Paragon Software Wins “Best in Show”

Paragon Software Group was invited to the  Orange County SMBTN (SMB Technology Network) meeting in Irvine recently. The group consists of local IT consultants and resellers. The focus of this meeting was to have a shootout between the who’s who of disaster recovery software. The players in this competition were Acronis, Windows 7 imager, StorageCraft, Windows Home Server, Symantec and of course Paragon Software.

The scope of the comparison was all the source machines were to have a basic OS installation (no data). These machines would be backed up and timed. Once imaged the backup archives would be restored to dissimilar hardware.

All of the software preformed backups without errors except for Windows 7 imager. A time comparison was made and gig for gig Paragon’s speed was at 1 GB per minute to USB 2.0 which put it in the middle of the pack.

All the destination machines were booted to their respectable boot media. All were WinPE or Linux based. Paragon was the only software that had the option to boot to flash memory. Paragon was one of the only applications that was able to do this recovery to dissimilar hardware without extra steps. Paragon restored from a Gateway laptop running Vista to a Dell Latitude 6500.

For the next round of restores, the destination machines were switched. Paragon was tasked to restore on the same box where Storage Craft failed. Paragon Drive Backup restored the partition and did the P2P adjust. The restored image started without any issue on the optiplex 270.

SMB Technology Network, thank you for having us at your event and showcase our Drive Backup software. We appreciate getting the “Best in Show” award and look forward to the next meeting.

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The SMB Technology Network has its roots in partner groups focused on IT solutions & services for the SMB (Small Medium Business) space. Our focus includes Windows platforms including SBS (Small Business Server).  One of the first SBS focused groups in the nation was created in 2002 by Roger Otterson in San Diego, California.  Shortly after attending the San Diego meetings in 2005, Jim Locke formed the Los Angeles SMB User Group.  Additional groups have formed in, Orange and Ventura County, the Inland Empire, Bakersfield, Fresno and across the country including the Carolina’s.  All consolidated as SMBTN.  Each group holds monthly meetings to discuss the latest small business trends.  In addition, the group has partnered with Microsoft at Connections and TS2 events, further penetrating the SMB space.  All groups have decided to merge under one umbrella to best serve the interests of the members.  The network is in an exciting position, poised to further expand and generate new opportunities for both our members and partners.

Adaptive Restore Week

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About two weeks ago I had a computer crash. Not just a bad virus or other corruption but my PC gave me the dreaded blue screen of death and nothing I seemed to do was going to bring my PC back from the dead. I had a recent backup image of my computer. I was using Drive Backup scheduled for an image on a weekly basis but that alone wasn’t going to help since I was going to need a completely new computer to replace the one that was fried. Granted it was time to buy a new computer, the one that died was on it’s last leg and was over 3 years old.

I ordered a new PC online and when it was delivered I wanted all of my old data to be on the new machine. I was sure that our product had functionality to do this but wasn’t exactly sure how it worked or how difficult it would be since I was now using a completely new set of hardware. I asked my favorite Tech Support rep how hard it would be to restore my computer on the new hardware and he just about  laughed at me. He explained that with Paragons Adaptive Restore, I could restore my backup image onto ANY computer and it would be just as easy as running a regular restore with one minor adjustment. Adaptive Restore would do the rest automatically. Continue reading Adaptive Restore Week

Disaster Recovery in Minutes Using Virtualization

We have been seeing a trend lately with our customers regarding disaster recovery for businesses. Disk imaging is a quicker way to restore than regular file backups. The next trend of backups for businesses are being used along with virtualization technology. With servers being consolidated and migrated into virtual machines, disaster recovery is a very realistic solution and Paragon Software Drive Backup makes this a quick process.

Virtualization is no longer about consolidation. It’s about 24 by 7 by 365 application availability. It’s about simplification. It’s about massively reducing manually intensive tasks. http://storagedecisions.techtarget.com/seminars/storage_virtualization.html

Migrate Windows XP to a Win7 Virtual Machine

Upgrading your computers from Windows XP or Windows Vista to the latest Windows 7 operating system was not something Microsoft made very easy to accomplish.

Network World wrote an article about the Seven tips to migrate and manage Windows 7 and make the point that there will be software application issues and migrating to a virtual machine may be a better option.

5. Consider client virtualization.

The release of Windows 7 has companies considering another new technology: virtual desktops. The promise of ease of management and increased security that virtual desktop technology offers could drive customers to consider the technology when they have budget dollars for a PC refresh.

