Archive for August, 2008
Some vitals stats I could gather from google/IDG/Gartner around -
- Almost 200M employees work remotely (off their desk)
- Close to 637K laptops are lost on US airports annually
- 65% of users don’t do a backup before they start the travel
- 90% of users don’t backup while on the move
In the last 6 weeks I (personally) have heard same statement from at least 8 VPs or CXOs - “I lost my data/notebook during last travel at …” - and none of them had a backup 
If I have to summarize, the top three reasons I heard from these guys:
- My backup software dosen’t work over WAN
- I had limited bandwidth connectivity
- I hate backups - they slow down my PC and work
The case for Druvaa inSync
Well this is the exact market we are focused on. Druvaa inSync does a wonderful job of remote backups because -
- It offers 90% savings in time, bandwidth and storage needed for backups.
- WAN acceleration boosts speed over WAN
- Smart bandwidth prioritization sets only a percentage of bandwidth for backup
- Super Secure - inSync uses SSL encryption over WAN and doesn’t need a VPN for backup.
Druvaa inSync saves single copy of data duplicate between users reducing the avg. backup size to almost 90% . (Considering the fact that corporate data is almost 80% duplicate between users). Yup, it’s truly unique and one of the most selling features of inSync.
Of course now these guys are taking business to me
August 31st, 2008
While doing some keyword research for Druvaa it began to become clear how interesting search engine statistic can be when you look closely at the data. From simple keyword suggestion tools, and graphs you can ascertain information that you never thought possible.
The terms “backup” or “recovery”, for instance, get over 300,000 searches per month each with Google. In other words people are searching for good solutions to keep their data safe. That information by itself is useful (at least to us), but it’s when you begin to look at more specific search terms that things really get interesting. In fact, you can even begin to clearly see trends within the industry when you compare specific terms over any given length of time.
With a look at some simple charts, you can begin to see things like:
- 1. Interest in laptop backup solutions has greatly increased over the past 10 years.
- 2. Some users are finding solutions to their data backup needs and disaster recovery isn’t as much of a problem as it was 4 years ago (but it still is a problem).
- 3. Enterprise users who have laptops in the office are still seeking a suitable solution to their backup needs.
- 4. Enterprise users who have offsite backup needs are still seeking a solution to business continuity.
To demonstrate how I can get all of that from a few search terms, let’s take a closer look at some charts.
A Look at Trends Using Search Engine Statistics
Using Google Labs and their experimental search tool you come up with the following charts for the terms “data backup” and “laptop backup”. This particular tool uses search volumes, online news statistics, number of websites, and more to show interest in any given topic. The charts clearly show that, while data backup has retained the same amount of interest over the past 10 years, interest in laptop backup has (and is) increasing.
Of course, this idea makes sense. Laptops have decreased greatly in price since 1998, and as such have become a more common tool both for enterprise users and at home. On the other hand, data integrity has been a problem for business users for a couple of decades now, so interest in the topic of “data backup” have remained relatively the same.
This information alone isn’t necessarily new. It’s the reason we created Druvaa InSync in the first place. The industry needed a reliable data backup solution, which is also fast enough to work well with computers that are on the go. To further look at what’s needed let’s look at some more charts. This time based on search volumes alone.
Laptop Backup as Important as Ever
Search volumes for any given term are an easy way to see what is happening within an industry, to gauge interest for a product or service, or even to see how one product relates to another. In the developed world more than 73% of the population has internet access, and over 88% of internet users go online when they seek a solution to a problem.
With that in mind let’s briefly look at some search engine statistic. In this case I have used Google Insights to compare related search terms. The charts are based on normalized data, over time. If you looked at the actual search volumes they would have increased with time (since Internet use has grown). To get a more accurate look, Insights uses normalized data displayed on a scale of 1 - 100.
Click Here to See the Chart for Yourself
The first chart compares the terms data backup and disaster recovery. There are two things that can be gained from this chart.
- 1. Since search volumes for both terms have declined over the past few years, it shows that some users are finding solutions to their backup needs, and disaster recovery is less of a problem today than it was in 2004/2005.
- 2. As the lines of the chart come together, they begin to show a direct correlation to each other. Very likely this is due to the fact that proper data backup is becoming the solution to disasters in the office. It really was only a few years ago that disaster recovery often meant taking that broken hard drive to have the data extracted. In the past couple of years, enterprise users have begun to see that simple backups are a cheaper (and more reliable) solution.
