It’s hard to believe, but most companies and organizations don’t keep archival copies of their emails and other critical files. Most can’t recover emails from even a year or two ago. Why? Because even if system backups are being performed, emails are often deleted from servers during routine tape rotations. Tape can also break, wear out and become demagnetized. But what happens when some of those emails or files are needed in a lawsuit? Or what if a regulatory agency asks for specific emails and you can’t produce them? The liabilities to an organization can be substantial:

Introducing OptiVault from Primera
OptiVault is a new archival appliance that backs up and quickly recovers all emails that are sent, received or deleted through Microsoft Exchange, including attachments. It operates unobtrusively in the background of your Exchange server, reliably backing up all emails on optical media.

When you need to recover emails from any mailbox for any date range OptiVault finds them on the appropriate backup discs and restores them automatically.

Because it uses non-erasable, non-rewritable media that can be stored off-site, OptiVault provides true WORM (Write Once Read Many) compliance. This is a critical specification for publicly-held corporations, healthcare, brokerage and financial institutions and others who must meet the strict email, data and document retention requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, SEC 17-a, HIPAA and a host of other government regulations.

WORM technology is also highly desirable for any organization that needs to be able to quickly and reliably retrieve data and files of all types without over-burdening primary storage devices or media. Experts agree that optical media is the most rugged and reliable backup media available. Its archival life is measured in decades — not just years.

Fast and Easy Deployment
OptiVault is designed for use in a wide range of environments that are already utilizing a variety of primary backup methods such as tape or RAID. It interfaces to your server(s) through a single high-speed USB 2.0 port. An optional Rack Mount Kit allows installation in a standard 19” 4U configuration. The lockable front panel door keeps media and the robotics safe and secure.

Using the included software from EMC Dantz, emails and other critical files are automatically archived on optical media according to customizable scripts. Each disc is also printed with serialization — an exclusive feature of OptiVault — for fast and easy cataloging and retrieval.

With a capacity of up to 117 GB (234 GB compressed) per backup set, OptiVault has more than enough room for every email plus attachments generated by hundreds of typical users per month. You can archive and backup emails and other important files not only from the server, but also from networked client computers running Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Solaris and Netware.

With OptiVault, there are:
Quick and efficient searches. The included software from EMC Dantz has the industry’s most sophisticated, high-speed indexing. OptiVault’s built-in robotics finds exactly which discs are needed to recover specific emails, files and folders — even when a particular user’s data is on multiple backup sets.

Fast, reliable recoveries. Optical media is a fast, random-access technology allowing quick searches and recoveries. Compared to other archival methods such as tape, you can recover mailboxes, messages and files in just minutes instead of hours or days.

No more broken or damaged tapes. Optical media is highly robust and reliable. Industry studies show that up to 50% of backup tapes will fail when restoring your company’s critical data!

No more tapes or cartridges to manually load. Advanced robotics automatically load the backup media — day or night. Depending upon the number of users, mailboxes and files you are archiving, you may not need to replenish media for several months. Recoveries are also completely automatic.

Powered by EMC Dantz® Retrospect® Software
Included with OptiVault is EMC Dantz Retrospect, Single Server Edition with Retrospect Agent for Exchange. This powerful, award-winning software installs on any Windows® XP/2000 PC or Windows 2000/2003 Server and provides fully-automated, hands-free backup. Using patented Progressive Backup technology, Retrospect only backs up one copy of any targeted file – even if it appears in more than one users’ mailbox or directory.

Operation is fast, because Retrospect and OptiVault utilize the industry’s most advanced optical media packet-writing technology. This combination of software and hardware achieves exceptional data transfer and write speeds of up to 60GB per hour.

Optional software agents are available for backup of SQL and open files. There’s even a disaster-recovery agent available for recovery of your servers to the most recent system state down to the “bare-metal” level. This saves an enormous amount of time and effort in true disaster recovery situations versus other methods such as tape. For more information about EMC Dantz Retrospect software, click here.

Downloads: 

OptiVault brochure  
OptiVault White Paper 
Tech News World Feature 

Specifications: