Even the most thorough business continuity plan is no substitute for an equally thorough disaster recovery plan. No enterprise IT infrastructure is immune from the many disasters - disk crashes, power failures, human error, natural disasters - that will inevitably stop the flow of data at one or more of your facilities. When that time comes, IT will be on the hook for dusting off the disaster recovery plan and restoring the valuable data that had been created since the last back up. Will your disaster recovery plan work?

If your disaster recovery plan includes data replication solutions from Double-Take Software, the answer will be a resounding "yes." Tape-based disaster protection can only restore data to the point of the last backup, which was most likely the prior night. Any data created since the last backup will be lost. Effective disaster recovery planning requires a complete data protection plan including tape backup and continuous data replication.

Double-Take is a disaster recovery solution based on asynchronous real-time replication and automatic failover to provide cost-effective business continuity for Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, virtual systems, file servers, and many other applications. Double Take provides continuous data protection by sending an up-to-the-minute copy of the data as it is being changed to the target server. Features such as built-in bandwidth control from Double-Take Software allows data to be replicated to a remote source, far from harms way of a disaster such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and brown-outs. That same bandwidth control allows data to be restored within minutes.

If you are involved with disaster recovery planning in any way, data replication solutions from Double-Take Software are absolutely essential to complement the more commonly found tape-based backup solutions.

"With customers buying and installing record amounts of storage-hardware capacity, the need for storage software has never been greater," says Rhoda Phillips, research manager for IDC storage software. "Buyers are particularly interested in replication software to help ensure that their disaster-recovery and business-continuity plans are viable in planning for recovery from any unwelcome and unpredictable events that might occur." – VARBusiness, By Chris Gonsalves, October 11, 2006

Real People. Real Stories. Real Choices.

Two Double-Take Software customers, W&T Offshore and MassHousing, have shared their data protection and disaster recovery stories here.

PODCAST: Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina
Reid Lea, Executive Vice President, W & T Offshore
Interviewed by: Bob Roudebush, Director of Solutions Engineering for Double-Take Software
To listen now, click here. (podcast)

About W&T Offshore: W&T Offshore is an independent oil and natural gas company focused primarily in the Gulf of Mexico area, including the deep water. They are headquartered in Houston, Texas and trade on the NYSE under the symbol "WTI".

PODCAST: A Day in the life of MassHousing — Disaster Recovery Planning
Thaddeus Darcy, Systems Administrator, MassHousing
Interviewed by: Bob Roudebush, Director of Solutions Engineering for Double-Take Software
To listen now, click here. (podcast)

About MassHousing: MassHousing provides affordable housing resources in Massachusetts. Their purpose is to provide home ownership and rental housing opportunities for Massachusetts residents with low and moderate incomes who are under-served by conventional housing markets.