Since the term data backup may also relate to home users, with the next chart I used the term “enterprise backup” and compared it to “laptop backup”. Again we can see a couple of things from this chart. Once again we see a slight decline in the search volumes for enterprise backup. This confirms the idea that some enterprise users are finding a suitable solution to their backup needs.
Click Here to See the Chart for Yourself
By adding the term laptop backup though, something else begins to become clear. The term started the chart off at 61 and finished three years later at 62. There have been slight ups and downs in search volumes, but overall they have remained relatively the same. The two terms also begin to correspond closely with each other as the chart moves through 2007 and into 2008. To me this says that these terms are also beginning to become synonymous. In other words, although some enterprise users are finding a backup solution, those with laptops in the office aren’t.
I could repeat these same results with terms like “offsite backup” or “remote backup”.
With a simple look at search engine statistics we begin to see that enterprise users have a need for a laptop backup solution that works. With our own product, which provides 10x faster laptop backup and a 90% reduction in storage and bandwidth, there is a solution to suit.
August 25th, 2008
For any enterprise, the definition and amount of “critical data” on laptops and desktops is increasing. This is fueled by increasing security concerns, user mobility and cross-geography office expansions. While the expectations have increased, the existing backup solutions haven’t adapted well with these changes.
They still continue to depend upon large computational resources and dedicated and trusted network/media for backups. The reason, I think, is that most of PC backup solutions have been molded out of old server archival products.
In short, the key requirements for an enterprise PC backup should be -
- Simple and Automated
- Non-intrusive - Light weight and resource/power friendly
- Secure and Internet friendly
- WAN and bandwidth optimized
- Support for incremental backup for large files like Outlook PST
- On-demand restore points
Features Explained -
1. Simple and Automated
“Backing up your PC is one of those things, like eating right or changing your oil on time, that everybody knows they’re supposed to do, but too few people actually carry off well…”
Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal
Surprisingly most of the Notebook backup solutions still have calender schedules. IMO, this is prehistoric. The setup should be max 5 steps and schedules as simple as - “Run every 4 hours”.
2. Non-intrusive - Light weight and resource/power friendly
The primary reason employees hate backup is because of the system/network slowdowns caused by the backup which ticks in as soon as the user logs in.
Laptops are replacing desktops in most of the enterprises, but the software still hasn’t evolved. Backups should be resource friendly and optimized low power consumption. Also, simple options like these can make a lot of difference
- Don’t backup when i am on battery
- Consume max 10% of my CPU
- Consume max. 20% of my bandwidth
3. WAN and Bandwidth optimized
Every company has a reasonably good percentage of mobile workforce. And usually this includes the top-tier management (CEO, and likes). With increasing laptop thefts and data risks, backups should be WAN/Internet ready.
The user should be able to choose a bandwidth (something like use 10% of my bandwidth) and the backup solution should just do the job, even over the weakest internet links. This also greatly helps in cross-office backups and backup consolidation efforts.
4. Secure and Internet friendly
Security is very important, specially when you are over WAN/VPN. Most of the backup solutions are Server triggered, making security policies for firewalls and monitoring very diffic ult (every one is afraid, when they see data flowing out of their network).
The backups should be client triggered, so that the server side firewalls just allow and monitor inbound traffic. Also,The solution should be able to securely setup encrypted/authenticated channels to backup. (SSL channels are best, when it comes to WAN/Internet)
5. Support for incremental sync for large files like Outlook PST
With data increasing, and WAN coming into picture it is very important that the backups are incremental in nature and only the changed bits are copied back to the server.
6. On-demand restore (points)
Sending an email to admin to get the data back is surely complete NO, specially when the user may be off-site/traveling. The backup software should facilitate a smart (possibly browser) based remote and secure data restore.
So next time you choose a backup software for your personal or enterprise needs, make sure it has evolved to have the above mentioned features.
And remember - backup more, backup often.
August 23rd, 2008
When it comes to backing up offsite computers it is one area, where many businesses struggle. It isn’t necessarily that there aren’t solutions out there that will work. There are. The problem comes in finding a solution that will perform backups quickly. This is where most other backup software fails, and where our own inSync software truly shines.
