Zmanda Cloud Backup takes flight

Zmanda announced Zmanda Cloud Backup (ZCB), a simple GUI-based backup solution that allows Windows users to easily automate their backup and recovery process.

This robust yet simple-to-use solution provides ongoing protection against disaster, user error and theft. Once ZCB is installed on the Windows machine and the backup process is set using its simple scheduler, ZCB automatically backs up files, applications, databases, networked devices and Windows system state, including Active Directory, to Amazon S3.

The management console allows system administrators to schedule the extraction of backup data from live applications and the upload of backup archives to the storage cloud independently, thus reducing the burden of backup operations on production applications and WAN bandwidth. ZCB can also be used to protect either a physical or a virtual Windows machine. The backups are stored in a native Windows format, giving users the option to access and reuse their files even without ZCB.

Amazon S3 gives users access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to end users. ZCB allows Windows system administrators to encrypt or compress data before transferring to Amazon S3. This assures highest level of security of sensitive data, as well as optimal use of bandwidth and storage.

The price for ZCB with a basic service level agreement (SLA) consists of a one-time $50 charge for each Windows server protected and a flexible pay-as-you-go cost of $0.20/GB/month for storage used and data transferred into the storage cloud. Higher level SLAs are also available for an additional charge.