St. Bernard announces Open File Manager 9.4

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, Oct 25, 2004

St. Bernard Software Inc., a provider of essential security solutions that protect against data loss, system threats, Internet abuse and unsolicited email, today announced the availability of Open File Manager 9.4 which includes significant product enhancements including support for legacy and non-compliant applications for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) framework and script-based mass-uninstall capability.

Open File Manager 9.4 is enterprise-class software that enables your backup application to back up files that are open and in use, ensuring business continuity and the protection of mission-critical data. With new patent-pending features, Open File Manager enhances VSS by supporting all legacy or non-VSS compliant applications.

Microsoft has developed a powerful backup and recovery infrastructure for the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system, that includes a mechanism for creating point-in-time copies of data known as Volume Shadow Copies. VSS coordinates the point-in-time copy by sending a signal to all applications to "prepare and quiesce" their data stores so a snapshot can be taken. However, as Microsoft states in its document called How Volume Shadow Copy Service Works, "If the computer has no applications that are enabled for the Volume Shadow Copy Service, the data in a shadow copy is considered to be in a 'crash consistent' state. All files that were open will still exist, but are not guaranteed to be free of incomplete I/O operations or data corruption."

With the integration of St. Bernard Software's Open File Manger 9.4, a point-in-time where all data is in a consistent state can be found even if the data from the application is not VSS aware. This eliminates "crash consistency" among legacy and non-VSS compliant applications. Customers who intend to use VSS for providing software-based backups and are unsure of whether their business applications on the server are VSS-compliant should use Open File Manager 9.4 to eliminate the concern of a "crash consistent" data backup.

Open File Manager 9.4 also includes a script-based Mass-Uninstall utility for large enterprises that wish to remotely uninstall all previous versions of Open File Manager prior to upgrading to the newer version. Customers can use the application to connect to all remote machines; identify the operating system; determine if Open File Manager is installed, and if so, initiate the uninstall process. This companion utility to the existing Mass Deploy utility makes large rollouts and upgrades simple.