Since inSync used up to 90% less bandwidth, and can perform a full backup 10 times faster than most other software, it is the ideal system to use for backing up laptops as well as PCs
Notebook Backup and Why inSync Works
With any software that is intended to backup PCs on a network, traditionally there was a tradeoff between resource usage and the actual data backed up. Backing up an entire hard drive across a network simply takes up too much storage and used too much of the networks resources to be feasible.
To compensate, most backup software used ideas like file compression, or data-mapping. These ideas are adequate for some purposes, but for full backups the software still ends up being slow and fairly resource intensive. Files are still duplicated, storage requirements are still quite large, and bandwidth is still a problem.
This is where inSync is different. With our patent-pending technology, SendUnqiue, our data backup software uses both: a more advanced compression technology and distributed data de-duplication technology. The software has the ability to recognize files that are common across the network, and doesn’t backup the same files twice.
In other words, inSync uses less storage, and less network resources to back up a PC. This makes inSync the ideal tool for backing up offsite computers (and PCs as well) since it takes less time to perform a backup.
If you take the time to read our inSync Benchmarks, it really means the difference between 3 minutes to backup and a full half hour!
August 22nd, 2008
Bangalore, Aug 11 2008
Nasscom showcases emerging product companies at Product Conclave 2008.
Chaired by Dr Ganesh Natarajan, this session was a showcase of three of India’s emerging Software Product companies. Dr. Natarajan started by sharing his excitement on the NASSCOM’s Emerge Forum. He then briefly introduced the companies.
OrangeScape: OrangeScape is the creator of DimensionN, business application development platform for non-programmers. It is one of NASSCOM’s Top 100 Innovative Companies. <snip> …
iViz Technologies: Started at IIT Kharagpur and based out of Kolkatta, iViz Technologies is an IDG funded venture. IT offers world’s only end-to-end On Demand Automated Penetration Testing service on a SaaS based model. <snip> …
Druvaa Software: A startup in the area of Storage Solutions, Druvaa Software is also the winner of the recent TiE-Canaan Entrepreneurship Challenge. Based out of Pune, Druvaa is an Indian Angel Network funded company.
Jaspreet Singh, one of the founders presented their technology. Druvaa has developed a product that provides continuous data back-up. It’s targeted at medium-sized firms in sectors that rely heavily on data accuracy, such as financial services. Druvaa inSync v2.1 offers upto 10 times faster enterprise Notebook backup compared to traditional methods with 90% reduction in bandwidth and storage utilization.
While talking on their uniqueness, Jaspreet shared why they could acquired a Fortune 500 customer who was earlier using data backup solution, offered by Veritas.
Dr. Natarajan concluded the session by acknowledging the entrepreneurs for the confidence they displayed in their venture and also assured them that NASSCOM is there to provide them the platform to take their venture to the next level.
Please read the full blog post at nasscom emerge blog -http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/08/11/nasscom-showcase-of-emerging-product-companies/
August 11th, 2008
Druvaa today announced the general availability of Druvaa inSync v2.1 which brings latest performance innovations from Druvaa and beating the Fast inSync v2.0 by almost 25%.
New features and improvements include -
- Up to 25% performance improvement specially while backing up over the WAN. (Details)
- Upgrade support for 1.x and 2.0 installations.
- Unicode path/file-name support.
- Log file path support for XP/Vista and misc. bug fixes.
A detailed list can be found in Release Notes.
Download 30 day evaluation copy - http://www.druvaa.com/download/insync.html
For further information and sales queries please contact sales@druvaa.com
About Druvaa inSync
Druvaa inSync offers upto 10 times faster enterprise notebook backup compared to traditional methods with 90% reduction in bandwidth and storage utilization. The solution uses advanced data de-duplication technology to backup data duplicate between users only once. On restore the user sees a timeline view of data and can restore from any point in the past.
More information about the product - http://www.druvaa.com/products/insync.html
About Druvaa
Formed in 2007, Druvaa Software is a leading provider of Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery solutions. Since inception Druvaa has released two products - Druvaa Replicator (Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery) and Druvaa inSync (Enterprise Laptop Backup). Druvaa is angel funded by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and Accord Internation (HK).
About Druvaa - http://www.druvaa.com/about/
About Products - http://www.druvaa.com/products/
August 4th, 2008