DATAFORT Launches Hi-5 Business Continuity Service for Microsoft Exchange Server - Unique Exchange Server Backup

GUILDFORD, England, September 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

- High Availability Exchange Service, DATAFORT Hi-5 for MS Exchange, Guarantees Full Disaster Recovery for Exchange and as an Added Bonus, Includes Searchable Email Archives

Managed Service Provider (MSP), DATAFORT http://www.datafort.com today launches Hi-5 High Availability Service for Microsoft Exchange Server (Hi-5 for MS Exchange) that provides disaster recovery for Exchange. This is a fixed cost high availability Exchange solution designed specifically to address the concerns associated with using MS Exchange. The Exchange server backup service provides email, mailbox or full server recovery from an onsite appliance and disaster recovery from DATAFORT's Cloud so that a company is completely protected against the loss of income and reputation that can originate from failure of an email server.

Hi-5 for MS Exchange is offered at a fixed-price, regardless of data quantity and can recover even a half terabyte Exchange Server typically within 15 minutes of a reported failure. This allows companies to safeguard what is their most highly prized asset; the ability to communicate on email and the information stored in their mailboxes - all of their email communications.

In designing Hi-5 for MS Exchange, DATAFORT surveyed their customers and developed a service that provides protection from all the risks identified as critical to a business that relies heavily on their email and email traffic. Hi-5 for Exchange allows for the recovery of a failed physical Server, virtual Exchange Server, mailstore, mailbox or individual email and it does this within minutes of a request by a customer.

To protect against server failure, Hi-5 for Exchange provides recovery into a secure virtual environment created within a DATAFORT appliance located in the customer's office and invoked remotely from DATAFORT's Network Operations Centre in Guildford Surrey. This allows for repair or replacement of the production server and then Hi-5 for Exchange provides a smooth recovery path back to the production environment. To provide disaster recovery for Exchange protection, the service also includes Exchange Server access from the Cloud, so that employees can work from alternate offices or home until admittance to the building is restored. And during all of these situations, DATAFORT's high availability Exchange service captures and buffers incoming emails so that the reputational risk caused by bounced emails is avoided as well - a complete Exchange server backup solution.

DATAFORT Chief Executive Marcie Terman comments, "Cloud Recovery Services for Exchange are springing up every day, just like offsite data backup companies did a few years ago. While these automated services are a vast improvement over tape recovery of Exchange, they only protect the Exchange User from certain types of failures, offer limited functionality when operating in emergency mode and are restricted in how the user can return to the production environment."

Terman continues, "In contrast, DATAFORT's alternative Exchange server backup service includes multiple points of storage to absolutely minimise risk, and the ability to provide high availability Exchange by recovering the whole Exchange Server - with all of its functionality - in minutes, while the root cause of the failure is determined and remedied. An IT team has more than enough to deal with during a disaster without having to rebuild Exchange Server manually, and yet these online services provide no way to recover the Exchange Server working environment and only Internet recovery of the mailstore. Think about how long it will take to recover 100GB of emails over your Internet connection! Painful."

Terman continues, "Instead, we take the view that the most important thing is to maintain high availability Exchange, completely regardless of what has happened, and then step two, when you know what went wrong, provide a rapid way to bring the production Exchange Server back online through the Exchange server backup."

A fully managed high availability Exchange service such as DATAFORT's disaster recovery for Exchange circumvents all the downsides presented by outright ownership of an Exchange server backup system that starts to outdate as soon as you purchase it. There's no capital expenditure to cloud your balance sheet, DATAFORT bears the cost of hardware repairs or upgrades and the inclusive service fee has the added benefit of being fully offsetable against a company's profit which helps to minimize tax obligation.

DATAFORT is an innovative developer of business continuity, including disaster recovery for Exchange, delivered as a managed service. Hi-5 is its flagship service and includes full server imaging i.e. recovery to a virtual server that boasts the fastest system recovery possible, short of implementing full system replication - an option previously available only to Enterprise class businesses.

If the Exchange Server fails, DATAFORT's disaster recovery for Exchange solution invokes the virtual email server within the Exchange server backup appliance, which handles email traffic just like the failed machine so that productivity is not compromised. And while the invocation of the image is taking place, emails are buffered in DATAFORT's Cloud vault for eventual transfer into the virtual machine located in the client's office. A technician can then resolve the problem with the production server and bring it back online. This is unheard of in an SME solution; nobody offers this level of service to this part of the market.

In addition, as the high availability Exchange service is built upon imaging the server with 15 minute block level updates and not standard file-based backup technology, nothing can be deleted. This means that the Exchange Server can be recovered in full to any point back to the day of installation. DATAFORT's disaster recovery for Exchange solution can filter emails by user, sender, subject, date range and/or phrase at administrator level, with a similar level of control available to individual users searching their own archives.

Terman concludes, "High availability Exchange and Exchange server backup solutions with the same power as Hi-5 for MS Exchange were previously just too expensive for the Small to Medium Sized Enterprise. But such an insurance policy is an essential and powerful tool that protects businesses of any size so that with even no technical knowhow, email continuity can be assured. Continuity of email services - coupled with disaster recovery protection and a rolling archive for the end of the last five business days, last five end of weeks and end of month archival - will satisfy even the most diligent board requirement or compliance officer."  

About DATAFORT http://www.datafort.com

DATAFORT provides dependable and secure data protection services that offer enterprise-level functionality with a focus on security and reliability. Its software and services are used by thousands of organisations worldwide, ranging from SMBs through to large enterprises and local government departments. Every hour of every day someone, somewhere backs up with DATAFORT. The company was founded in 2000, is headquartered in Guildford, UK and has offices in London and New York.