InformationWeek

Double Up Your Data

By Andy Patrizio

SI Software has found a year 2000 solution i n a rather unlikely place-LAN backup software. With the help of an innovative customer, the company has tuned its Double-Take software to assist developers in rolling out corrected code for testing while maintaining data integrity.

Double-Take provides real-time network operating system backup for Windows NT and NetWare. A Solaris version is due later this year. Double-Take creates a complete replica of a production server on a separate machine and keeps the data and applications current in real time. It also supports backing up multiple servers and failover scripts to handle system failures. It's this functionality that NSI found to be helpful for year 2000 testing.

Adequate testing of corrected code can be difficult because it has to be tested on live data that the production systems use-but putting it on the production machine is out of the question. Double-Take lets the programmer run tests using the same data that goes into the production database. When the testing is done, the corrected appl ication can be rolled into the production system. Bringing the updated application and data into production "is the single biggest exposure to things going bad," says Donald Beeler, CEO of NSI, in Hoboken, N.J.

Says a year 2000 project manager for a large New York securities firm, "For year 2000 testing, I believe [corrected applications] have to be 100% identical to the production system to reduce testing time. That will guarantee that my test environment will be identical to my production system." This can be done manually, he says, but it involves a lot more work to transfer data or move tape backups from one system to another.

Double-Take 1.41 is available for $1,875.

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