IBM today launched the Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) FastBack software suite, the first set of new products resulting from the company’s acquisition of FilesX in April. The software provides continuous data protection (CDP) and so-called “near-instant” recovery of applications and file servers.

TSM FastBack provides backup/recovery and CDP for Windows file servers and applications, including Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, Lotus Domino, Oracle, DB2, and others. FastBack continuously captures data changes at the block level and uses pre-determined policies to improve recovery service levels on a per-application basis. TSM FastBack’s restore capability runs in the background, enabling applications to be up and running within minutes once a recovery operation has been initiated.

There are two other pieces to the suite — FastBack for Microsoft Exchange and FastBack for Bare Machine Recovery. FastBack for Microsoft Exchange restores individual Exchange objects such as e-mail messages and attachments, contact lists, calendars, tasks, and journal entries. FastBack for Bare Machine Recovery can recover entire systems to a comparable server, to a new server with different hardware, or to a virtual machine.

The software can also be purchased as a bundle called TSM FastBack Center, which combines all three FastBack products in a single package.

According to John Connor, IBM’s product manager for TSM and TSM FastBack, the new block-level CDP capabilities in FastBack complement IBM’s existing file-based CDP software — IBM Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files — which is targeted at SMBs as well as laptop and desktop users.

FastBack, FastBack for Microsoft Exchange, and FastBack for Bare Machine Recovery are priced per processor core on the server being protected, which IBM terms Processor Value Units or PVUs. FastBack costs $55 per 10 PVUs, FastBack for Microsoft Exchange costs $35 per 10 PVUs, and FastBack for Bare Machine Recovery licenses are priced at $30 per 10 PVUs.

The TSM FastBack Center bundle is priced at $2,880 per server with eight processor cores or less.

All of the new TSM FastBack software products are scheduled to ship on August 15.

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