Data Recovery and System Repair Software Could Save Your Hide

Published: May 17, 2006

by Dan Burger

Many enterprise backup and recovery strategies fall somewhere between the boundaries of weak and nonexistent. No one, short of the clueless new hire in the cubicle that doubles as a computer graveyard, needs to be reminded that this is not acceptable. So to help out those at high risk when systems go down (and to make a few bucks selling software), Winternals has introduced Recovery Manager 3.0, the latest version of a product that both recovers data and repairs systems. For those of you with recovery-time objectives, make a note that this software includes bare metal recovery capability, open files protection, and Windows x64 system support.

Bare metal recovery is the time-intensive rebuilding of a computer after a catastrophic failure. It involves reinstalling the operating system from the product disks, reinstalling the backup software, and restoring the data. Beyond that, there's the necessity to restore functionality by verifying configuration files, permissions, and access controls.

Recovery Manager 3.0 can rebuild damaged or corrupted hard drives without reinstalling the operating system, which saves time and minimizes data loss. It can also take recovery points of open files, such as database files, without disabling them first. That's another time-saver because administrators can use recovery points to compare document file and registry changes so that root causes can be determined.

Because rollbacks can be performed at the file system level, it allows the targeting of any administrator-selected combination of operating system files, program files, user registry settings, user data, or any other unique file sets deemed valuable to a specific IT infrastructure. By rolling back only adversely affected files, the most recently stored user data and system settings are preserved, a benefit to the integrity of critical data.

The idea of providing protection at multiple levels--which include the operating system, the application, the user data, and the user settings--serves well. According to a Winternals press release, the product "reduces recovery time to minutes and prevents data loss when Windows systems fail due to factors such as faulty Windows patches, software corruption, user error, power disruptions, and malware attacks." One of its most useful features is the central management capability that allows all sites throughout the enterprise, including remote systems, to be restored simultaneously.

For organizations that may migrate to 64-bit systems, there will be no additional installation or deployment steps required.

Among the benefits Winternals lists for Recovery Manager 3.0 are improved user and IT staff productivity, reduced operations costs, assistance toward achieving regulatory compliance, and the capability to better meet service level agreements based on recovery time and recovery point objectives.

Licensing prices are established on a per-server and per-workstation basis.