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Translated from the Belgian IT magazine
DataNews
May 2001

Safety Above All

If you have never lost a file or crashed a hard disk, then you are a happy computer user. Many people have been through crashed disks, and a good backup is the only lifesaver.

Backups are made of course with backup software. We have tested four backup software programs for Windows® NT®/2000, plus the Microsoft backup standard delivered with Windows 2000.

• ARCServe 2000
• Legato Networker 6
• UltraBac 6.2
  
• Veritas Backup Exec 8.5
• Microsoft Windows Backup 5.0

The American company, UltraBac Software, is active in our area. They just released their backup software UltraBac 6.2. In this new version, they included a wizard to simplify the configuration of regularly used options and tasks. You can also work with menus, and it is even possible to edit regular text files for running backups.

UltraBac has a number of very strong points. The backup/verify/restore does work very quickly, an average of 10% faster than the competition. UltraBac supports nearly every backup environment (except a backup server of SAN, unless achievable by driveletter or networkpad). UltraBac can even jump over to an alternative target, if the system doesn't function very well or if the backup volume is getting full or overloaded. It is even possible to join together a number of similar targets to one group (for example several tape drives), and spread the backup data over several devices, just like a RAID-system. This guarantees that you'll never be stuck if a device or tape fails during a backup or a restore.

UltraBac can also make a "mirror image" on the hard disk of one or more partitions, just as DriveImage (PowerQuest) or Norton Ghost can. With this reference, UltraBac makes it possible to copy directly from disk to disk (cloning). Besides you can duplicate a tape, which previously was - as far as we know - only possible with Legato. This is particularly useful when you need a second copy of a very important tape to store in another location.

BEI is proud of the fact that UltraBac is the only solution which succeeds in backing up and restoring a Microsoft NT Cluster, while the cluster remains completely functional. According to BEI, this has been tested and confirmed by Microsoft.

As with the other backup programs, all network functions are optional and have to be bought separately. This is true of backup agents for network stations (there are several agents for all possible desktops, but all the agents are optional), and for the backup functions for Microsoft Exchange and SQL. So everything is available, but you have to buy each as an individual option.

Conclusion

UltraBac is without any doubt the Best Performer, as well as a Best Buy. You get a high work speed and a lot of possibilities, services, and options.

DataNews May 2001