Yosemite Technologies Inc. has acquired privately held
FileKeeper Inc. for an undisclosed sum. FileKeeper makes
near-continuous data protection(CDP) software for laptop and remote-office
backup.The product fills a hole in the Yosemite product line, which
previously spanned the server to the tape library. FileKeeper's
software saves file-level changes and automatically backs them up
to a central server, provided the end user is plugged in to the
corporate network or
virtual private network (VPN). If a mobile
user doesn't log on, the changes are saved in cache until he or
she does.
Yosemite said it is planning to integrate the software into its
Yosemite Backup software and also offer it as a standalone product.
Yosemite Backup is rebranded by Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) as Data
Protector Express, bundled with Dell Inc.'s recently released
RD1000 disk-based backup appliance. It is also bundled by Quantum
Corp. as part of a GoVault product package for small and midsized
businesses (SMB).
Since taking over as CEO, former EMC Corp. chief technology officer
George Symons has vowed to return Yosemite to its original SMB
focus, but according to Lauren Whitehouse, analyst with the
Enterprise Strategy Group, "These companies need desktop and laptop
protection just like the big guys do."
Whitehouse and other analysts said that Yosemite is generally
smart to try to jump on what they say is a growing trend: concern
over data on workstations, especially laptops. "My whole world is
in my laptop -- I suspect that is true no matter how big a company
you talk about," said Steve Duplessie, founder and analyst with the
Enterprise Strategy Group. "In the smaller companies that Yosemite
targets, you really do need an end-to-end protection scheme because
the little CEO, like me, only uses a briefcase to house their
laptop -- all the relevant and important stuff is within that
laptop."
Laptop losses have been higher profile lately, too. "Desktop and
laptop data protection is a growing concern given the publicity
being given to laptop thefts and losses, as well as a trend [of]
laptops being stolen for the value of the information on them
rather than the value of their hardware," said Greg Schulz, founder
and analyst with the StorageIO Group.
CDP becoming a checklist feature
Yosemite follows Symantec Corp., which snapped up the
intellectual property of Revivio Inc. in November, and CA Inc.,
which acquired XOSoft Inc. in July, in folding CDP into a larger
backup portfolio, a move analysts said signals that CDP is
completing its morph from a standalone product to a checklist
feature in the backup market.
"CDP is just a feature now," Whitehouse said. "And the trend is
for CDP to mean getting more granular backup," as in FileKeeper's
case, "rather than capturing every single block in an add-on
product."
Needing to be connected to the network could theoretically be an
issue for some users considering the product, Whitehouse said, if
too much backup data accumulates on a user's laptop between dumps
to the main server.
Yosemite users are being cautious when it comes to the prospect
of adding a new feature and process to their environment. Rick
Graham, IT director for A.O. Smith Water Products Co., said he
probably wouldn't use the product for most of the 1,700 or so
workstation users at his company, due to concerns about bandwidth.
Employees at AO Smith are already used to saving critical files to
a centralized server, as well as removable drives from Iomega
Corp., Graham said.
Still, Graham said he would probably at least evaluate the
product for backing up laptops belonging to executives, executive
assistants and managers, which he termed the more
"mission-critical" users in the environment. "They have a lot of
stuff they don't want on the backup server," Graham said.
Other companies selling laptop backup products and services
include Atempo Inc., Asigra Inc., AT&T, Avamar Inc. (acquired
by EMC Corp. in October), IBM, Iron Mountain Corp., Packeteer Inc.
and Peer Software Inc.