Features - Storage Innovations:

OVERLAND ANNOUNCES HIGH-PERFORMANCE DISK-BASED BACKUP APP

Overland Storage Inc, a leading provider of backup and recovery solutions, introduced REO 4000, its next-generation, high-performance disk-based backup and recovery appliance. Unlike other disk-based products, the REO 4000 is specifically designed to optimize both backup and recovery, resulting in near-instantaneous restores and significantly shorter backup windows. The cost-effective REO 4000 offers an array of features and options that ensure easy integration into existing data protection environments. As a result, REO 4000 delivers an industry-leading combination of backup and recovery performance, flexibility, reliability and affordability.

"REO 4000 is a key component of Overland's strategy to deliver powerful, affordable data protection solutions that ensure business continuity," said Christopher Calisi, president and chief executive officer of Overland Storage. "As data continues to proliferate, new regulations require companies to maintain, manage and recover critical data for extended periods of time. Consequently, today's IT departments are under mounting pressure to protect increasing amounts of data while minimizing impact on the bottom line. By providing reliable, affordable, high-speed backup and recovery, REO 4000 helps customers achieve their data protection goals."

The REO 4000 is a preconfigured, easy-to-install appliance incorporating high-capacity serial ATA disks, specialized software, both iSCSI and Fibre Channel connectivity, and RAID 5 capabilities. With data transfer rates of up to 300GB per hour, REO significantly reduces the time it takes to backup and recover, and performs up to 300 percent faster than many other disk-based products. In addition, the REO 4000 is capable of operating as either disk or virtual tape, enabling it to easily integrate into existing backup and recovery processes.

An ideal disk-to-disk solution, the REO 4000 provides users with improved real-time disaster recovery and the ability to optimize the role tape plays in their backup strategy. According to a recent Taneja Group survey, 76 percent of storage managers indicated that they will utilize both tape and disk in the next year. When integrated with tape automation, such as Overland's NEO Series of tape libraries, the REO allows users to achieve the instant data recovery of disk and long-term archival benefits of tape, for a complete disk-to-disk-to-tape solution.

"The REO 4000's unique combination of speed, flexibility and features enables it to meet our customers' ever-changing data protection requirements," said Robert Scroop, vice president and general manager of thr Storage Resource Business Unit for Overland Storage. "By significantly improving data recovery times, reducing backup windows, and protecting existing technology investments, the REO 4000 delivers cost-effective, reliable data protection."

"In a recent survey of U.S. IT managers, IDC found that 60 percent are, or soon plan to be, leveraging disk-based backup systems to reduce backup windows and speed application recovery," said Richard Villars, vice president of storage systems at IDC. "Solutions like Overland's REO 4000 that provide end users with a reliable and secure data protection process for both Fibre Channel or iSCSI storage environments will play a major role in enhancing companies' data protection and business continuity plans."

About the REO 4000

Building on the proven REO platform, the REO 4000 offers an array of features that improve performance, reliability and flexibility.

• Block-level data transfer increases performance, providing significantly faster backups and restores versus file-level transfer technologies.
• 2 Gb Fibre Channel and 1 Gb iSCSI interfaces offer flexible connectivity for any existing storage environment. Both are included in the Fibre Channel configuration.
• Tape emulation allows data to be managed in LTO-2 tape format for easier integration with current backup software.
• Disk virtualization allows users to customize the size of the storage targets needed for their backup, up to 16 LUNs.
• RAID data protection capabilities enable IT administrators to configure the REO 4000 with RAID if desired, for an additional level of data protection.
• Supports universal operating systems and third-party software, including Solaris, Windows, Netware, Linux, Veritas NetBackup and Backup Exec, CA BrightStor ArcServe, Bakbone NetVault, Legato Networker and more.
• Increased reliability and data availability with managed hot swappable disk drives, dual power supplies and cooling, dual processors and dual controllers.

"As is typical, Overland has listened to end user needs and designed a high-performance yet flexible storage appliance for disk-based backup and recovery that leverages current backup infrastructure," said Alan Dorrian, principal of Integrated Data, an Overland value-added reseller. "Overland is a trusted industry leader with more than 20 years in delivering simple, affordable, complete solutions that address the entire data storage picture."