Druva goes live with inSync backup app for enterprises

Computerworld - Druva, a company that sells enterprise backup software, today announced Druva inSync 4.1 Enterprise, an application that the company claims to offer near-instantaneous automated backups of laptops.

An additional tool, included with the 4.1 release, also allows iPads and iPhones to be backed up over a corporate network.

The inSync application also offers one-click restores of any file or backup volume and uses block-level data deduplication for backups and restores, according to Druva CEO Jaspreet Singh.

"Storage on laptops has increased 200 times over the past 10 years. In 2000, the average person only had 15MB of critical data on their laptop. Today, they have 10GB of critical data," Singh said. "At the same time, the average network connectivity has not increased as significantly."

Singh said his company's application can be installed by users in less than 20 minutes with a five-step procedure and its client-triggered backup architecture enables high levels of scalability and security. The inSync application also incorporates "smart bandwidth" throttling through its Octopus WAN Optimization Engine, which automatically prioritizes networks and schedules backup bandwidth as a percentage of overall network bandwidth. The WAN optimizer chooses the optimal packet size and opens up as many as eight parallel connections at the same time.

Hans Vermaak, project lead at Xerox, said in a statement that his company deployed Druva inSync because it needed a backup tool for laptops in case of unrecoverable Microsoft Windows crashes, as well as for data resiliency against lost laptops, damaged hard disks or virus outbreaks.

"Today we're realizing great savings on storage with Druva inSync, and we now have visibility into the information assets created by our employees. And employees say they are pleased that inSync protects their work, as it operates in the background; that it has no effect on laptop performance; and that they can retrieve backup files rapidly from any point in the past," he said.

Druva inSync 4.1 runs on Windows or Linux commodity servers. The servers can be configured with solid-state drives (SSDs) to enable a "hyper cache" feature, which will increase backup performance as much as six-fold, according to Singh.

Druva inSync is available now with pricing starting at $40 per client. Each inSync server license supports up to 2,000 users.

Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld. Follow Lucas on Twitter at  @lucasmearian or subscribe to Lucas's RSS feed . His e-mail address is lmearian@computerworld.com.

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