IBM Shows Off Continuous Data Backup

IBM on Friday announced that it had developed new technology that will protect information stored on laptops and servers from viruses, file corruption or deletion. The software would make it unnecessary to schedule backups, as the process occurs continuously in the background.

As a user creates a file, a copy is created almost instantaneously and is stored on both the user's machine as well as a remote server. IBM says that a user could recover a file that is only seconds old through the system, meaning loss of data would be at a minimum.

According to company research, data loss and time wasted attempting to recover data are the top problems for workers who primarily operate in mobile environments.

"With this new technology, IBM is providing customers and their mobile workers with an instant backup and recovery solution to protect information on demand," said Al Zollar, General Manager, IBM Tivoli Software. "We are extending our technology in storage management software to help people access all the information they need, when and where they need it."

The backup system employs more than 10 patents on the process of capturing data and scheduling it for remote backup. The program joins Tivoli Storage manager, the company's first backup and recovery software that has been on the market for over a decade.

IBM Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files will be available in mid-September at a cost of $35 USD per computer system, and $995 USD per server processor.