StoneFly, a Hayward, Calif.-based NAS specialist and provider of data storage systems, today unveiled its “DR site in a box” offering, the DR365.

The hardware, available in three flavors and an assortment of expansion modules, consolidates practically all the technology required to backup servers and enable businesses to recover quickly from IT-related problems that take their applications offline. The company, a subsidiary of Dynamic Network Factory, claims that its virtualized approach to bundling servers, storage and backup systems not only streamlines the management of backup and disaster recovery operations, but also saves on rack space.

According to StoneFly, the DR365 “allows for complete hardware utilization and considerable reduction in power and cooling costs.” The company claims its approach helps businesses ditch the “fixed hardware model” and replace it with dynamic, on-demand resource allocation that aligns with an organization’s application workloads.

In the end, it adds up to big savings, said StoneFly CEO Mo Tahmasebi. In a statement, he asserted that his company was “able to combine the latest in virtualization, software-defined infrastructure, backup, disaster recovery and cloud technology, all in to one easy to use appliance that is sold at just a fraction of the cost to the user.”

DR365 is available in 2U, 3U and 4U variations, ranging from the 12-drive (3.5-inch SATA, SAS or SSD) DR365-1201 to the DR365-2401, which can accommodate up to 24 hard drives and can scale up to 96 drives with the use of up to three expansion units.

The system is powered by two, six-core processors and connects to the network using two, standard GbE ports. Options include up to 26 GbE or 26 10 GbE connections. 32 GB of RAM provide room for four or more additional guest operating systems and can be expanded to up to 512 GB.

Backup and recovery services are provided by StoneFly SCVM, the company’s virtual IP SAN storage appliance tech, and 365Vault, a virtual backup appliance. “Microsoft Windows and Linux Virtual Machines running on the DR365 appliance can be restored and used in case of a disaster while the main servers or Virtual Machines are restored,” boasted the company in a statement.

DR365 offers support for deduplication and thin provisioning, which are available as upgrades, which also include hardware-based, block-level AES 256 volume encryption to keep data secure. A remote replication option enables organizations to essentially maintain a copy of the entire appliance at another DR site. VSS support, asynchronous replication and NAS (CIFS/NFS) compatibility round out the add-ons.

Stonefly’s approach is similar to that of InMage Systems, which unveiled its 4000 Series unified backup and disaster recovery appliance in October.

Starting at $8,000, the hardware includes the computing, networking and storage components in a self-contained unit that supports continual backup operations with minimal impact on servers and primary storage. WAN optimization features also help keep bandwidth costs in line.