XP. For these clients, Revinetix can backup open files without any other agents. For other MS Operating Systems (and Netware) an Open File agent may be necessary.

Can I implement my current Archive schedule (grandfather, father, son) in some fashion with your appliance?

Yes, any archive schedule can be implemented utilizing Revinetix’ built in Disk based archive features. Revinetix and its resellers can work with their customers to recommend an optimal archive scheme based on specific requirements.

Additionally, Revinetix supports archiving to removable USB Disk, or to tape from the larger appliances.

Do you have a message level exchange agent?

Yes. We include our own native "Exchange Agent for Microsoft" product in our suite of solutions. This product is included as a standard part of the solution.  We currently support Exchange 2003, and 2007.

How much capacity will I save with compression?

The specific capacity savings for each implementation will be different, based on the number and types of files being compressed. The average capacity savings range between 60% to 100%, but can be greater or lesser than this.

Can I have several appliances replicating to one another?

Each SENTIO appliances comes with Revinetix replication software as a standard feature. The replication provides for replication one to one, one to many, or many to one – giving clients the widest possible set of options.

What is the capacity of the Sentio HD 3000 and 4000 Series?

The Sentio HD 3000 Series provides 6.5 to 26TBs of licensed capacity (8-32TBs of raw capacity).

The Sentio HD 4000 Series provides 10 to 40TBs of licensed capacity (12-48TBs of raw capacity).

How can Revinetix help me with Compliance?

Revinetix offers a wide range of storage capacities that will enable your company to grow as your data needs grow.

With the Revinetix Disk2Disk2Disk technology you can archive data offsite via removable disk. These archive disks can be utilized for long term static storage of crucial data.

What are the capacity licenses available for the Sentio Series?

The Sentio Series includes configurations that provide capacity licenses for 500GB to 35TB.