For its part, Microsoft offers two products that take advantage of virtualization and could be considered a means to managing a migration to or ongoing deployment of Windows 7. Microsoft Application Virtualization, the company says, helps reduce downtime for customers by turning Windows applications into “centrally managing virtual services that are delivered to any licensed Windows desktop or laptop.” And Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization allows desktop administrators to create, deliver and centrally manage a virtual Windows XP or 2000 environment (based on Microsoft Virtual PC 2007) and run legacy applications on Windows Vista desktops, the vendor says.

But Microsoft isn’t the only vendor touting virtualization as an option. VMware and Citrix also boast virtual desktop infrastructure and could provide viable alternatives to a full-blown Windows 7 migration, industry watchers say.

“IT managers would be able to go with a virtualization solution as well. If you are doing desktop virtualization, you can deploy your virtual container for the new desktop environment down to each one of the client endpoints. It would be as simple as setting one up and deploying it out to many,” Brasen says. “Microsoft, VMware and Citrix would all have options for customers here.”

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Two of the more useful features are the ability to convert a Paragon image to the .vhd format (which you can mount or run under Windows 7 natively), and the boot manager (which allows you to boot to both your old operating system and Windows 7). Microsoft does provide a free downloadable utility–Disk2vhd–that can copy a partition to .vhd. If you install Window 7 to partition other than the one your current OS resides on, Disk2vhd creates a dual-boot menu for you automatically. Paragon’s versions, however, are a bit slicker.

Paragon Software also has a Virtual Migration software that can simplify the process of moving a server or desktop into a virtual drive on your Windows 7 PC.

From the feedback from our partners, this is the best option when having to migrate applications and data. The alternative of starting from scratch and reinstalling all of your applications.

Disk Imaging for Physical and Virtual Machines

Paragon’s Drive Backup 10 Server software leverages disk imaging tools to simplify storage management issues, from consolidation to disaster recovery protection, in both physical and virtual environments.

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By Jack Fegreus, openBench Labs

Entrenched at the top of the list of storage challenges is data protection, which includes the perennial problem of data backup. IT groups at large enterprises continue to struggle with meeting Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that continue to tighten both the Recovery Point Objective (RPO)—the maximum amount of data measured in time prior to the disruption that could be lost in the recovery process—and the Recovery Time Objective (RTO)—the maximum period of time that it could take to recover. Meanwhile, IT administrators at SMBs, who often have less storage expertise and tighter budgets than their peers at larger enterprises, struggle with more prosaic issues, such as choosing technologies to simplify backup processing within shrinking backup windows.

To help IT deal with data protection issues at all types of sites, Paragon Software Group’s Drive Backup 10 Server creates exact image copies of live disk drives on physical and virtual systems running a Windows-based OS. With a technology foundation featuring synthetic backups, along with full support for both VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V, Drive Backup 10 extends standard data protection constructs with wizards that employ the same menus for backup and system migration processes to support physical-to-virtual (P2V) consolidation.

What’s more, IT can use the Paragon Script Language (PSL) to customize the synthetic and differential backup wizards in Drive Backup 10 Server. Using PSL, IT administrators can create scripts to automate end-to-end data protection processes, which can implement Paragon Hot Backup and Microsoft VSS snapshot technologies to maintain transactional integrity. In particular, the Paragon synthetic backup scheme by default supports differential backup, which on multiple VM backup jobs can reduce storage capacity requirements on the order of 30-to-1 without the extra processing incurred with inline data deduplication. As a result, administrators can leverage PSL to invoke fast differential backups to support near-CDP levels of replication for VMs, and then match that aggressive RPO with an equally aggressive RTO using synthetic backup images that can be restored in minutes. Continue reading Disk Imaging for Physical and Virtual Machines

Paragon Software Enables Migration of Windows Systems to a Virtual Environment

In keeping with its commitment to enabling seamless transitions between operating systems, Paragon Software Group (PSG), :  the technology leader in innovative data security and data management solutions, today announced the debut of its Virtualization Manager 2009 Corporate Edition.

“Virtualization Manager 2009 Corporate is truly state of the art technology that saves our customers time and money while providing complete flexibility to migrate within both virtual and physical system environments.”
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As IT executives look to conserve budget resources, server virtualization is proving to be an attractive option, offering benefits including, optimum resource utilization, reduction in hardware expenses, lower energy consumption, and the ability to reallocate IT personnel. Fewer servers also require less maintenance, thus, further reducing IT infrastructure costs.

Paragon’s new Virtulization Manager 2009 Corporate Edition was developed to help ease the migration process and enable businesses to maximize their current IT investments. A powerful tool that easily migrates a Windows-based system to a virtual environment, Paragon’s Virtualization Manager :  2009 Corporate Edition helps businesses maximize the utility of servers increasing their efficiencies while decreasing energy costs by up to 80 percent.

