Ixilix Launches Backup Service

PHILADELPHIA -- Ixilix announced today that it now offers low-cost disk-to-disk (D2D) backups as a service for new customers. The service had previously been restricted to Ixilix hosting and managed infrastructure clients. "Many companies are still using tape for backups. Anyone with a tape library more than 2 1/2 years old can benefit from switching to a managed service using disk-based backups. Once a tape library goes into extended maintenance, disk-based backup is cheaper than tape," said Robert Boyer, Senior Vice President at Ixilix. "For anyone looking at having to purchase a new tape library or maintain an older model, the time is definitely right to switch to disk-based backups with offsite replication. Between hardware savings, savings on maintenance contracts, and being able to reduce or eliminate tape pickup services, the ROI is a no-brainer," Boyer added.

Customers continue to use their existing backup software such as Backup Exec, Commvault, Brightstor, or Vizioncore. The existing software backs up data to a hardware appliance installed at the customer location. This ensures that customers always have a local copy of their backup, and can recover quickly when needed. The hardware appliance uses data deduplication and replication to send an exact copy of the backup data to a secure offsite location. The data is in a WAN-efficient, encrypted format and sent over VPN. Because customers continue to use their existing backup software, job scheduling and retention policies do not change, installation is done in 30 minutes, and there is no learning curve.

As part of the service, Ixilix offers secure offsite storage in one of its certified SAS 70 Type II data centers. Detailed pricing for the service has not yet been announced but is expected to start at under $1 per gigabyte per month, including the cost of hardware, storage, and remote monitoring.

"Besides cost, Ixilix now addresses the other major issue in tape backup, which is security. Whenever your data is on portable media, whether tape or removable hard disk, there are serious compliance issues to be considered, since tapes are sometimes lost in transit," Boyer continued. "Companies that handle sensitive financial, personal, or healthcare data, including Social Security numbers and credit card transactions should consider switching to disk-based backup with offsite replication," Boyer said.

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