Ashwood Offers Disk to Disk Backup Solution for IBM Users

Ashwood Computer is providing FastBac, a customized Backup Configuration Solution, designed specifically for IBM UniData or UniVerse database users. FastBac is intended to provide U2 user sites with a low overhead method of acquiring fast and accurate data backups and restores, regardless of the time of day.

With FastBac, Rod Owens, president of Ashwood, told DBTA, periodically during the day a snapshot which takes less than a second is taken of the database “without shutting the system off and taking people off of it.” This is particularly valuable to those people who run 24x7 and can't shut down for several hours to do a backup, he explained.

“A lot of the sites that we work with have little or no window for backup. This is the main reason we do FastBac,” said Doug Owens, vice president. “Users can be on accessing records and reports,” he said. “They won't even notice the backups taking place.”

According to Doug Owens, “We can back up to disk or tape libraries or local or remote servers. Fastbak is really a product for addition - it is a utility for addition to a company's overall backup or business continuity plan. You still continue to do your tape backups but Fastbak being disk-based allows for a lot faster recovery of information.”

The FastBac solution includes: comprehensive review of the user's current backup procedures; update of the user's operating system to a recommended level;
update of the user's disk configuration; update of the user's U2 to a recommended revision level; customized shell scripts for backups. With FastBac, backups and restores are network-accessible, reducing the time it takes to perform either process.

“We have got ports to Windows and HP-UX, Solaris and Linux coming soon,” said Doug Owens, “but right now it is just U2 and AIX.” For more information, send an email to dougo@ashwoodcomputer.com or visit here.