Because the SonicWALL CDP Appliance can replicate its backup to a cloud based storage service it can also be classified as a Hybrid Cloud Backup model, that as we state in our recent article Hybrid Cloud Backup for the SMB, can be an ideal solution for the Small to Medium Sized Enterprise (SME). This ability to replicate backup jobs out of the local facility is critical for SMEs. Those businesses have the same need to recover from a disaster as the very large enterprises and replication to the cloud is an ideal way to get there.

The SonicWALL CDP solution provides a continuous backup of user files and applications and includes support for both Exchange and MS SQL. Exchange recoveries can be either at the mailbox level or at the entire database. Currently platforms being protected include Linux and Windows and Windows Active Directory is fully supported.

Restores are done through the SonicWALL CDP's interface and is easy enough for most users to be able to self service their recovery needs.

The appliance also offers bare metal restore capabilities. While this is a separate process and users would need to schedule bare metal jobs in to their back process, it does provide rapid recovery of a failed server. More importantly the bare metal recovery capabilities can restore to dissimilar hardware which is a more likely scenario especially in a disaster where new hardware has to be ordered in.

The appliance has the ability to create a local portable version of the cloud backup for those customers who cannot or prefer not to use the cloud or an alternate site using Site-to-Site. This involves attaching a USB hard drive to the unit and archiving the data from the appliance. This drive can then be taken offsite as protection in the event that a disaster occurs and data needs to be restored.

SonicWALL sees this as an ideal system for Storage Integrators to offer. They can deploy the appliance, remotely manage it and then have all the appliances replicate to their facilities.

We like the hybrid concept of local premise equipment for fast backups and recoveries while leveraging the cloud for disaster recovery. Ideally we would like to see broader platform support, message level exchange recovery and single step bare metal backups, but these are shortcomings that can be easily worked around and for many SME customers would not be an issue.