System iNetwork

November 25, 2008

Reader's Choice: Vault400

Our latest nomination is from Dave Caudle, MIS Manager at Lorraine Home Fashions. He's nominated Vault400 from United Computer Group as his favorite product for the i: "I heard through the grapevine that you were interested in feedback about products and/or services that have really helped out. One such product/service that I’ve found very useful is Vault400 from United Computer Group."

VAULT400 backs up business-critical data on the IBM i for immediate online recovery by taking a point-in-time backup during each scheduled session. If a restore is needed, VAULT400 can provide the data from any specific backup.

Here's what Dave had to say about the solution:

A year or so ago, I was searching for a vendor that would provide me with a means of backing up our iSeries to a secure, offsite storage location and allow me to get out from under the drudgery and time consuming task of dealing with tapes. Following up on another vendor’s recommendation, I was put in touch with Jim Kandrac at UCG and learned about their Vault400 product. It does everything I was hoping for. The product itself takes up very little space on the system and their technicians did the installation, configuration, and testing for me. After an initial seeding process that was done over a weekend, the subsequent daily backups save only the delta changes, so they're very quick. The data is encrypted, so the backup process is secure. Plus, the backups are convenient because they can be scheduled to run at a time that will not interfere with regularly scheduled operations. Their service allows for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly retention of backups as needed, so we’re always covered.

Another feature that UCG offers is their Vault400 Disaster Recovery Quick-Ship program. This is like an insurance policy that covers us in case our iSeries should ever fail. UCG retains our configuration data on file, and if we ever have to declare an emergency, they’ll use that data to obtain, configure, and ship a comparable system to us within 48 hours. But the good thing is that we’ll never have to pay for anything unless we actually use the service. If we never have any problems, we’ll never have to pay a thing. It’s just an added benefit of doing business with UCG.

The Vault400 service costs no more than what we were paying before for offsite storage of our backup media. And since we’ll never have to pay to have a tape brought back early or to schedule an additional pickup, we’ll save money in the long run. Plus, the backups are available whenever we need them, so if we need to restore some data we don’t have to wait for a tape to be returned from off-site storage. If anyone is in the market to replace their tape-based backup solution with something more reliable, secure, and convenient, I would highly recommend Vault/400 from United Computer Group.

Thanks for the suggestion, Dave!

****Reader's Choice is a System iNEWS/System iNetwork feature that lets nonbiased readers (no vendor employees, please) offer feedback on products and services that have helped them. If you'd like to recommend a product that you've used to solve actual problems, save an enterprise money, or simplify a process, we--and our readers--want to know about it. Put your recommendation of 500 words or less here or send it to Erin Bradford at erin.bradford@penton.com or post it on our LinkedIn page under the Discussions tab.****

--Erin Bradford, systems management & availability editor

Posted by ebradford at November 25, 2008 12:34 PM