An Arsenal For Remote Backup

With vital information on the edge, out in remote offices, or in laptops and PDAs, the demand for remote backup is insatiable. While many products are coming to the forefront, a number of those are point products that require customers to assemble a complete backup and recovery system.

Arsenal Digital Solutions Worldwide Inc. is unveiling a product for remote backup Wednesday that covers the key activities of archiving and data movement. While competitors already include vendors such as EMC, NSI, and Veritas, Arsenal could stand out with such integration.

Arsenal ViaRemote doesn't suck up much bandwidth as it provides disk-based backup and recovery for servers, storage, and personal systems. Customers could operate the new software over private networks or the Internet. Arsenal, which started as a storage service provider, designed ViaRemote as a turnkey system, requiring little work from third-party service providers or customers with the wherewithal for remote backup and recovery integration.

But Arsenal is late to the market, an analyst says, because the competition has done a good job signing up important partners in what will be a very competitive market. "Arsenal might have some differentiation thanks to data-center expertise combined with the remote services," Gartner's Adam Couture says, "and the SSP background gives them an opportunity with AT&T and other telecom players."