Virtualization Manager also easily migrates a Windows-based system to a different environment, whether it be a physical to physical (P2P) or physical to virtual (P2V) migration. Additional Virtualization Manager :  functionalities include: recovering an OS after an unsuccessful system virtualization by a third-party tool; creating a virtual clone of the physical system and saving it on a network for backup purposes; providing a failsafe that ensures business continuity; and enabling the installation of several different operating systems on one computer.

“Paragon Software is committed to offering the most powerful and easy to use system migration and data conversion tools on the market,” noted Tom Fedro, president of Paragon Software Group. “Virtualization Manager 2009 Corporate is truly state of the art technology that saves our customers time and money while providing complete flexibility to migrate within both virtual and physical system environments.”

Key features and benefits include:

—  Full Windows OS Support – Guaranteed support for any Windows OS post-Win2K
—  P2V Copy – Migrate a physical system to a virtual disk
—  P2V Restore – Migrate a physical system backed up with Paragon software to a virtual disk
—  P2V Adjust – Recover OS startup ability after unsuccessful virtualization by a 3rd party tool
—  P2P Adjust – Recover OS startup ability after system migration to a different hardware platform
—  Hot Copy Technology – Online processing of locked hard disks for easy
—  Smart Driver Injector – Makes adding new drivers smooth and simple
—  Virtual Disk Map – Preview changes before applied
—  Flexible Destination Choices – Choose any destination to place virtual disks
—  Partition Auto-Resize – Easily set desired partition size when creating virtual disks
—  2 Types of VMWare Disks – Create either IDE or SCSI disks for VMWare
—  Disk File Split for VMWare – Automatically cut virtual images to files of 2 GBs each for improved data management

Virtualization Manager is now available from Paragon Software; please visit www.paragon-software.com/business/vm/ to learn more.

Review by: VMblog.com

Drive Backup Listed in Top 10 Products of 2009

It’s always nice to have friends and fans bringing clips like this to our attention. Paragon Drive Backup 10 was listed by Channel Tech Center as one of the Top 10 Products of 2009. Thank you Channel Tech Center writers!

While many vendors have gotten the backup process down pat, there is still a lack of flexibility when it comes to restoring that data after a disaster. Paragon Drive Backup 10 Server allows administrators to convert backup images directly into Virtual Hard Drives (VHDs), making recovery from a disaster as simple as bringing up a virtual server on any hardware.

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http://channeltechcenter.com/s/878.a-look-back-the-most-important-products-in-2009/3/

Paragon Software Introduces New Backup Solution for SMBs

11/20/09

http://www.channelprosmb.com/article/15247/Paragon-Software-Introduces-New-Backup-Solution-for-SMBs/

Paragon Software Group (PSG), a data security and data management solutions company based in Irvine, Calif., has released its Drive Backup 10 Server Edition, which the company says is a comprehensive, cost-effective backup solution that offers disaster recovery and system migration in both physical and virtual environments. The solution is specifically targeted to SMBs.

Drive Backup 10 Server Edition is designed to optimize workload, reduce recovery times and associated costs with migrating or deploying systems, and give IT managers flexibility in managing the continuity of their systems–whether in a physical or virtual environment.

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The solution includes Adaptive Restore, which gives the ability to restore to different hardware; competitive offerings, says Paragon, require purchasing this functionality as an add-on module.

“With the growing complexity and associated challenges of managing and protecting data assets, piecemeal approaches to backup miss the mark,” says Deni Connor of Storage Strategies Now. “Paragon’s comprehensive approach to backup tracks well with the needs we see today.”

As the corporate environment continues to embrace virtualization and reap its economic benefits, Paragon Software developed the newest edition of its flagship Drive Backup product to enable and simplify migration to a virtual environment. Drive Backup 10 Server Edition creates an exact duplicate image of the live disk drives on servers or workstations, including the operating system, all files, programs, updates, and databases. Additional new features and benefits include:

  • Backup to FTP – Expanded backup capability to include online archiving
  • Schedule file backup – Include/exclude file types
  • Adaptive Restore – Third generation
  • Improved remote management capabilities
  • Support for Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7

Drive Backup 10 Server Edition also offers a system boot corrector, ability to create and manage custom scripts, virtual operations to preview tasks before making them live, and a file transfer wizard.

Priced at $499, Drive Backup 10 Server Edition is now available from Paragon Software; visit www.paragon-software.com/business/db-server/ to learn more. Or, to access the company’s forum for Drive Backup users, go to www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=107.