Kisco Updates Amazon-Based Backup Utility

June 22, 2010 Alex Woodie

Kisco Information Systems last week unveiled a new release of i-2-S3, its i/OS backup utility that uses Web-based storage from Amazon. With version 1.04, Kisco added several new reports that tell customers what they have backed up with the product. It also lowered the price.

Kisco unveiled i-2-S3 last October as a way for System i shops to protect their data by storing backups in a secure offsite location. The software includes a set of i/OS backup and restore commands that enable customers to save and recover their data using Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) instead of a local tape drive. Both DB2/400 and data stored in the IFS are covered by the product. In December, Kisco added support for encrypting the backups.

With i-2-S3, Kisco augmented the product’s reporting capability. For starters, customers can now get hardcopy versions of their backup reports. Kisco also added a report that lists all of the backup sets currently saved at Amazon S3, while another lists the details of all objects included in a requested backup set. Kisco also added the capability to view the total elapsed time it took to perform backup operations.

Kisco also dropped the price of i-2-S3 by nearly 50 percent to $695 for a single i/OS logical partition (LPAR), or $1,195 for an unlimited number of LPARs. Customers must also obtain an S3 account with Amazon and pay a fee based on the number of gigabytes under storage and the amount of data flowing in and out of S3. For more information, see www.kisco.com.