Hitchcock School Protects Data and IT Resources With Replay AppImage

RESTON, VA--(Marketwire - May 20, 2009) - The Hitchcock Independent School District educates over 1,200 students through 4 schools, a Head Start program, and special education services. Chris Armacost, Hitchcock's Director of IT, leads a three-person team that is responsible for supporting every aspect of the school district's infrastructure -- end-user devices, the network, applications and mission-critical databases.

Backup and recovery for the SQL databases that contain student, application, and financial data was a big worry until Chris implemented Replay AppImage, application assurance software from AppAssure. "I don't spend hours on tape backups and then worry about dirty tapes anymore," says Chris.

Replay AppImage takes snapshots of SQL databases, data, and associated applications every 15 minutes. Data is compressed and Replay AppImage checks all incoming data to make sure that backups are corruption-free. Should an SQL server crash, restoration would take minutes, not hours or days. "I don't worry about a server going down now," says Chris. "I can just flip on a new server and it's as current as 15 minutes ago."

That's a huge improvement over Hitchcock's previous SQL backup and recovery solution. "We were just doing tape backups at night which isn't 100%," says Chris. "The backup might fail or there might be bad data on the backup. And since it took 9 hours to back up just the D: drives, we weren't backing up the C: drives. That meant that only data, and not applications, were backed up. If a server went down, we had to rebuild the whole thing."

Chris was also using shadow copy (VSS) to take snapshots of data. "That worked but we were limited to 2 snapshots per day because there's no compression. Space limits the number of snapshots you can take and how long you can keep them."

Replay AppImage continuously images the entire server including all the tables, indexes, system tables and the database objects in those tables and enables DBAs to restore SQL databases to a local or remote SQL Server in just minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse. The Replay AppImage SQL pack:

--  Protects the entire SQL environment -- including system and user
    databases, logs, operating system and SQL binaries
--  Eliminates the backup window with off-host backup processing
--  Streamlines disaster recovery with push button failover to a virtual
    standby of production SQL servers
--  Simplifies management of all backup and recoveries through
    a centralized console
--  Enables continuous access to point-in-time databases for recovery

Besides saving Chris and his team time and worry, Replay AppImage also respects Hitchcock's tight finances. "Budget is always a concern and it was nice that we didn't have to purchase new server hardware to install Replay AppImage," says Chris. "I was able to use old servers after installing new drives and controller cards which all together cost about $800."

About Replay AppImage

Replay AppImage is an application-aware, disk-based imaging solution that automatically and continuously protects Windows applications. It is the only solution that eliminates the backup window and continuously checks for corruption. It also uniquely leverages virtualization to automatically create and continuously update standby virtual machines. Enabling users to access applications, including email, during a live recovery, Replay AppImage also recovers entire applications from bare-metal in just a few clicks. Replay AppImage is available now with pricing starting at $899 USD per server. For more information or to download a trial, please visit: http://www.appassure.com/Resources/downloads.aspx

About AppAssure Software

AppAssure Software is a provider of innovative backup and disaster recovery software that has been purpose-built for Windows applications. Designed to protect the applications, not just the data, AppAssure solutions deliver high-value features for reliable data protection that is corruption-free. Using a centralized server architecture, AppAssure solutions feature off-host processing that will eliminate backup windows and enable a live restore for a down application. As a result, IT administrators can have the confidence that their Windows applications are completely protected and easily recoverable in the event of data loss or disaster. AppAssure is a Gold Certified Microsoft partner, and a member of VMware and BlackBerry alliance programs. For more information, please visit www.AppAssure.com.

Contact Information: Media Contact: Angela Lauria AppAssure 202.230.4444